An Impossible Mercy (essay), Northwest Review
“When I say it was a gruesome scene, what I mean is that five tiny skulls were shattered, and all the bones picked clean. She was wretched with mercy, is what I mean. What Nick did next, though, that must have been it—the moment I accepted, finally, that it was time to go—watching him bury those battered bodies in the brush.”
IN THE VALLEY (essay), North American Review
“Those are the days of mustaches, mullets, Genesis nostalgia, and windbreakers. Of Bud Light, Marlboro Reds, and athletic socks. Of curtaining cigarette smoke swaying in the dim light of neon bar signs. And yet, what’s interesting to me now about that image of the Valley is how my father is the most ephemeral part of it. I remember the red jars of pickled eggs better than I do my father’s face.” @North American Review
Indigo Girls Biography (criticism)
"This is music of the past, present, and future — a boundlessness earned and not bestowed [....] music composed across time, not just in time." @inidigogirls.com
Fall (essay), ThreePenny Review
"The carcass is a mound of snow. It is a pink, lunar heart. I watch from the side of the road as Graeme drags the ewe across the pavement, his glove and the cuff of his flannel shirt dipped in red like a candied apple." @The Threepenny Review
RAPTURE OF THE DEEP (essay), The rumpus
"I fell in love with professors and baristas and truck drivers and hotel clerks. Once, I fell in love with a customer service representative in Iowa over the phone. I fell in love with Annie Dillard and Raymond Carver and blue paint and my own cunt." @The Rumpus
A LETTER TO ERIC (essay), The Rumpus
"He visits us every time you land in the same jail, your twin mug shots forever floating in the same county database, each one more fucked up than the last." @The Rumpus
End of the Earth (essay), Barnstorm
"My friend watched flashlights move from the front of the house to the back. She heard the low muffling of voices and the beeping of walkie-talkies." @Barnstorm
Here Fishy, Fishy (essay), crab orchard review
Finalist - John D. Guyon Literary Prize Competition
"We look like vagabonds, road-weary immigrants suddenly deported to this dank and derelict tourist town, this aqueous vortex with caramel corn." @Crab Orchard Review
Unheimlich (Essay), painted bride quarterly
"The uncanny is the red well of recognition, the buried obsession, the glossy vaginal folds, the former heim. This is terrifying, we decide, and off we run." @Painted Bride Quarterly
In New York (essay), Pank
"In New York, I walk everywhere. I avoid the subway, the bus, the area in Brooklyn where I was once a teacher. I spend a lot of time in Chinatown looking at fish on ice, the slick octopus and the frogs in buckets, heaving." @PANK
The Whitest Winter Light (essay), alligator juniper
1st Place, National Contest in Nonfiction
Best American Essays 2012, Notable Essay
"She tells me how scared he became when the lights went out at night and how once, after they were a little older, she caught her brother masturbating beside the couch where Mattie slept." @Alligator Juniper
Pretend We Fell Asleep (essay), Big truths/little fiction
"Sometimes, I want to be held so badly I shake like a hooked fish." @Little Fiction
In Oquossoc (essay), fringe magazine
“In Saskatchewan, we could eat grilled cheese sandwiches at a roadside diner and a man called Griz might teach us to play five-card stud, beating us every time…" @Fringe Magazine