“The Bog King” Jet Fuel Review, Issue 20, Fall 2020
Most bog bodies look like empty people-shaped balloons at best, unidentifiable misshapen clumps of trash marked only by small terrible reminders of humanity, a blob with a perfect foot, a deflated football that turns out to be a crushed head, for instance, or, like Kayhausen Boy, looking very much like a discarded and dirty snowsuit that some child had forgotten after a busy day of make believe.
“Here Comes the Past Again” Believer Magazine, Summer 2020
My pandemic novel was inspired by two certainties. The first is that when the next extinction struck, it would all play out on social media. It would be a shared apocalypse, with likes, retweets, and memes. The other idea was that zombie movies are essentially pandemic stories.
“Where She Went” (reprint) Spillwords, June 2019
She wondered what her alternate universe self was doing right then, if she were sitting in a sleepy-eyed bungalow like this one or if it were something entirely different. She wondered about Carl’s alternate universe self. Did he have a mustache? Did he wear a different cologne? Did he like onions?
YOUR VOLCOLONIC DETOX STARTS NOW, Barrelhouse “Fall of Men” 2018
When the time is perfect to complete your cleanse, your toxin may beg for his life or try to overpower you, which is why it’s a good idea to also bring a cattle prod or a stunning device. Sometimes drugs like GHB, rohypnol and benzodiazapine are appropriate to use for a toxin cleanse, particularly if the toxic person has used such tranquilizing agents as part of their own agenda.
“Osculation” Waxwing, Issue 17, Spring 2019
Clementine had never been kissed. Not behind the bleachers, not in the back row of the Megaplex. Then a Miss H. Catie Wyvern held a press conference and announced that she’d be holding a weekly drawing with the winner receiving one wish granted. Whatever they wanted, she promised. No one believed her, of course.
Feogin, Salt and Syntax Fall Flash Fiction Contest (Second Place)
My father is a genius. One of the evil kinds. He intends to end the world.
Nomination: Pushcart Prize
“Lower Midnight”, Paper Darts
Some believed the whole island was haunted, stem to stern, from the top of Lighthouse Hill to the bottom of Shubrick Point. One little lighthouse keeper’s house was nothing compared to the constant ripping of flesh from bone just off the shore. It was a violent place. There was that female skeleton found inside Great Murre Cave, resting as though she’d stopped for a nap a hundred or a thousand years ago. The naturalists tell me this on my third day, matter-of-factly, while we’re anchored fifty feet off the cave, waiting for a white shark to come back to finish its freshly-killed sea lion.
“Billets Doux” (reprint), The Evansville Review, 2018
Once we were trees in California, giant redwoods. Your leaves would whirl around my roots and I would creak and bat my limbs at you. We stood through centuries, always eighty yards apart, never able to intermingle our limbs. I would blush each year that I lost my foliage and you would growl in a way that only trees can growl. And then we were gone. Stupid root rot.
“Skate Queen”, Anomaly, Issue #25
When Mary Ellen’s left breast grew back on its own suddenly on Saturday during dinner break, that’s when we had confirmation that something weird was happening.
Nomination: Pushcart Prize
“Where She Went” Per Contra, Issue #27
Before that unnamed baby started showing up each night, she had been a happy woman. Or at least she thought so. Happy and lucky, in fact. Sometimes she’d drive up their street in their desired bedroom community and look at their own little bungalow squatting in its wide corner lot and it would frighten her, how perfect and happy her life was.
“Ghosting”, Non-Binary Review, Issue #10
Sometimes Evelyn got stuck on a word, using it for everything until it started to mean nothing and everything. This week, it was “world”. Everything was the world. The world was everything. It made sense from that vantage point but the previous week, it had been “wax” which had the bonus quality of being both a noun and a verb.
“INGOB, Barrelhouse Issue #14
They think Van Gogh heard music when he looked at his starry nights. Working at a Bingo parlor, you get to believing in a one-in-a-million shot just as much as you doubt the rarity of a sure thing.
Review: Poets and Writers, April 2015
“Intersomnolence” Drunken Boat, Issue #12
Liz is making lists. Things to do before she dies (Latest entry: walk convincingly in high heels). Things that she needs to spend money on (renew car registration, yogurt, tampons). Words that sound funny after you say them repeatedly (ex. “tampons,” “smorgasbord,” “gleen”) and what they start to sound like (gleen=the word for fornication in the language of Sleestacks). The people who contribute the quotes on the sides of her Starbucks cup (Most recent: Mitch Hedberg).
Review: A Tentacled Guide to DB 12
“Passeridae” Blackbird, Volume 9, Number 2
Now with eight, the night’s sleeping arrangements would be sticky, but that was only in the back of our minds. It might have been how soft she looked, in just a thin t-shirt and loose sleeping pants; her breasts moved freely under the cloth. We were happy to have her. You were no longer hiding if you were protecting.
“Billets Doux” Barrelhouse Issue #3
Once we were trees in California, giant redwoods. Your leaves would whirl around my roots and I would creak and bat my limbs at you. We stood through centuries, always eighty yards apart, never able to intermingle our limbs.
Review: New Pages, February 2007
Review: Urbanite Magazine, September 2006
Honors
St. Lawrence Book Award, semi-finalist for “Entry Level”, 2020
The Hudson Prize, semi-finalist for “Entry Level” 2018
Other Stuff
Duotrope interview, 2019
AWP Presentation “How to Build a Book Festival in 6 Months”, Portland, 2019