Publications: My words in the wild

Take the Fruit: An Anthology of Religious Trauma

My essay “With Fear and Trembling” is published in this collection of stories about surviving high control religions. Edited by Stina French & Erica Hoffmeister / Published by Listen to Your Skin Press, November 2024 / Purchase here

On Sundays, as instructed, I dressed in my fullest skirt, my puffiest sleeves, my most shiny patent leather, and showed up in the sanctuary at Faith Baptist Church, ready to belt out a hymn or five, to proudly drop a quarter in the offering plate (and then repent of that pride shortly thereafter). I was a good girl. I wanted to please them all: God, my parents, my pastor, my Sunday School teacher, every single person who shared those hard-backed pews.

Together, we opened our mouths to sing of our blessed assurance, to savor that foretaste of glory divine. But shivering just beneath the blare of the organ, the laborious congregational Hallelujahs, I could feel the heat of the hellfire—banked and ready to burn.

Homework ‘Til Your Dying Day

A craft essay about how we writers are never done writing.
Published by Zero Readers, September 2024. Read here.

You love writing. You hate it. You can’t stop. You can’t get started. You fear the blank page. You crave it. You wish it were over. You can’t wait to begin.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, or young, when you first take up a pen or a keyboard. Once you’ve set ink to paper and blundered your way into magic, you cannot lay the words to rest. There will always be something more you could write.