Creative Prose
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Like Magic
HOOT, forthcoming
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Red Hat
Pithead Chapel, February 2024
My dead father-in-law came to visit me on my transcontinental bicycle trip. I was riding westward through central Kentucky and had just told my husband, Steve, I could not get home for the funeral. I didn’t let myself cry until we hung up…
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Shed Fall
Los Angeles Review, September 2023
I woke from a dream today in which I finished the essay I started yesterday. The kind of finishing that is brilliant in the dream, slightly less brilliant when you wake up. Twisty and nonsensical by the time you finish breakfast…
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Whippoorwill
Unbroken, 36, Winter 2023
I’d forgotten. Years ago, I used to compose poetry while walking: The brittle bones of grandfather winter trees. The rattling of last leaves like rickety teeth. I’d shuffle words and hold them until I returned home to write…
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Bikes
The Sun, July 2022
When I was a sophomore in college, a friend asked me to bike with her across the country, and I said yes. I’d always been a misfit and wanted to escape myself. I thought this trip might help me change and become more self-reliant. My friend…
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Tea
River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, April 2022
At every lesson, she serves me tea. She steeps it with cardamom and swirls of evaporated milk then pours it steaming into “my” cup—a white ceramic blue-flowered mug—and adds a heaping spoonful of sugar. It must be drunk hot and can’t be rewarmed if I’m late…
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The Dresser
Brevity, January 2022
“Look what he’s done.” My grandmother—Greggie—tried to sound annoyed, but her tone came across as affectionate because Papa hadn’t actually done anything wrong. We stood in their bright, airy bedroom discussing the maple furniture…
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Monsters
Mount Hope, Fall 2021
With our faces to the New England breeze, Papa and I watched the multicolored triangles of sloops and cutters slip past while listening to the call of the gulls, the lap of water over pebbles, and the echoed shouts and laughter of pleasure seekers on the water. Without his saying, I understood that my grandfather felt connected to this place, and coming here made me feel connected to him…
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Fire-Breathing Dragon
Furious Gravity, May 2020
I took my purse and a small brown paper sac into the bagel shop restroom, removed a pregnancy test from its box, and peed on the stick. Afterward, I stood gazing at the fold-down diaper changing station, unsure of what to do next. . . . Some might have thought I was crazy to have another baby while still working on my PhD in English…
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Concatenate
Creative Nonfiction, Spring 2017
Cretinize. On the first night of class, my Introduction to Literary Theory professor asked us to state our research interests. I scanned the room for other perplexed faces but didn’t find any. It appeared no one else expected to be told what to study. I glanced at the door just a few steps away. Flee! I thought…
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Happy to Starve
Literary Mama, November 2016
When I looked at him, I could only think of pain. It was July, and I sat on the couch preparing to nurse my infant son, Connor. I’d quit my job to stay home with him…
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Fear Circuitry
Blue Mesa Review, No. 33, Spring 2016
The dizzying sun sucks moisture out of me in great rivulets of sweat that pool between my breasts and soak my back as I hunch over my handlebars and pedal my bike up the hill. I can feel my blood pulsing in my face…
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Parenting From the Top of a Hill
Club Mid/Scary Mommy, Summer 2015
Last week, my oldest son packed up his soccer ball, his smelly socks and his brand new computer and left home for college. The 18 years it took us to get here have rocketed past. But as surprised as I am…