Stories, Poems, Essays, Plays

Online Reading

Parliament of Owls

from Smokelong Quarterly

“A shape materialized out of the dark, a large figure bent low and struggling. The owl veered off and lighted on the knob of a beech limb.”

Mutt

from Radar Poetry

“I house-broke her myself, sleeping with one hand on the floor.”

Lake Mary Jane

from Atticus Review

“When she collapsed on shore she could see his knobby head a little ways out watching her out of one eye. The lid had blinked twice, like a private code, before he sank under again.”

The Retreat from Gettysburg

from River Heron Review

“We fled ahead of the incoming year, backs up, bags packed
out Taneytown Pike past Devil’s Den and the Round Tops”

Homestead

from Catamaran

“Their instincts were turning feral, every motivation under suspicion. He hadn't anticipated that when they'd stood out on the bluff with wine glasses, toasting their first sunset in paradise.”

Publications

Stories

“The Other Drummer”; Cleaver (Fall 2023)

“Our Erosion”; South Carolina Review  (Volume 55.2, Spring 2023)

“Land of the Midday Sun”; The Masters Review (May 23, 2022)

“A Lazy Eye”; Reckon Review (November 15, 2021)

“Sea Nettles”; Cherry Tree (Issue 7, January 2021)

“Fuller Brush”; Atticus Review (May 26, 2020)

“Rain Over Kayenta”; The Ocotillo Review (Issue 4.1, Spring 2020)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“Good Cop”; Into the Void Press: We Are Antifa

“Fireball Outfit”; New Short Stories 11 (Willesden Herald, November 2019)

“Homestead”; Catamaran (Vol. 7, Issue 3: Fall 2019, Issue 26)

“KV66”; upstreet (Issue 15, 2019)

“Caldecott Street”; Into the Void (Issue 13, 2019)

“Summer Drop”, “Down from the Castle”, and “The Middle Ground”; ELJ (The Blackout Edition, Spring 2019)

“Still Life”; Apple Valley Review (Vol. 14, No. 1, Spring 2019)
    Honorable Mention, Best Microfiction 2020

“Dick Fleming Is Lost”; Hawai’i Pacific Review (October, 2018)

“A Message from Your Bereavement Center”; Star 82 Review (Issue 6.2)

“The New Canaan Village for Epileptics”; So It Goes (7th Annual Edition: Lonesome No More, Summer 2018)

“Repurposing”; Anomaly (Summer 2018)

“Masterpiece”; Juked (April 2018)

“Looking Away Shall Be My Only Negation” “Walking,” and “Double Helix”; ELJ (The Blues Edition, Fall 2017)

“Ice Flowers”; Into the Void (Issue 7, Qtr. 1 2018)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net

“Parliament of Owls”; SmokeLong Quarterly (Issue 58)

“Lake Mary Jane”; Atticus Review (December, 2017)
    Second Place, Flash Fiction ContestNominated for a Pushcart Prize

“Snowblind”; The Boiler (November 2017)

“Hiddenfolk”; Origins (September 2017)

“The Insurrection at Fort Bob Ross” and “Commute”; 45th Parallel (Issue 2, 2016-2017)

“Wild Turkeys”; Big Muddy (Issue 17.1)

“The Rescue Blues”; Sierra Nevada Review (2017)

“Coast Starlight”; Into the Void (Issue 3)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“Mountains Between”; Capra Review (Fall 2016)

“Riverside; Storm Cellar (Fall 2016)

“Crossing to Lopez”; The Laurel Review (Spring 2016)

“The Shallow End”; Cold Mountain Review (Fall 2015)

“The Ramp”; New World Writing

“Sognsvann”; SAND (Issue 12, Fall 2015)

“Silo”; Crazyhorse (No. 68)

“Greyhound Bus Potemkin”; Southwest Review (2012, Vol. 97 Issue 2)

“Tule Fog”; Eleven Eleven
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“The Village at Null Point”; Bartleby Snopes

“Barn Sale”; Pif

“Inadequate Vessels”; Eclectica

“Jacklight”; Necessary Fiction

“Charlie Little”; Bartleby Snopes

Poems

“A Well-Made Door”; Catamaran (Volume 11, 4, Fall 2023, Issue 42)

“If He Has to Go, Let Him Go on Horseback”; Rust & Moth (Spring 2023)

“Nutgrass”; Valparaiso Poetry Review (Volume XXIII, No. 1, Fall/Winter 2021-2022)

“On the Anniversary of Loma Prieta”; Catamaran (Catamaran 35, Winter 2022)

“A Road”; Palette Poetry (November, 2021)

