As a child, I dabbled in magic—changing the color of scarves from blue to red, cutting ropes then magically mending them, reading minds. I wanted to amaze and entertain and inspire. I wanted to change the way my friends and family thought about reality. Eventually, I set down my toy wand and picked up paintbrushes and pens. That’s when I discovered real magic. In school, I found literature and art. I embraced them, learned their…
2022 has been my most successful year in writing. I wrote 23 new short stories and 10 of them were sold—six of them to professional publications. Looking forward to 2023 and new opportunities in speculative fiction and visual art. Happy New Year!
My first professional sale came out in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine. This sale (back in May of 2021) really marked the start of my speculative writing career, allowing me to join SFWA and Codex. Definitely, game changers. The story is about the difficulty of saying goodbye and stems from having to say that word to my children who grew up and left home. This seems to be a theme that recurs in my…
Out now in Etherea Magazine. “Piano Lessons in the Dark” is a fantasy short story about a boy who uses songs he plays on the piano to hold back the darkness. When monsters come for his family, he descends into their world to confront them with the power of music. I joke about this being a true story. Like a lot of other kids, I had to take piano lessons. One of the games I…
My Pecha Kucha talk at the Manitou Art Center last month. Using alchemy as a metaphor for the act of creating art, I explore creativity using my own drawings and writings.
Over the course of fours weeks this winter, I created a visual art journal dealing with my understanding of the creative process. I used the themes of alchemy and journey as metaphor and peppered the pages with recurring symbols. Mostly, I had fun! What I found at the end of the project is that my chops for drawing from imagination had improved. I also rediscovered my love for writing. You can download a .pdf file…
Traveler: This place seems familiar. Have I been here before? Oberon: (looking up from the slow-moving river to take in the traveler) Where are you comparing it to? Traveler: I was walking along a riverbank very much like this one. And suddenly there was this shadow. Oberon: Excuse me, did you say shadow? Traveler: Well, not so much a shadow as a rustling of leaves. I mean it was a rustling of leaves until the…