It began as a compulsion. I needed more regular infusions of writing nerds in my life and I was really wising up to that fact. Also, I'd discovered that one major preventative for depression symptoms (more about my mental health journey can be found here) is to keep planning good things in my future so that I can look forward to them. At the tail end…
They say the mirror doesn’t lie. I’m here to tell you that it does. It takes time to realize it, it takes time to even be able to tell, which means many people never see it on their own. So, I will show you. Unless you don’t want to know. In which case, you should turn back now… You were warned. Most people think of mirrors…
I'm pleased to announce that my short story "Focal Point" is now available from Haven Speculative! This is my second published story from my lumastration universe (and I have two more in the pipeline that are awaiting their own publication days)! This story began as a much larger novelette, an exploration of grief, shameful secrets, and the vulnerability of the road to emotional healing, all through…
I'm pleased to present this new short story, "First Leaf" which is available to read online for free as part of FIYAH Literary Magazine's Special Palestine Issue. This story is what I call a feminist fairy tale and, due to its emotional nature and message, it was more challenging for me to write than many of my other stories. This is one that I felt in…
You know how sometimes you hear those stories from the lives of creatives about something good that happened to them because they were in just the right place at the right time? I’ve experienced one of those. It was on an afternoon this summer and my next-door neighbor was at my house using our stovetop to make pizza sauce for his dinner because his kitchen was…
I’ve been thinking a lot about listening recently. There are plenty of examples in popular songs, Disney movies, and motivational speeches that tell us, “listen to your heart.” I’ve particularly struggled with this, in part because the verse Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things” seems to imply that the heart is something to be ignored because it tells lies. And I’m sure that…
There’s smoke in the sky. Wildfires on all sides, it seems. The air is filling with ash, tinting the sun sets a beautiful weird orange. In preparation for the Christmas calendar that I make every year for the family, I sorted through digital photos, effectively reliving a year’s worth of memories: my kids playing in the snow, a beach birthday for my dad at Jetty Island,…
“Honey, is there anything else I can do for you?” My miserable six-year-old looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Snuggle me.” The morning had begun with an announcement from my kiddo that his tummy didn’t feel good. For the next five hours, we attempted a semblance of our regular morning schedule, punctuated about ten times with rushing-to-the-bathroom episodes. This may be the sickest my…
You’ll find yourself among “our kind of people,” my friend told me as he described what it would be like to attend World Fantasy Con. Just the presence of “world” in the title was enough to intimidate me. I’ve been to a handful of conferences before, and I usually feel small and overwhelmed by both the crowds and the amount of information being poured across my…
It was a summer evening on Whidbey Island a couple of years ago. We were on a relaxing family beach vacation, and I was breaking down in tears. My sister had just shown us a video of an amazing scarf acrobatics dance routine that she had choreographed to the song Thunder by Imagine Dragons. It was stunning and beautiful and powerful and after watching it, I…