Publications
My stories have appeared in print and on line (once as a podcast), in places like Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Failbetter, Going Down Swinging, and Pseudopod.
A few highlights:
Among the Moabites, Cherry Bleeds, September-October 2007; featured on Pseudopod, episode #98
The first time Wilson saw them was when he opened the
medicine cabinet one groggy morning in search of aspirin and his
toothbrush. Between the familiar can of shaving cream and the plastic
tumbler that held his toothbrush, lying on his crushed and twisted tube
of toothpaste as if it were a luxurious pillow, were two tiny people.
They were no bigger than his thumb, and a little pinker, lounging in a
tangle of spindly limbs. One of them lifted its head from the
toothpaste and he slammed the door shut.
The Oologist’s Cabinet, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #20, June 2007
It was a mahogany chest almost as tall as me, with
intricate scenes of birds in flight and willow trees sighing beside
winding rivers inlaid in teak and ivory. When the doors swung open and
folded back against its sides, they revealed a warren of drawers and
slots and yet more doors, many with yellowing index cards affixed to
them behind gold-colored plates.
Bank Holiday, Lily Review, April 2006
This morning I came downtown to meet my agent. He keeps
an office in one of the towers across the street from the bank; through
his window I can see the revolving doors that spin into the spacious
lobby, and the mahogany desk in the sun lit corner office on the tenth
floor. While my agent speaks, I look over his shoulder at the suit
coats and Italian shoes streaming in and out of the portals of commerce.
Ichthyology, JMWW, Winter 2005
The doctors said, when she was born, that the gills
would eventually fade away on their own. Nothing to fear, they said; no
more unusual than the rare child born with a tail, or a dense pelt of
fur, or a single sharp tooth jutting from its new pink gums. We carry,
after all, the genetic memory of our furred and finned and feathered
ancestors in our twisted strands of DNA; dreams of ancient seas are
bound to surface now and then.
Call Me Pearl, Ballyhoo Stories, Spring 2005
We were working that summer for Herb’s dad, Ray Dwyer,
who owned an antique shop in St. Paul. Herb grew up in the shop,
surrounded by highboys, vanities, and mirrored coat racks. From the
time he was ten, he knew furniture like most boys know bicycles and
baseball cards. I swear he could tell a genuine Stickley table from a
reproduction, blindfolded and bound to a chair, just by smell.
Pieces, Small Spiral Notebook, January 2005
I find my mother’s pink Pyrex mixing bowl at the antique
store on Fairview Avenue. It’s in the hands of a fat woman in a blue
down parka, and she’s holding it upside down, squinting at the sticker
on the bottom.
Sunshine Over Helsinki, Failbetter, October 2004. Listed as a Notable Story of 2004 by storySouth’s 2004 Million Writers project.
No one in Helsinki saw his weather reports. They didn’t
need his two-minute segment, twice a day, nestled between the football
scores and children’s cartoon based on the Finnish epic “Kalvala”; they
could just look out their windows, stand on their stoops, and know to
wear a coat today. The reports were for Finnish expatriates, nostalgic
for Baltic winds and icy sidewalks, or for a handful of students
learning the words “lumi” for “snow” and “pilvi” for “clouds.”
Recent Comments