“Stations”; Cloudbank (Cloudbank 15)

“On Bahia Concepcion”; Silver Birch Press (May, 2021)

“Three Coyotes”; Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor (Issue 2, Spring 2021)

“Owl Island,” “Wendover Man”; Book of Matches (Issue 2, May 2021)

“In”; The American Journal of Poetry (Volume X, January 2021)

“California Death Index”; Sugar House Review (Spring/Summer 2020)

“Pomegranates”; Sky Island Journal (Issue 12, Spring 2020)
    Nominated for Best of the Net

“Remains of the Drystack Wall”; Peatsmoke (Spring 2020)
    Nominated for Best of the Net

“Meteor Shower Over Gualala”; Catamaran (No. 26, Fall 2019)

“Mutt” and “Trout Spawn in White Clouds”; Radar Poetry (Issue 22, April 2019)

“Tveitt in Absentia”; Subtropics (Issue 26, Fall/Winter 2018)

“Taking the Auspices at Bald Hills”; Penn Review (No. 51)

“Erato, Lorelei & Co.” and “Magellan Sailed on a Saturday Morning”; Two Hawks Quarterly (Winter 2018)

“Michael Collins”; Catamaran (Fall/Winter 2018)

“Suites 3 & 6”; Spillway (Issue 26, 2018)

“Apiary”, “Here’s the Thing”, “The Dunes”, “Ventriloquy”, “After Ash-Scattering”; I-70 Review (Summer/Fall 2018)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“Funderland”; Equinox (Issue 1)

“Anticipating the Storm’s Path”; Blue River (Volume 2, Issue 2)

“Evening at the Downturn”, “The Bear’s Descent from Mt. Kimbrell”, “Leaving Bergen”; Clade Song (Number 8, 2018)

“Riverine”; Timberline Review (Issue 7, Fall/Winter 2018)

“Mountain Misery”; Under A Warm Green Linden (Issue 5, Summer 2018)

“When the Dead Walk in Dubuque”; Lake Effect (Vol. 22, Spring 2018)

“Readying the Pyre”; Pembroke Magazine (No. 50)

“Crossing Lake Tinn”; Valparaiso Poetry Review (Vol. XIX, No. 2)

“The Harbor from Above” and “Descent 2”; Main Street Rag (Winter 2018)

“Floyen” and “Aerial Work”; Homestead Review (Spring 2018)

“Under Sandhill Cranes”; Split Rock Review (Issue 10, Spring 2018)

“Nordmarka,” “Between Kingdoms,” “I Looked Away”; Bridge Eight (Issue 7)

“Lazy Eye”, “A Motel in Stanley, Idaho”; Sugar House Review (Issue 16, Fall/Winter 2017)

“Interregnum,” “A Motel in Stanley, Idaho” (reprinted from Sugar House Review), and “Morning Disappearance”
Nominated for a Pushcart Prize; Tule Review (2017)

“Under the Bear Flag”; Dunes Review (Summer/Fall 2017)

“Listening to Mahler While Waiting for Oroville Dam to Fail”; Connecticut River Review (2017)

“Leaving the Party,” “The Siberians,” “A Wager”; Timberline Review (Issue 5, Summer/Fall 2017)

“After the Drought”; Catamaran Literary Reader (Issue 18, Summer 2017)

“The Brave Father”; Hamilton Arts & Letters (Issue 10.1)

“These My Fenestrations”; Saint Ann’s Review (Vol. 18, No. 1)

“As the Crow Flies”; Atlanta Review (Spring/Summer 2017)

“Childhood as a Series of Concussions”; Columbia Review (Spring 2017)

“In Shade Her Scars Nearly Vanish”; Columbia Poetry Review (2017)

Swimming Walden Pond”; Tar River Poetry (Spring 2017)

“Bread”; Natural Bridge (Spring 2017)

“Nothing Will Hurry Her”; The Cape Rock (Fall/Winter 2016)

“Reintroducing the Wolf”, “Aubade Approximate April”; The Monarch Review (March 2017)

“Looking Up We See More Than Is There”; Willow Springs (No. 79, Winter 2017)

“Conclave Ahead of the Storm”; Barrow Street (Winter/Spring 2017)

“The Ruins After Dark”; Summerset Review (Winter 2017)

“Last Cherry”; Gold Man Review (Issue 6, 2017)

“The Long Reach”; Tule Review (2017)

“Stier” and “Rein”; Dunes Review (20th Anniversary Issue)

“The Fallen Bridge at Cosumnes”, “The Wind Up Russian Gulch”; California Quarterly (Vol. 42, No. 3)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“The Love of Fire”, “A Wedding in Bee Country”; Chariton Review (Vol. 39, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2016)

