Writings
Stories
- Supreme Ruler of the Universe - A very early story of mine, about a bullied girl who seeks revenge on Valentine's Day with the help of the source of her embarrasment: her dad's necromantic creations.
Atop the table lay the lifeless body of a flesh golem. The pieces were so evenly matched, the stitches so faint, that it could almost have been human, except for its unnatural size. Its arms were nearly as long as Janie was tall, and its massive torso was wide enough to fit two of her. Her father had been working on this one for months, stitching it together piece by piece over the weekends—and he’d almost finished it. But ever since he was promoted to chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the hospital, he’d had no time for hobbies. The golem had spent weeks in stasis on the table, ignored.
That is, until Janie had wandered in there a few weeks ago looking for her lost pair of snow boots. She hadn’t found the boots, but she had found an idea.
Zombie guts, hm? she thought as she turned dials and flipped switches, preparing for the final test of her plan. I’ll show them zombie guts. I’ll show them all.
Poetry
- Elocution - Because birdmouth. (First appeared in Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal.)
- Stopping by the Woods by Way of Persia - Written works from 1923 only just now entered the public domain here in the US, did you know? With help from Google Translate and apologies to Robert Frost.
- Verismo - How Turandot really feels about that opera she's stuck in.
- Trillium - Spring ephemerals: first to bloom, first to die.
- The Captive, Freed - One Christmas morning, while driving up VA-7, I saw a dead orange cat in the middle of an intersection. THIS IS HIS STORY.
- Annum - A year can pass surprisingly quickly.
- Cobwebs (Spiders for Senate) - For all those Beltway-born.
- Relic - Inspired by the North Park of Colorado.
- Buck and the Dragon - A mighty struggle recounted in antiheroic couplets.
- Culling Time - No one is safe from layoffs.
- Sprouts - Nature is quick to reclaim her own.
- Dawnshift, October - Musings on the change of seasons. Overwrought, but that's kind of the point.
- Don't You Ever - Chomp.
- Whale Song - Everything is a matter of scale.
- Summit - Just thinking about the Death Zone gives me the shivers.
- Blossom Haiku - Cherry blossoms and young love.
- A Comment to a Customer - "Why don't you stock every single obscure title by my favorite author?" Let me tell you, mister...
- Sunset from a Field - The first ~*Real Poem*~ I ever wrote. A bit immature, but I'm still fond of the imagery.
Flash fiction
- Night Woes - What do you do with yourself when your life doesn't turn out as planned?
- Two Weeks Before Graduation - The longer you live somewhere, the more folks come to rely on you being there.
- Windmaker - An ordinary fellow plays trust-fall with a supernatural acquaintance.
Nonfiction
- Why Hire an Editor - A short essay I wrote back when I started editing: why you can't (yet) leave the task of polishing your prose to machines.
- Larvitar Eats Mountains! - My hiking blog. Includes my ascents of 38 (out of my 39) US state highpoints, 8 Southern Sixers, and several other peaks.