He’s a child, all of thirteen with an incipient moustache and the greasy face of adolescence. I concentrate on his deed, but I can’t threaten him. He spits at my window as I roll it up.
Living. Poetry Winner, Winter.
I want a girl who’s dying.
The Poison House. Winter Nonfiction Winner.
Now they had religion. It was time to buy a house.
Character Development: Putting the Other on the Page
Character development is an elastic exercise. It is also a moral one.
To My Sisters. Fourth in a series of veterans’ responses to the insurrection.
We finally know how our mothers felt when we were the ones in uniform.
A Thin Line. Third in a Series on the Insurrection.
Soldiers were for war, not airports.
The Widow and The House. Second in a series on the Insurrection.
I had seen this before, in Iraq.
When I first saw true hate. First in a series.
Part of our mission was to directly fight insurgents; the other part was to stabilize and protect communities that were being terrorized by small groups of radicalized insurgents.
The Clarinet. Fiction Honorable Mention. Fall 2020.
“Did you ever?” I said. “Ever what?” he said. “Ask your question.” “I don’t know…wish things had gone different somehow? Ever feel like you missed a chance?”
Never a Goodbye. Nonfiction Honorable Mention. Fall 2020.
Al was my new-found brother, filling the sibling gap of an only child. We matched each other in height, though I was always the skinny kid and Al was more round, of face and body, and that never changed.