“Picnic Day”, “Skin Tags”, “Low Tide, Pigeon Point”; COG (Issue 3, Spring 2016)

“Home Sick” and “On the Death, by Trampling, of a Man in Modoc County”; december (Issue 27.1, Spring/Summer 2016)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“Daylight Saving”; ZYZZYVA (No. 106 Spring/Summer 2016)

“Blueprint for Coop and Run”; Crab Creek Review (Spring 2016)

“Adios Westerner Drive-In”, “Pantoum of a Mild Depression”; Arroyo Literary Review (Spring 2016)

“The Wind Apples”; Sugar House Review (Fall/Winter 2015)

“Radiolaria”; Natural Bridge (Issue 34, Fall 2015)

“Full Disclosure”; Cimarron Review (Issue 193, Fall 2015)

“Anniversary”; Dunes Review (Volume 19:2, Fall 2015)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“In the Forcing House”; Catamaran Literary Reader (Volume 3.3, September 2015)

“A Pasture”; Tule Review (2015)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“The Art of the Drawknife”; Driftwood Press (Volume 2.3, Summer 2015)

“On Being Wakened by a Porcupine in Maine”; Fjords Review Monthly Verse (Feb. 2015)

“Cape Breton Manifesto”, “Sic Transit”; Harpur Palate (Volume 14.2, Winter/Spring 2015)

“Hardpan”, “Longlining”; The Chattahoochee Review (Voume 34.2-3, Fall/Winter 2014)

“West Through Sunflowers”; ZYZZYVA (No. 101, Fall 2014)

“6.9 Off Humboldt Bay”; Ascent (May 2014)
    Nominated for Best of the Web

“Rice Burning”; Beloit Poetry Journal (Vol. 64 No. 4, Summer 2014)

“Elk Carry Their Hunger Into the Day”; Tar River Poetry (Vol. 53 No. 2, Spring 2014)
    Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“The Cartographer’s Hymnal” and “The Cold Room”; Barrow Street (Fall 2013)

“A Neighboring Field”; Poetry Now (Nov. 2013)

“Virga”; Tule Review (2001)

“Sestina Near Sunset” and “The Sturgeon”; 2River View (5.4, Summer 2001)

Nonfiction

“No Reasonable Offer Refused”; Book of Matches (Issue 4, Winter 2022)

“Impermanence”; Zone 3 (Vol. 36 No. 1, Spring 2021)

“The Lost Coast; Phoebe (Issue 50.1, January 2021)

“Enigma”; River Teeth (June 8, 2020)

“A Driving Tour of Quaker Graveyards”; Clockhouse (Volume 4, 2016)

“A Ditch Runs Through It”; Utne Reader (September/October 2007); originally published in Sacramento News and Review (April 26, 2007)
    Winner, Best Writing Award, California Newspaper Publishers Association

“What Happened to the Time?”; San Francisco Chronicle Magazine (December 30, 2007)

“Our Third River”; Sacramento News and Review (November 3, 2011)

“Domo Arigato Quercus Lobata”; Sacramento News and Review (June 23, 2011)

“Staying Power”; Sacramento News and Review (December 24, 2009)

“On Furlough Friday”; Sacramento News and Review (October 29, 2009)

“I, Timmy”; Sacramento News and Review (September 10, 2009)

“Rust Men”; Sacramento News and Review (March 5, 2009)

“Joe Grogpint”; Sacramento News and Review (October 30, 2008)

“Suicide Ticket”; Sacramento News and Review (July 5, 2007)

Plays

The Middle of Nowhere (full-length play)

    Winner, 1999 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition

Produced in 2000-2001 Season (Feb. 1-25, 2001), Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo, NY

 The Treaty at Big Indian (full-length play)

    Semi-Finalist, Reva Shiner Full-Length Play Contest

 The Road Into Town (one-act play)

    Winner, First Stage One-Act Play Contest

Staged reading, FirstStage L.A., Hollywood, CA

    Second Place, Moving Arts Premiere One-Act Competition

Love Creek Productions One-Act Festival, Creative Place Theatre, New York

 Where I Went (one-act play)

Love Creek Productions One-Act Festival, Theatre Row Studios, New York

Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Original Short Play Festival, Chernuchin Theatre, New York

 Nature (one-act play)

Love Creek Productions One-Act Festival, Harold Clurman Theatre, New York

Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Original Short Play Festival, Harold Clurman Theatre, New York

 Served (one-act play)

Love Creek Productions One-Act Festival, Harold Clurman Theatre, New York