short story

Anthology HORIZONS publishes “Pergelation”

The Blue Mesa Review put together a print anthology of previous contributors’ work to display at AWP in Los Angeles this year. They picked ten pieces from 2016 to 2022 and included my essay “Pergelation,” which won the Blue Mesa Review Nonfiction Contest judged by Leslie Jamison in 2018 and went on to be a Best American Essays Notable that year.

“Pergelation” is one of my favorite publications. I worked on it off and on for years, and I kept trying to fictionalize it. Finally, after reading Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, I rewrote “Pergelation” as straight nonfiction, then submitted it to the BMR contest. My hope was that it would be a finalist and she would read it, and I was delighted when it won.

I wish I could have picked up a print copy in person at AWP but I’m happy to have this in my hands now–it’s a beautiful anthology. Thank you to Amy Dotson and the rest of the team for making this book.

Delmarva Review Anthology

The Delmarva Review has released their first anthology, a beautiful book spanning the best of sixteen years of publications. Included are two of my prose pieces: “Nursing 101,” creative nonfiction from Volume 4 (2011), and “Undertow,” a short story from Volume 6 (2013). I am so pleased to be one of the seventy-five authors selected, and the only author represented in both the nonfiction and fiction sections.

The Delmarva Review was my first literary magazine acceptance. They published my work three times while I was a nursing student in Baltimore, and I cannot overstate how supportive they were of both the work they published and of me as a writer. I learned so much just going over edits with the team. Twice they invited me to read at the Writer’s Center. I drove my battered car—the Toyota I later sold to the autobody shop to cover my outstanding repair bills—to Bethesda, and at the end of my first reading, they let me take home the extra cheese plate. I made fancy pepper jack omelettes for my classmates. I remember exactly where I was when I opened my email to find out they’d nominated me for a Pushcart Prize. Twice, they interviewed me for Writer’s Edition on Delmarva Public Radio.

On a very concrete, editorial level, The Delmarva Review helped me become a much better writer. But they also introduced me to the idea of literary community and taught me what that looked like.

All of which is to say: I am deeply grateful. Support literary magazines in general, and the Delmarva Review in particular. Buy a copy of this anthology. I’m proud to be included.

Short Story “Troubled Boats” in Prime Number Magazine

My short story “Troubled Boats” has been published in Prime Number Magazine. The story is one of two Editor’s Selections chosen from the finalists for the 2020 Prime Number Magazine Awards.

From the Editors:

The power of attention is both subject and style of “Troubled Boats”: what begins as the tale of a boathouse-slash-rehabilitation center for wayward watercraft becomes an ultimately human story about what it means to be Restless—and restored.

Read the story online here.

Read the announcement here.

Prime Number Magazine is a Press 53 publication, founded by Clifford Garstang and Kevin Morgan Watson in 2010.

Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction Finalist

“Bargains,” a short story that won the Pacifica Literary Review’s 2018 Fiction Contest, has been chosen as a Finalist for the Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction.

The story will be (re)published in The Lascaux Prize 2019 anthology later this year.

I’m so grateful to all of the editors, readers, and judges at both PLR and The Lascaux Review for supporting my writing.

Congrats to all of the other Lascaux Prize finalists, and especially to the winners!

2018 Lascaux Prize Short Fiction Contest Results