Award Winning Short Stories
In September of 2010, my short story, My Father's House won first place in Key Publlishing Network's Ghost Story Contest. This competition drew writers from across North America to compete in five categories of prose and poetry. The winning pieces along with the runner-up works were published in the Vicious Spirits anthology. 450 pages of spooks and hauntings will thrill the reader. This fine publication is available for purchase on Amazon.
In January of 2011, one of my pieces, Bound Together, won second place in a fiction short story competition sponsored by Northeast State Community College. In the same contest, my story Magical placed third in the creative non-fiction category. Both stories will be published in the 2011 literary magazine Echoes and Images.
In January of 2011, one of my pieces, Bound Together, won second place in a fiction short story competition sponsored by Northeast State Community College. In the same contest, my story Magical placed third in the creative non-fiction category. Both stories will be published in the 2011 literary magazine Echoes and Images.
Excerpts
From My Father's House
Liza and Abby left the side of their mother and went to the back of the house. The wash tub was kept in the storm cellar, propped against the far wall. The girls forgot about the shallow grave under the house, however, they were jarred to reality after slipping down the stone steps to the cellar surface. Stagnant, musty air surrounded them. Liza looked behind them towards the opened storm doors. A wedge of light sliced through the thick air and was filled with particles of dirt and dust. Abby inched closer to Liza and grasped the skirt of her dress. It would have went better for the girls had their eyes never adjusted to the depravity of light; however, as the various shapes and forms of bricks, rakes, and piles of lumber became visible, they saw the mound of dirt in the far corner. Curiously, Jesse’s corpse lay directly under their mother’s bedroom. None of the women in the home would venture to the cellar since the day Jesse was buried, so these first moments of grim discovery proved to be both terrifying and fascinating.
From Bound Together
I always wind up here. Once, I convinced myself that it was only the aroma of gourmet coffee comingling with the odor of musty antique books which draws me to this place. This is untrue, of course. Just as the use of 'wind up' is a clumsy attempt to convince myself that my actions are a result of some weakened internal resolve. No, I don’t make the twenty-three mile trip to the Bound Together Books & Coffee Shop three or four times a week to sip a Kenyan blend or an over-roasted Sumatran coffee while thumbing the dusty, albeit very collectable pages of The Complete Works of Emerson. And even though I’ve so convinced my wife, it is not because I find the cozy little coffee shop that’s tucked away in the corner of this bookstore a favorable atmosphere for crafting a flawless line of metered verse. The singular reason I come is her. Everything is Laura.
Liza and Abby left the side of their mother and went to the back of the house. The wash tub was kept in the storm cellar, propped against the far wall. The girls forgot about the shallow grave under the house, however, they were jarred to reality after slipping down the stone steps to the cellar surface. Stagnant, musty air surrounded them. Liza looked behind them towards the opened storm doors. A wedge of light sliced through the thick air and was filled with particles of dirt and dust. Abby inched closer to Liza and grasped the skirt of her dress. It would have went better for the girls had their eyes never adjusted to the depravity of light; however, as the various shapes and forms of bricks, rakes, and piles of lumber became visible, they saw the mound of dirt in the far corner. Curiously, Jesse’s corpse lay directly under their mother’s bedroom. None of the women in the home would venture to the cellar since the day Jesse was buried, so these first moments of grim discovery proved to be both terrifying and fascinating.
From Bound Together
I always wind up here. Once, I convinced myself that it was only the aroma of gourmet coffee comingling with the odor of musty antique books which draws me to this place. This is untrue, of course. Just as the use of 'wind up' is a clumsy attempt to convince myself that my actions are a result of some weakened internal resolve. No, I don’t make the twenty-three mile trip to the Bound Together Books & Coffee Shop three or four times a week to sip a Kenyan blend or an over-roasted Sumatran coffee while thumbing the dusty, albeit very collectable pages of The Complete Works of Emerson. And even though I’ve so convinced my wife, it is not because I find the cozy little coffee shop that’s tucked away in the corner of this bookstore a favorable atmosphere for crafting a flawless line of metered verse. The singular reason I come is her. Everything is Laura.