Portfolio

This is my official writing portfolio. I’ve picked several fiction and creative nonfiction pieces that I believe accurately represent my writing style. Every piece has been written within the last two years, and I am proud of each one of them. Read and enjoy!

New short story and future updates!

I haven’t done as much writing this summer as I would’ve liked, but I’m working to change that. I posted a new short story, Crooked Teeth, that I wrote about a month ago, and I have a few more work-in-progress pieces that will hopefully show up here at some point. Let me know what you think and what you’d like to see in the future!

Oh, and I am officially a creative writing major at Susquehanna University, so this site should see more updates in the fall! :]

more publication goodies!

I know that I’m stretching it a little here, using the word “publication” to describe this, but MY NAME IS IN PRINT. That’s all I care about! My creative nonfiction class interviewed residents of the local retirement community back in February, and all the stories we wrote were bound into a book and sent to the residents as well as us. I just picked mine up today! I interviewed Paul Bixby, a man with so many stories and an incredible love of teaching. It was truly a remarkable experience. I posted the article under the creative nonfiction tab; check it out if you want to learn about an amazing guy!

PUBLISHED!

Even though it’s just in Penn State’s literary magazine, I’m bragging. :] I just love seeing my name in print. Kalliope‘s release party was on Wednesday, complete with open mic and free copies of the magazine. I now have multiple copies of the book in my room to show everyone in my family! I’m really proud of this story; I wrote it last fall for my intro creative writing class, and it’s one of the few pieces I can look back on and not hate, as self-critical as that sounds.

But what can I say? I’m a writer. And writer=perfectionist.

Our speaker at the release party was a PSU grad who’s in a creative writing program at another university now. He read two short stories, and of course I have a compulsive urge to start new projects now. Things have been crazy with school lately, and the inspiration is sporadic at best. Hopefully this summer I’ll have some new stuff to post here.

Thanks for reading!

Being Published!

Okay, so I didn’t get a book deal or anything, but my creative nonfiction piece, “The Drug of the Workplace”, is being published in Kalliope, Penn State’s Undergraduate Literary Magazine. I’m actually on the staff, but I help handle fiction, so I had no say in the nonfiction stuff at all! And staff members can submit whatever they want; it’s all anonymous. The nonfiction staff emailed me this morning and told me it was in! :] I’m so excited!!

You can read the piece here if you want!

New narrative

One plus of my creative nonfiction writing professor giving us homework for every class? Once in a while, I get something good out of it! Posted my most recent piece under the creative nonfiction section; it’s called “Everyone Should Do This”. Let me know what you think! And then go do what I did in the essay. I promise, you’ll love it.

Creative Nonfiction

I added a new page for some narrative essays I wrote for my creative writing class. One of them is about coffee, and the other is about airports. Read and comment! I’d love to hear what you think!

Poems!

Over the past month, I’ve become addicted to writing poems. I posted two of the ones I included in a poetry project for my creative writing class. I’d love to know what you think!

Long time, no update!

I haven’t updated this blog in forever, mainly because I save it for writing news…and i haven’t had any lately. But I’m taking an Intro. Creative Writing class this semester, and i just had my first short story of the class workshopped! It’s called The New Neighbor, and it was my fourth attempt at the assignment. I’m glad I wrote this one instead of trying to make one of the others fit the criteria…this piece felt natural and just flowed out of me. I wrote it in one sitting.

Long story short (no pun intended), I posted it under the short stories category on this site. I’d love feedback on it! I’ll try and update more often with some of my pieces from the class as well.

partial

I was SO EXCITED when i opened up my query email inbox today (I have a separate email for queries) and found that i had a reply!!!! This inbox has been sitting, empty, for God only knows how long. And just to see something new in those pretty bold UNREAD MESSAGE letters was fantastic.

What made it even more fantastic was an agent requested the first three chapters of Throwaways! YAY! What a good start to my day!

She said that she has an insane wait time right now, but that’s okay with me. I mean, in three weeks it probably won’t be as okay, but I’m really happy right now, so i’m going to roll with it! I’m just so exciting that something is happening, FINALLY, after my inbox has been empty for weeks.

In other news, i’m writing up a storm with this other story i’m working on. I’m hoping (hoping being the key word here) to have it finished or mostly completed before i go back to PSU next Wednesday. This is a slightly insane goal, seeing as i have absolutely no clue how i want the story to end. I should probably get on that.