Personal Essays
- “Not a Word Among Us,” opens with my grandfather’s suicide, seven years before my birth, and traces the shame and silence associated with his death into my own formative years, examining how shame and silence shaped my identity. “Not a Word” is live at The Common ⇒
- “How to Shoot at Someone Who Outdrew You” begins with the day in 2009 when I heard of Hank Locklin’s death—the impetus for reflections on the country music and dancing of my childhood and adolescence. A Pushcart winner, published originally in The Gettysburg Review (Autumn 2016), this piece is available online at Literary Hub ⇒
- Also Published: “Crossing the Nueces,” Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi, and Trans Men Who Came Out Later in Life, Eldredge Books, 2016. “I Am, I Said,” The Common, Spring 2024. “Is Anyone Home?” South 85, Spring / Summer 2022. “Nines and Elevens,” Chautauqua: Wild and Tame, Issue 15, 2018. “A Thief in the Night,” Cholla Needles 85, 2024. “The Ties That Bind,” Rappahannock Review, Issue 9.2. “A Voice Among the Contradictions,” The Gettysburg Review, Summer 2018.
Guest Blogs
- “Do We Need Prose Poetry? Forché’s ‘Colonel’ vs. Hemingway’s ‘Lieutenant'” — at Talking Writing ⇒
- “How a Literary Critic Slapped Me Awake: Half an Hour with Leslie Fiedler” — also at Talking Writing ⇒
- “Trusted Others and the Editor’s Eye” — Guest Blog Post for Superstition Review, which ceased to exist, abruptly, earlier this year. I will make this essay available here soon.
- “Hiding in Plain Sight: How Ambient Noise and Clutter Feed a Story” — Guest Blog Post for Superstition Review, which ceased to exist, abruptly, earlier this year. I will make this essay available here soon.