I love for you to read my stuff wherever you find it: online third party, library, e-book platform, forgotten by someone else on a park bench.
If you can buy directly from an indie author, though, they keep more of the profit and can unburden themselves from the piles of inventory clogging up their hallway.
Check out my store with the Visit my bookshop link, especially if you’re nearby and can use the free local porch delivery option. There are some additional book-related goodies there, too like bookshelves and used books. Enjoy!
The Way It’s Supposed to Be
Allie doesn’t just depart her small town, fiancé and dead-end job; she runs off into the woods, leaving a disturbing message on the kitchen counter amongst the salad vegetables. Her fiancé, Mitch, is desperate to find her while Allie struggles to survive in the wild. Allie meets people throughout her adventure — several who live on the streets and one charismatic young man — who shape her thoughts on what the modern world can offer. As Mitch searches for Allie, with the help of Detective Murphy, he is pushed to uncover his own limited ideas about relationships.
Allie eventually faces a choice between truth and support from the people she loves. Mitch must decide if he can accept a version of family he never imagined. Allie and Mitch are terrible at communicating with each other. Still, they somehow navigate a path outside of convention, discovering a solution neither of them imagined.
Praise for The Way It’s Supposed to Be
I love that it spoke to questions about partnership and compromise but also what life should be about at the most fundamental level — what it might look like without the patriarchy and whether or not we’re obligated to participate in any of it. I read it in one sitting.
~ Ronda B.
I loved the subtle references to Central Texas and the coastal landscape of Texas. The author does an incredible job of developing the central characters. The book was captivating, leaving me with some deep introspection, being able to relate to trials and tribulations of both characters.
~ Geoff K.
I enjoyed the book very much, and it is not at all what I expected, which was good. It left me questioning my own assumptions about myself, our society, and life in general. Also, I couldn’t put it down!
~ Marlene C.
This book grabbed me from the beginning. The main characters’ stories — where they came from, how they got here, and their hopes for the future kept me pondering how such events shape where we are.
~ Katie S.
The Well
Kat, a stalled writer living alone, is drifting through the middle part of her life in a cynical fog. But when a mysterious well materializes in her backyard, Kat discovers Alice, a spirit trapped in its depths. What begins as curiosity about the local legend of Mortis Manor becomes a terrifying journey through time as Alice reveals the dark history of her husband James and the sinister Doctor who destroyed their family.
But Alice’s story isn’t just about the past — it’s about Kat’s own buried memories of a night in high school when she and her friends played house in the abandoned manor, and only she emerged alive. As the boundaries between past and present dissolve, Kat realizes her connection to Alice runs deeper than she ever imagined.
Articles & Short Stories
These are some of my favorite places my writing has been published online. I’ll spare you from my content mill days and the part of my life I refer to as “The Year of the Listicle.” Before that, I cut my editorial teeth on local magazines that, unfortunately for my portfolio, remain in the antiquated days of print-only.
A Certain Lack
It was the bird feeder that made her realize it. Lack. The feeder had lacked food for so long, the birds stopped bothering to flit by and check it. So her yard lacked birds or any other animate life she could see from her view through the window.
Strangely, her new lack of a husband isn’t what spawned this feeling. Liam’s leaving was a side effect. Caroline got the sense that, if she concentrated, maybe she could drum up some sadness at his absence, but it hardly seemed worth the effort.
Mothering Crickets
One thousand dead crickets in a box.
That’s what I’m looking at right now — 1,000 belly-up insects in a rectangular receptacle. I paid $30 for them.
If that sounds like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard, to be fair, they were supposed to be alive. But let me back up…
The Beastie Boys and Business Culture
…That was what a Beastie Boys concert was like in 1987. With lyrics like “Skirt chasing, freebasing, killing every village. We drink and rob and rhyme and pillage,” it’s no wonder they ushered in a dubious genre of music known as “frat rap.”
But not too long after the Beasties emerged from small punk clubs into the limelight of sold-out arenas, they began to question their image….
It Puts the Lotion on Its Skin
In my 20s, I washed my face with soap and water, and that was it. But somewhere along the line, I let an MLM convince me I needed a twelve-step program for my skin. Hundreds of dollars bought me cleanser, toner, primer and various foundations — elixirs in pots and tubes in soothing blue colors that promised to stop time and the unbearable horrors of *gasp* wrinkles….