The purpose of this document is to display a portion of the work I have completed over the last two years. The Athlete is the recently written opening to a novel of the same name. I've decided not to excerpt a longer section of the novel because the novel isn't...
Kiddie Pool is a collection of eight short stories dealing in general terms with themes of culpability and control. The characters in the stories have their share of problems—car accidents, domestic violence, manic depression, obesity, unexpected deaths, truth or dare, religious crises—but they are resilient souls who keep on keeping...
This collection of stories explores moments of stillness in human relationships: moments during an argument when there is nothing to say, moments of quiet contemplation which precedes inevitable--and often unwelcome--life changes, moments of frustration, confusion, despair, and grace. In the chaotic lives of these characters, stillness is neither tranquil nor...
These six stories investigate characters who must
begin to understand their own actions, which are often
made in response to authority. In the lives of these
characters, there are schemas which they believe they
fit, certain rules placed on them by society that they
each feel they must obey. It...
The overarching theme of these stories is the relationship between love and hate, especially the connection between kindness and violence. In this fictional world, love often begets hate, and hate, love: a man's capacity for empathy serves as the catalyst for an act of brutality; a character's loneliness, his desire...
The narrator of Fortunate Son is Jake, a 21 year-old who has recently arrived in Tucson, Arizona, after the death of his mother. He's spent his entire life on the road with his mother, possibly followed and antagonized by his father, whom Jake has never seen. He has come to...
These essays are an attempt to rebuild memories that explore the nature of work and family. They explore how work knocks against the joints of the body and against the joints between family members, and, as time passes, how the next generation inherits the family line of work only to...
A creative work of literary fiction, Chrysalis is
the story of Rachelle Long: a young woman who struggles
to find her identity in a world marked by changing (and
often, conflicting) ideas regarding sexuality, economics,
gender roles and relations, and individual rights. Just
one year into the workforce following her...
Living by the Wayside and Other Stories explores the tension between control and dependence and how that tension affects the ability to sustain intimate relationships. These are stories about women who struggle for independence, but experience the cost of self-rule as isolation. Living by the Wayside and Other Stories focuses...
The purpose of this thesis was to create a sustained piece of fiction that both represented my growth as a writer throughout my time at Oregon State University, and wove together a mixture of imagination, language, and creativity. My hope was to write a novella that incorporated and drew from...