: About Me

I'm a North Carolina native and still proud to call the place home. We have mountains to the west, beaches to the east, and plenty of woods to stroll about in the middle. What more could a person want in one state?

I studied film and animation in school but, like many, found my career direction elsewhere. It is the nonprofit world that has become my home, serving in areas ranging from marketing at a free store for teachers to job coaching within the human services field.

All of my interests that survived past initial infatuation have had their first loves. For animation, it was (and remains) stop-motion. For writing, it has long been the vast world of fiction and short stories. Creating characters and places has always been something that came naturally; a tree stump with splinters of wood on top held a miniature city and laundry lying on the floor quickly became a landscape of faces. For the longest time, I've been content with these idle belches from a rampant imagination and rarely going beyond the idea process to scribble scenes down on paper or typing character conversations up on a computer. While I certainly can't boast anything I have to share is more profound than another's musings, it is certainly time for these stale characters and thoughts to breathe fresh air and roam where they will.

My childhood ambition ...

Began with astronaut around the time I was in middle school and changed a few hundred times each year afterward.

My favorite memory ...

Actually, a very short one of feeding ducks with my mother at a pond.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Watching: House. Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

My first job ...

Drive-thru clerk in a small town restaurant (we weighed the hamburger meat and made our own patties too - not a part I miss).

Creative Writing > Short Stories Short stories: Life

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The cold rain had slowed to a drizzle outside while the sky foretold of a later storm brewing up. The mood inside the restaurant was almost as grim as the grey February afternoon. Two friends had gathered together at a booth table near the window. Neither really felt like eating despite the plates of food before them. Gavin poked at his burger and ran a hand through shards of spiked blonde hair. "I need a job to pop up. Soon." "How much do you have left?" Jada asked, shoving a fry in her mouth. "About five bucks," he laughed. "Maybe more like five cents." This time he just smiled. It wasn'...

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