“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.” - raymond carver

| heart |

I discovered I wanted to write fiction and creative nonfiction spring semester of freshman year, in my very first creative writing class. The stuff I wrote for it was terrible. 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. Fiction is my heart. This is where my heart lies. It lies with story. 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. I learned to live vicariously through my characters, to take my emotions and put them in a story that others can relate to.

>>quiet is violent

This is one of the first stories I've written that I've loved. It's also the first one I've had published. RoundUpZine published it in their  Fall 2016 edition. A semester later, The Aster Review at OU published it as well. Having a story published made me realize that maybe I can do this, maybe I can make a career out of writing. At the very least, it's allowed me to keep going, to keep writing without discouragement. "Quiet is Violent" has been through so many drafts, and even more titles. In a nutshell, this story wrestles with the struggle of depression and suicide and focuses on the sensory experiences within that. However, it's way more than what I can paraphrase, so you'll have to read for yourself. 

>>hyacinth girl 

**currently unavailable, as I am sending it out to be published**

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. My ending completely changed. The characters met again in the end, something I never planned on when I started. In a nutshell, this story deals with unrequited, obsessive love, heartbreak, and the willpower to move on. 

>>MARLBORO

I've never really experimented with flash fiction until now. Writing this piece was easy, far easier than I expected. I picked an image, and ran with it. Writing flash fiction is refreshing; you don't have to get bogged down in revision when the entire piece is three hundred words. Revision and editing are my loves, but writing short shorts are sometimes a necessary change of pace.