Writing Collection

ESSAYS

Nature as a Mirror

Winterscape →

Trash left behind by hunters evokes feelings reflected by the winter landscape

Whistling Pigs

My battle with groundhogs culminates in a nostalgic end

This Land is Our Land

A triptych that celebrates open expanses of land and posits that these should be publicly accessible

Starlings in Flight →

My observations of starlings mimics my mood

En Route 301 →

An ode to landscape along a meandering rural Virginia road

Pretty Bird

A dead bird in the road conjures thoughts about how mindlessly people treat nature and animals

ESSAYS

Love, Loss, and Connection

Cookie Cutter Love

Reflections on my mother and family while making Christmas cookies

Right-of-Way

Meditation on the physical beauty and loneliness of a former home

Angels of Death →

How a hospital visit from heart care nurses spells a bleak future for my mother-in-law

Brothers →

Observations of birds’ nests in a city yard as a metaphor for the political climate

Churchgoing →

Thoughts on how my family home life didn’t measure up to religious teachings

Emergence →

A cemetery visit evokes the beauty of nature and my longing for connection with my daughter

STORIES

Ordinary people, Unexpected outcomes

You Too →

A mother exacts her revenge against a man who she believes endangers her daughter

Two Lives

Windows into the lives of two strangers open after a brief encounter

First Flight →

A young man, half of the sibling duo who, in 1783, launches the first balloon to carry cargo, finds love

Holes →

A woman overcomes her trypophobia (fear of holes) when she saves a stranger from a burning car

Fingers of Light →

Hope animates the lives of two friends when they encounter each other after many years

Short, Gripping Reads