Creative Nonfiction
Falling into Life
Published in: Common Ground Review
Spring/Summer 2024
"Suddenly, she plunges straight down, heading for ground at a frightening speed. I see arms and legs now, and I gasp, not knowing whether her fall is planned or not. I want to look away, while at the same time, my eyes are glued to my plummeting daughter.”
On the Edge
Published in the Kelp Journal
December 2022
" The young bird tipped back its head, opened its beak, and began to call for its parents. The cry was thin and plaintive, and it spoke of hunger and long hours of waiting and perhaps even a bit of fear at having waddled away from the safety of the nest. The gull-like mewing was barely audible over the thundering surf, but I heard it loud and clear, as though the fledgling was talking directly to me."
A Death Well Lived
Published in Flyway Journal of Writing and Environment
Fall/Winter 2020
"Long after their deaths, trees are still present, still vertical, and many of them—usually the largest and oldest—continue to be useful members of their community for decades. Their standing skeletons, known as snags, provide nest sites, lookout perches, and sources of insect food. Moreover, they become daytime or nighttime roosts, food storage sites, and shelter during winter storms. Indeed, the diversity of living things in any forest is largely due to the presence of dead trees."
Footsteps of Fiftymile
Published in Newfound
Spring 2020
"As a consequence, we had received a gift of pure magic—the dissolution of any boundary between the waters of the present and the creek of the past; between our modern maps and the cliff etchings that guided the ancients; between ourselves and the souls who still roamed beneath the lake."
Do You Know Where You're Going?
Published in Belle Ombre
September 2019
"The days of spiritual sparring with my mother were over. Faith had granted her a vaulting pole to leap over the hurdle of death into the afterlife, and I would not wrest that from her. As much as she loved the beauty of the Earth, she envisioned Heaven as even more glorious."
