Novels

Through Bended Grass is a work-in-progress and my first novel.

Short Fiction

Whisperwind
   Whisperwind is a project I wrote for my creative writing class. What’s a bit more significant is that I used it to explore a couple of characters that have been floating around in my head, and connect heavily to my second (as yet unnamed) novel. It's the story of a young pickpocket on the streets of Marrakech and his encounter with a mysterious man and an even more mysterious girl. I won’t say much, but you certainly haven’t seen the end of Whisperwind or the nameless boy.

   Read: Whisperwind

The Harsh Mistress
   When charged with writing a Horror story for my writing class, I had absolutely no idea where to start. I don’t read Horror and I don’t like scary movies. Hell, I don’t even dress up on Halloween. I’m not a scary guy. Seeking advice, many people suggested that the best horror comes from writers writing about what scares them. Even then, I was stumped. Then my girlfriend reminded me of Aokigahara Forest in Japan. From there, The Harsh Mistress was born.

   Read: The Harsh Mistress

Piss and Vinegar
   Piss and Vinegar is a piece of short fiction written for the Creative Writing class I’m currently enrolled in. This class asks us to step outside of our comfort zone and write in genres we’re not familiar with. The first of these was Crime Fiction/Mystery. Piss and Vinegar is my answer to that.

To inspire myself, I wanted to tie the short fiction from this class into some of my larger WIPs, to give me a playground to discover some of the settings and characters that may come to play in novels down the road. Piss and Vinegar ties into my next project, a loose follow-up to Through Bended Grass that takes place in the same universe, but features a whole new scenario and set of characters. One major player from this story plays an important role in that novel.

Due to the limited scope of the assignment (1,500ish words), I decided to work on character and scene setting, rather than trying to setup a proper beginning-middle-end story arc. Ambiguous ending? Yeah. Sorry ’bout that. Tune in later to find out more about what happened to our surly detective and his mysterious assassin.

   Read: Piss and Vinegar

Big Blue Malibu
   This short story follows an unnamed woman through three moments in the span of her life and explores the impact that other people, even strangers, can have on our lives and futures.

Big Blue Malibu was prompted by an encounter I had with a woman in a summer class while in college. She gave me a book to read, having spoken of the power the book had over her in the past, and I read it. The book had a great effect on the way I now look at the world and I have this random woman from my class to thank for that. It startles me to think that someone who I only knew for a few short weeks could have such an impact on how I look at the world, and it startles me even more to know that, now that she has graduated, I probably won't ever speak to her again. This story is a reflection of those feelings.

   Read: Big Blue Malibu

Ferry Traffic
   The story here concerns a young man who, while riding a ferry, overhears a phone call that opens his eyes to the realities of the world. There is a lot of myself in this story, both in the young man and in the characters surrounding him and the story went through many revisions before I felt that it did justice to the ideals that prompted me to write it.

Ferry Traffic explores exactly what it means when someone says, 'Don't judge a book by its cover'. The world is a complicated place and we can't take anything at face value.

   Download: Ferry Traffic

Funerals
   Funerals was written not long after the death of my girlfriend's great-grandfather. It was a time when I was thinking greatly about what it means to be alive and it was those explorations of life that prompted me to write Funerals. Music is a powerful thing in my life and so I wasn't surprised to see it sneaking its way into Funerals. The choice of songs in Funerals was very deliberate and speak greatly about not only the characters but myself as well.

Funerals was short-listed for the Nanaimo Arts Council Short Fiction Award in 2006.

   Download: Funerals

Flash Fiction

What We Left Behind
   Just a fun little piece of Flash Fiction. It’s Romance week in my writing class and I was tasked with writing the first page of a Romance short story. I turned it into a somewhat self-contained piece of Flash fiction. What’s ‘her’ secret? You probably don’t want to know. Neither does her husband.

   Read: What We Left Behind

The Office
   The Office is the story of a young music journalist and her maniacal boss. It's a piece of Flash Fiction (1,150 words) originally written in about 45 minutes for a writing group assignment. To overcome these roadblocks, I went with a dialogue-heavy approach that really let me fit in a lot of character in a short amount of time.

   Download: The Office

Blogs

A Dribble of Ink
   A successful literary blog featuring articles, reviews, interviews and commentary on the Speculative Fiction genre. Authors I have worked with include Robin Hobb, Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, Michael Swanwick and Brandon Sanderson.

Mightier than the Sword
   An on-again, off-again blog following my adventure as I write my first novel. A place for me to muse on the life of a writer and the publishing industry in general.