​​"Read the Sky"
Women Speak
Women of Appalachia Project
Spring 2025
Novel Excerpt

Of course the whole county knew Mother, knew the violet rosary beads that wound around her arm. The pewter Jesus and His cross often peering from beneath her sleeve. But even more so, they knew her gift...There were clues she couldn’t ignore—like the color of dawn, trees bent in the wind. The way sparrows gathered or cried or disappeared...

​​"Small Hungers"
Yearling
Winter 2024
Poem

But then came July.

It brought fruit . And light--
so many hours of it--
the sun sizzling through the window
as it set. It brought nights
when heat and humidity took over
the house, making our hungers
seem small...

"Sometimes the Going"
Phoebe
Spring 2023
Short Fiction,
Contest Finalist

It’s not often the case, but we’re all hungry for dinner about the same time that night. Me and Anka, my landlady. Her fat-cat Bazo. We collide in the tiny kitchen, circling each other. Anka pulls at the curtains, debates using the oven after such a hot sun. I open and close cabinets, trying to find an easy bite. Maybe cereal. Maybe ramen. Bazo thinks every package that crinkles holds something for him and he noses at my hands, beginning to purr…

"Evergreen"
Ms. Aligned 4: Coming of Age
Spring 2023
Poem

And when everything else
lost it's color—ever-shelter, ever-shoulder,
you caught the snow and held it...

​​"Small Hungers"
Nelle
Spring 2021
Lyric Essay

Summer brought fruit. Riper, sweeter. Cheaper than any other season. And Ma bought all she could. Mangoes, rosy and plump. Berries in blue. Kiwis that she held in her hands, spooning the green flesh from its furry skin. Any piece with a thick rind, she showed how to smell at one end, a dab of sweetness there. Like perfume at a pulse...

​"Little to do with Rain"
Ruminate Magazine
Fall 2020
Winner of the
Willam Van Dyke
Short Story Prize

We moved through the night like it could hide us—even if there was a God. Especially if there was a God. We smelled of muck and moss, every inch of us thick with the rain. Jeans lay heavy at our hips, cold on our skin. My blouse held to my waist like a darling. Murphy started the old Ford and we crept along the puddled gravel, fog catching the head beams and scattering their light to a lousy halo...

“This Sonata”
Bellingham Review
Spring 2016
Winner of the
Annie Dillard Award
for Creative Nonfiction

Three moves in four years. I’ve lived in three houses since I left ours. At the first, the yard sloped up at an angle awful in February, and the front stoop bore ridiculous steps, narrow and steep, the cement laid decades ago. At the second, a small grassy slant preceded some stairs—winding wooden stairs. Their path veered to the right, looped around a tree, then wound to the door. 
 
Would you believe I held on to the piano?

"Grow Heavy"
Los Angeles Review
Spring 2016
Winner of AROHO’s
Orlando Prize
for Short Fiction

First rule, he makes sure to look in the lady’s eyes when he smiles. Second, he crinkles his like Clint Eastwood. Tonight, many nights, he practices his smile in the tri-fold mirror, locks the bathroom door so his four-year-old can’t get in. He thinks of that Eastwood who could swagger about with a rifle in hand, but could also touch a lady, tender, at the small of her back. Who could work rugged days, eyes creased by the sun, but also meet you with a word, warm and measured. Eastwood once said, manhood is really a quiet thing...

“Don’t Forget the Jazz”
CARVE Magazine
Summer 2015
Microfiction

They’d have all we needed at the Stop-n-Go. That’s how Mom put it. All we could need. Down a block and around the corner. Past the pawnshop with its neon signs in green and red, always buzzing: Buy or Sell, Instant Cash, Rolex and Coins. Then the Laundromat with the door propped open, warm air and fake flower scents hitting us as we went by. The only real green snuck out from cracks in the concrete or dangled from squat trees planted along the road, their low branches cut off at the quick...