MARLBORO

*in progress*

This piece began as a short short; I only came back to it more than a year later because I needed inspiration for a short story. Turns out, it's the piece I like most that I've written, and it’s not finished yet. But so far, it’s expanded me as a writer and showed me I have more tools at my disposal than I thought. 

STELLAR GRAVEYARD

*in progress*

With this story, I worked to actively challenge myself. I set out to write it like a CNF piece, more specifically, a braided essay. I wanted there to be two threads anchored around the present moment. I also played with lack of dialogue, to challenge myself to improve my exposition. After going through one round of workshop, I have a better idea of where it’s headed next. 

fiction

I discovered I wanted to write fiction and creative nonfiction spring semester of freshman year, in my very first creative writing class. I’ve improved so much since then, in part because of my own talent, but even more so, because of my writing mentor Rilla Askew. I’ve taken almost countless creative writing classes with her, and she has taught me the ins and outs of the craft. She helped me take abounding material in my head and turn it into something worth reading, something worth publishing. I’ve had one story published (“Quiet is Violent”) so far, and I never could have done it without her. My heart lies with stories. With characters, with grammar and punctuation and dialogue and universal truths. While my academic work showed me I like to write about emotions, creative writing showed me how. 

HYACINTH GIRL

*in progress*

I didn't expect to become as attached to this story as I have. I started out with a certain story in mind, and as I wrote, it became something entirely different. My protagonist became my antagonist. Months later, I turned it on its head and am still actively revising it. 

QUIET IS VIOLENT

This is one of the first stories I've written that I've loved, though it is now outdated. I can’t go back and revise, because it was published in RoundUpZine in the fall of 2016, and then, a semester later, in the Aster Review at OU. I keep this in my portfolio to show me how far I’ve come, a way to benchmark progress in my craft.