Morning on the Water

Short story, March 2023, Rivanna Review

“Shandy” and “Knives”

Two shorts, February 2023, Talking River Review

Pamela, Shamela, and Me

One-act play, January 2023, Shark Reef Magazine

How the Light Gets In

Literary Fiction

Lee Markel has been reluctantly running his family’s sheep farm in the highlands of Scotland for almost thirty years. When his ex’s banker husband starts the foreclosure process on the farm, Lee voluntarily surrenders the property, ruining his relationship with his mother, who lies ill in a nursing home. As Lee packs up his house, a woman from his past returns and enlists other friends to find out what happened one summer twenty years ago, a summer that changed Lee’s life forever. Wishing his former friends would leave him be, Lee is thrust into memories and explanations of what happened that summer he broke up with the mother of his child and his best friend died. As Lee delves into his memories and tries to decide what’s next for him, pieces of what really happened come out for the first time. The revelations that emerge shock both his friends and himself.  The novel explores the nature of memory: what we remember, how we choose to remember it, and how those choices influence our present.

In the Time of Spirits

Historical Fiction

Addy Cohart has been living a traditional existence in Washington, DC. After her parents’ tragic death, she travels to New York City and becomes involved with spiritualism, attending seances, receiving messages from her parents, and hoping to convert all nonbelievers to spiritualism. Despite her long disinterest in marriage, she weds William Fairley, an up-and-coming medium and travels with him to London to continue his career. However, hints begin to emerge that make Addy question William’s authenticity and the veracity of everything she believes. When the couple moves on to Paris in a rush, William soon flees, leaving Addy behind. After he goes, British detectives arrive, informing Addy that her husband is wanted in London for theft. With this shocking revelation, Addy must decide who to support: should she help the detectives track down her husband or help William escape them? The novel explores the nature of loyalty and love and the things we will do for our faith.

This book was a semifinalist in the ScreenCraft Cinematic Book contest in February 2020.

After the Spirits Come

Historical Fiction

The story picks up one week after the events of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge is celebrating New Year’s Eve at his nephew Fred’s house, ready to embark on his new life as a gregarious, generous, family man. However, it soon becomes clear that his transition will be more difficult than predicted on Christmas Day. At the New Year’s Eve party, Scrooge meets a doctor who requests to interview him about his experience with the spirits, an interview that leads to others in positions of power doubting Scrooge’s mental faculties. And when Scrooge returns home from the party, a threatening note awaits him from men whose lives he ruined in his past and who will not let him be forgiven so easily. As these forces converge around Scrooge, he also awkwardly learns to rejoin society and form positive relationships with his fellow man – and women. The Cratchits navigate their change of fortunes as Scrooge finally does his best to provide for them, with the eldest daughter, Martha, in particular struggling to navigate her life in service as the prospects of the rest of her family threaten to leave her behind. Bob Cratchit must also help Scrooge navigate the change to a more charitable business model and manage the emerging threats to Scrooge and the firm.

This book was Top 100 in the 2022 Launchpad Prose Competition.