Short Fiction
A lifetime ago, I earned my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Akron and the Northeast Ohio MFA consortium with a focus on short fiction. My thesis was a collection of stories titled Miniature Seas. My earlier short stories, in undergrad, were basically bad Raymond Carver rip-offs, but near the end of my time at Ohio University I started to experiment a little bit more.
​
As I continued my studies, I developed new obsessions: Jewish writers like Philip Roth and Isaac Bashevis Singer; the Southern Gothicism of Flannery O'Connor and the Suburban Gothicism of Joy Williams; genre benders and magical realists like Franz Kafka and Kelly Link; and Samuel Beckett's absurdism, which became totemic in how I thought about literary arts.
​
Some of the below stories are from this era of discovery, some are newer or more recently revised. I plan on writing more short fiction in the future. For now, here's a selection of some of my favorite pieces.
Arrival at East Block
"The government announced that there’d been an accident at the nuclear power plant just outside the city..." Read the full story
Grief Counseling
"He had a propensity for recalling the names of bones and organs, pictures of bones and organs, and their locations in and around the body, pictures of bodies." Read the full story
Miniature Seas
"Sheila Davis was beginning to think that this was more than just a phase." Read the full story
The Harbinger
"Yet again, Ronald found himself at the toy store." Read the full story
The Goat
"Beatrice was the girl, and Gilbert was her grandfather. Mama was the goat." Read the full story
The Traffic Jam
"The weather was unseasonably pleasant the day the traffic jam started." Read the full story
Hoagie Lives for a Day
"Before he ate the hoagie: it was a creation. After he ate the hoagie: it would be shit. So: what did that make him?" Read the full story