Books
Thean Psalter
|
Memory Stands Still
|
Life. Love. Liturgy.
|
Lifeblood
|
Heartbeats: Voices Against Oppression
|
Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology
|
Allusions of Innocence
|
I write stories. I've been writing them since I was ten years old. For years I was in the habit of writing stories of my day in a journal or, occasionally, a blog. As I pursued academic endeavors, my practice of evocative writing for its own sake fell by the wayside.
Then, in October 2011, I began writing stories and poems on a weekly basis for a writing contest. The most intriguing thing I discovered there was the way folks other than me talked about God, religion, and living life.
Then, in October 2011, I began writing stories and poems on a weekly basis for a writing contest. The most intriguing thing I discovered there was the way folks other than me talked about God, religion, and living life.
What I encountered in these articulate writers was decidedly not what I heard coming out of the mouths of religious people growing up. I read in these writers a variety of life experiences, descriptions of crashing against, opening up, dismissing, and broadening the prescriptions of what life with God and religion should be.
As a result I've explored, in fiction and poetry, questions like these:
- What do you get when you throw God and religion together with someone who doesn't believe in the God or religion they grew up with?
- What sort of faith is possible when religion fails?
- What sort of God do you get when the images you have don't look a thing like the person you see in the mirror? What do you get when they do?
- What sort of faith can you believe in when evil deeds have been committed against you or someone you love?
- How do you answer questions of ultimate concern when the answers you've been given in the past don't fit your experience?
- What happens to God, religion, and faith when you ask questions that make the most powerful religious leaders squirm?
- If a religion's beliefs and dogmas are inadequate or unjust, what might keep a prophetic person rooted in religiosity?
Fiction, poetry, and prayer are powerful forms in which to explore such questions in illuminating, heart-breaking, hope-inducing, rage-including, thought-provoking ways.
In my upcoming novel, Playing Gauche, I delve into questions of identity and loyalty from the perspective of an adopted middle-school girl in the Sonoran Desert with a sharp mind, a load of talent on the ballfield, and both a skin color and temperament that resemble nothing of her family's. In the Thean Psalter, I reinterpret Judeo-Christian psalms through a feminist, feminine lens. In my novel, Memory Stands Still, I explore the relationship between memory and space as a young woman encounters new and unexpected turns in her life's journey. In Life. Love. Liturgy., I explore through short stories and poetry how God and religion and life lived intersect (or miss the mark, or both). In my chapbook, Lifeblood, I explore blood cancer and its implications for life and death in four short stories; its proceeds benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
I am also published in two anthologies by Solarwyrm Press (Fae Fatales and Allusions of Innocence) and a charitable anthology co-published by Fey Publishing and Solarwyrm Press called Heartbeats: Voices Against Oppression, all proceeds of which benefit the Not For Sale Campaign.
©2020 Life. Love. Liturgy.