Publications & Writing
And then there were six...
The McNeese Review | March 2027
I am the youngest of eight children. When there are that many siblings, you grow up believing the line of people beside you will stretch on forever. There is always someone older, someone younger, someone who remembers the story differently, someone who can fill in the missing details when your own memory begins to blur.
Six years ago, toward the end of my brother’s fight against pancreatic cancer, I read something about large families: one sibling will attend no funerals, and one sibling, attending them all, will have none at their own.
Peonies
The Alethean Review | October 2026
My mother finally broke down and sold my childhood home. It had also been my father’s childhood home, in our family for nearly seventy years. A developer had been buying up most of the neighborhood to make way for a new development. My mom was the last holdout and sold it for ten times what my grandparents paid for it in the late 1960s. The money wasn’t a luxury. It would pay for the memory care facility where my father lived. At 60, my father could live another twenty or thirty years. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at 48; seven years later, my mom was unable to care for him alone.
Bernie
Second Round, Erma Bombeck Writing Competition
If there were an Olympic event for neediness, my first dog would not only have medaled, he would have insisted on standing on the podium with me, expecting a treat. I had imagined dog ownership as a wholesome partnership: long walks exploring new neighborhoods, a wing man, perhaps, to help with my non-existent dating life, the quiet dignity of companionship. What I got instead was a small, furry dictator who ran my household with the relentless oversight of someone who did not trust me to survive unsupervised.
Such a descriptive essay! In just a few paragraphs, I felt like I got to know little Bernie. You painted a vivid portrait. I appreciated the way you ended the piece. And even though this is the Human Interest category, I like all the humor you injected. Thanks for sharing this story!
-Erma Bombeck Writing Competition Judge
The Weight of Water
Lone Peak Literary Magazine | March 6, 2026
The morning my mother disappeared, the lake was as still as a held breath. I’d gone out before dawn, as I often did when the footsteps finally stopped. I fell asleep to the sound of her pacing, until she finally tired herself out and could fall asleep. The absence of her footsteps through the bedroom wall usually woke me.
The Hidden Cost of Strength
The TwinBill Baseball Lit | January 31, 2026
Honorable Mention, Sidd Finch Fiction Prize
They said Lou Gehrig never slowed down. Not once in twenty seasons. But that wasn’t quite true. The spring of 1939 had brought something he couldn’t outwork: fatigue that sank into his bones, a tremor in his hands when he buttoned his jersey. He brushed it off at first — bad sleep, bad luck — until even Eleanor noticed the hesitation in his swing, the stiffness in his gait.
"You write baseball poetry...you’ve hit a homer."
-Michael Gibbons, Director Emeritus
Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum
Illustration by Elliot Lin
The Turnaround
Half and One | December 2025
Home. A word she had spent her entire adult life redefining. Home was now independence, career, momentum. It was not the small Pennsylvania town she had left behind. Not the smell of the steel factory. And it definitely was not the house with the creaky porch swing and the mother who spoke in sighs. Still, she went. She went home.
Illustration by Iuniki Dkhar
The Diner
America's Future: An Anthology from Washington Writers' Publishing House | September 2025
The diner was empty, except for an old man at the counter, holding a mug between his hands, and a waitress, a woman in her fifties, Jack guessed. The place smelled of old grease and burnt toast but it was warm, and right now, Jack needed warm.
Salt Potatoes
Big Brick Review, Issue 5
Honorable Mention, 2025 Essay Contest
As I placed my carry-on bag on the conveyor belt, I knew it would raise eyebrows. The X-ray screen lit up with its secrets: a cluster of small, round shapes and sixteen elongated tubes. A TSA agent held up my bag. “This yours?”