That night, I was on curfew patrol alone. It was in the dead early hours around 4:00 a.m., a hot and hazy night. I was thinking about two things: my son, drunk on freedom, overcome with dreams in another land; and Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

First published November 15, 2024 in Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, Issue 12

When Andrew got the news that his wife had been killed in the South Shore train wreck, the first thing he did was look for his keys.

First published August 18, 2024 in Foreshadow.

My new neighbor is making a violin from a cigar box. He got the cigar box from a guard. The guard, presumably, got it from outside the Fence.

First published May 2024 in Abandon Journal, Issue 5.

Sunless waves sleep not

but seek pleasant mornings

and warmer shores

to the left of twilight.

First published April 1, 2024 in As Surely As the Sun Literary, Issue 4, p. 15-16.

A parting glow that blackens trees

turns separate blades of grass to shadows,

different futures each,

which for an instant might have been—

or so it seemed.

First published April 1, 2024 in As Surely As the Sun Literary, Issue 4, p. 14.

Stretch that union foot by foot, inch by concrete inch.

We will hear of it

in yesterday’s news, certainly

by the day before yesterday.

First published April 1, 2024 in As Surely As the Sun Literary, Issue 4, p. 13.

My mother used to say that to dream is to live.

She was wrong.

Dreams are a luxury of safer times.

First published fall 2023 in the print edition of Relief: A Journal of Faith and Art, p. 92-102.

Brenda Rufener’s two young adult novels, Where I Live and Since We Last Spoke, are heavy but hopeful. Both novels confront weighty social issues and grapple with emotionally charged subject matter.

Book review published in the 2020 online edition of the North Carolina Literary Review.

Eddie Wood’s debut novel, One Red Thread, is a historical-literary-science-fiction-mystery of impressive complexity.

Book review published in the 2016 online edition of the North Carolina Literary Review.

Before impact…

First published August 19, 2016 in Monkeybicycle.

She thought it stupid to keep the red skirt like a relic hanging in a museum with a plaque…

First published in 2016 in *82 Review.

Banter on the park bench in August, hiking through Pisgah in September, whispers at the bookstore in October, driving to Virginia in November…

First published in 2016 in *82 Review.

Midnight shakes the memory as magnetic bombs once shook the quaking walls of houses. Rebels quivered in their army boots while federal planes blasted neighborhoods to bits. Ceasefire! Ceasefire! We were better off before.

First published December 2015 in The Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, p. 24-30.

When we bought that railroad car for $4000 off Craigslist, we didn’t ever considered how we’d transport it. See, my wife had just inherited this big piece of property slap dab in the middle of nowhere somewheres near Wilmington, and we said to ourselves, What’re we gonna do with all that land?

First published October 28, 2015 in No Extra Words Podcast.

We were running so late to the wedding, I had to turn around and drive home two hours before we arrived at the ceremony, just so we could make it home in time for work. This chronological finagling had its effect on the children. I could hear them whining in the backseat, "Yet, there we are?"

First published in August 2015 in The Cafe Irreal.

We stumbled out of warm cocoons at the urging of Daddy’s voice, fingers fumbling with shoelaces, half excited, half asleep.

First published April 12, 2015 in the Journal of Microliterature.

The fire gnawed the grasslands to bone-cracked earth on the way to our village. We hoped the lake would save us, the buckets of life we hauled from the shore, the trenches of dirt we overturned, the drenched rooftops.

First published January 1, 2015 in Burningword Literary Journal.

They cruised through the rolling land Izzie had spent half her childhood in, Jason at the wheel. The familiar shades of green and brown zipped by, flowing into each other like the folds of a long dress.

First published 2012 in The Ivy Leaves Journal of Literature and Art, vol. 86, p. 78-86.

We are all searching for something, and many across the edges and expanses of time have turned to myth, have gone wandering through the words of fantasy. Why? What comfort, what courage, what enlightenment do we seek in the supernatural fictions of mythology?

First published 2012 in The Ivy Leaves Journal of Literature and Art, vol. 86, p. 122-127.

We are a culture of tired optimism, screaming happiness to hide the disillusion of disappointed expectations. Spread your wings. Aim for the stars (you might hit the moon!). You can be anything you want to be.

First published 2012 in The Ivy Leaves Journal of Literature and Art, vol. 86, p. 64-67.