Writing Projects
This is my Writing Project Page—some long-finished, some very current. Click on a project to see more. Will continue to update.
Mary Emery is a family lawyer whose second marriage has fallen apart and whose eldest son is dead. Can life possibly get worse? She spends her days saving marriages and protecting children—yet could neither save nor protect her own. Mary has recurring nightmares, sees her psychologist more than her best friend, and is in a part-time relationship with a work colleague. She lives with her youngest son, Charlie (Chet). A strong student and athlete, Chet struggles with his own loss, social challenges, gender expression, and his distant mother. One night, Mary feels she is being watched. The following week...
02 Secrets We Share
What happens when a calm mother, just doing her best to make it through each day, reaches a breaking point she never knew she had? One moment, Angela Goodwin is a reserved suburban mother of two; the next, she is steeped in blood and relief. Angela escaped the housing projects but could not escape their imprint. She is an administrative assistant in her daughters’ school and pressures Toryn, her oldest, grooming her for a one-day scholarship so she can have the life her mother could not. Angela’s husband has swindled her out of her only savings and seems to be lying about a romantic entanglement—with the mother of their daughter’s classmate, no less. What Angela learns about her soon-to-be ex-husband and what she finds locked in her mother’s cedar chest sends her on a reeling tailspin of self-examination and genealogical secrets. Along the way, she uncovers the history of her family and her mother’s only heirloom: a strand of forty-eight blush pink pearls Angela discovers were stolen. Angela gathers the strength to confront her husband and her family’s secrets. With best friend Kristy by her side, Angela feels sure she can face almost anything—except perhaps a future without her daughters inside four prison walls.
03 Don't Forget To Look Up
A new contemporary YA short story about identity, belonging and being grateful for the family you do have. I will write a few more iYA short stories in the coming month, including at least one with threads of speculative fiction
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Creative Nonfiction: The Online Allure
I have dated and been in and out of relationships for much of my adult life. This is a fact. Online dating, as a forum, is here to stay. Another fact. It is impossible to deny its ease. It is also impossible to do it for years without either becoming jaded or learning a thing or two about oneself and the world we inhabit. Perhaps both. I'd love to write that I have mastered the process of meeting men online, but that would be seriously misleading.
We are all familiar with that thrill after completing a good workout, winning an award, or impressing someone. That rush of pleasure is thanks to dopamine, and it is present in droves in the online dating world, just as it permeates any social media platform. I fear that I did become briefly addicted to, or reliant on, the rush that accompanied online dating. I fear also, on a broader scale, that we have become a society more interested in scrolling than in making conversation or donning earbuds rather than making eye contact. Of liking people online instead of in person.
My love-hate relationship with online dating began shortly after the dissolution of my marriage. I was 33. The year was...
