Welcome to My Fictional Worlds
As a writer and artist, my passion for storytelling extends beyond the realm of non-fiction. In this space, I invite you to delve into my fictional worlds, where you'll meet a diverse cast of characters and explore themes of mental illness, isolation, power dynamics, resilience, bravery, and survival. My fiction is influenced by the honesty and depth of writers like Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Anaïs Nin, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood, as well as the creativity and imagination of authors like Neil Gaiman, Philip K. Dick, Jeff Vandermeer, Octavia Butler, and Mary Shelley.
Throughout this section, you'll also discover a selection of images I've created to bring my characters and concepts to life. These visuals offer a glimpse into the worlds I've crafted and the beings that inhabit them. As you explore my fiction, I hope you'll find moments of connection, inspiration, and wonder.
Excerpts
Explore a selection of excerpts from my fiction work, showcasing a range of styles, themes, and characters.
Five unsuspecting individuals find themselves trapped in an endless parking lot after renting a car from the eerie Foster's Rent-A-Car Emporium. They embark on a journey through a magical forest, confronting their fears and ultimately changing the fate of both humans and demigods.
Foster’s Rent-A-Car Emporium
Medge lay on the plush moss-covered forest floor and watched the sun flicker through the tall pines overhead, which seemed to dance in an undulating rhythm, almost breathing even though there was no wind. The cool air around him was still and the forest didn’t have any of the normal forest sounds, no birds, no leaves rustling, no distant highway. But even in its apparent lifelessness, it felt full of energy, like some recently abandoned mall where the rush of the crowds can still be felt in the emptiness. Medge wanted to believe it was heaven so badly, he fought to push away the sense of unease.
Siobhan was still resting up against the tree he first saw, her gaze focused forward, somewhere distant. He knew that look, a doubtful one, pensive, uncertain that things can really be as good as they are, that there might be some cost, some universal balance that requires pain and torture to enjoy a moment so peaceful. And she might be right if that’s what she was thinking, but Medge had endured the worst humanity had to offer, so if there was a universal balance, he was due some rest.
An earthquake in Oregon unveils a gold hot spring with transformative properties, including turning the eyes of those who dip permanently gold. A tech mogul monopolizes the spring, causing social divisions and sparking controversy, conspiracy, and a struggle with irreversible consequences.
The Gold Eyes
It was among those stands, artfully designed to make the food feel fresh and scarce, that Sanabelle saw a gold eye for the first time in person. A woman with impossibly shiny hair, the kind usually reserved for celebrities, wore a creamy white blazer and tan leather knee high boots with pointy heels. Sanabelle thought she looked like the fancy side of town came to life. She watched the woman’s perfectly manicured nails hover over a bundle of swiss chard, the name of which she knew because it was spelled out in chalk below the crate it rested in. It was as if the woman felt Sanabelle staring because she turned around quickly and immediately met her gaze. The gold in what should have been the whites of the woman’s eyes let off a kind of luminescence that Sanabelle found difficult to describe, even now having seen it thousands of times. The gold is so much more vibrant in person than it is on a TV or phone screen. Nothing could have prepared her for how transfixed she would be, unable to stop staring, charmed and insatiably curious.
The Stranger and The Light
After a daring escape from a sinister cult, a young woman finds herself on a train, penning a letter to a kind stranger. As she unravels her harrowing tale, she seeks understanding for the darkness she left behind and the light she hopes to find.
I want to be like the lady with the bird. Last summer, we got stuck at the drawbridge into town on one of our weekly supply runs. She was behind our van. The sun was positioned in such a way that I could clearly see the features of her face. She was looking at the sky. A pelican landed on the edge of the bridge and she started clapping. Her smile was gigantic, and I swear I could see light coming from her eyes. Father told us that pure joy can only come from sharing the light of God with him. He said any other joy was false. But I saw it there in her eyes. And it came from a bird. She saw a bird and she had pure joy, and if you asked me, I’d be honest with you and tell you that this joy was so much more intense than anything I ever experienced with Father or my sisters. Once I saw her joy, I started seeing it everywhere. The men who are always outside the gas station when we fill up our van, they had joy. I even once saw a cashier at the grocery store have joy when she picked up some kind of coin. I don’t know what it was. I wasn’t allowed to ask, but I wanted to. I hope one day I can find a coin that gives me joy.