My 2024 Publications

I often struggle to put my publications on my website, so I thought I’d at least collect them all here this year with the hope that they migrate onto my website at some point. While often the writing process itself is what makes me feel whole, I do enjoy sharing my stories with readers, hoping to entertain and leave something resonant behind. There’s probably a time and place for a deeper essay on why I write and why I hope that my stories are read and enjoyed, so I’ll leave that for another time.

He Loved Her like an Open Wound Vestal Review

The pain wasn't obvious to an onlooker, but for him, it was always present, always throbbing, daring him to call out, to ask her to witness his agitation, and could she love him too?

Nothing So Easily Erased Cease, Cows

He kept an unfired shotgun shell in his pocket; the gun itself sold in a police auction. His mother refused to take it back. The house, too, was sold, his room untarnished, but she felt something black, insidious, coiling through the hallway;

Each Death Gets Us Closer Intrepidus Ink

A flipped boat, he clings to the metal bench seat slick with mossy water, his feet spasming in the unknown depths below him. Because at sixteen, there’s something fucked up about not knowing how to float or tread water.

A Particular Kind of Ruin 100 Word Story

After the fire, I walk among the ruins, shudder away from the creaking beams, and I think of your body whole and unscarred.

Nicknames for Sad Boys Echo the Longest Trampset

We’ve become the boys of the woods. The stars of an unplanned documentary. A small crew of camera men and a producer huddle around us at night hoping to catch us retreating back to our parents, to the well-lit hallways of our high school, to the anonymity of our social media avatars.

The Body Holds onto What it Needs ARROWSMITH Journal

They sit in camping chairs, at the edge of the lake, the water murky as they wait for the dark to crown the night and the fireworks to start.

A Place to Pray ARROWSMITH Journal

We hide under the porch among the dust and shit, waiting for their chairs to start rocking. The old boards pop like grandpa’s finger joints. He died a year ago and still the money hasn’t come in.

A Flat Spot Where the Grass Will Not Grow Ghost Parachute

Smalley sat on the hundred-year-old porch, hands gripping the red-rusted railing, the lawn chair seat threatening to bust, while his last brother, Eric, checked the flat tires on his Ford Ranger.

Loose Lips SWITCH

Her tongue refused to stay in her mouth. Skin slick, it played games with her shadow, winding its tacky texture through her legs and around her back, making it difficult to speak especially when confronted by a lover.

Until I Land Frazzled Lit

Adam cruises the passenger side tire over the sidewalk as I come running out the front door, my mother grabbing for me, dressed in light like a storefront mannequin.

The Ocean Raged, Surging for Miles Frazzled Lit

He watched her toes wiggle in the sizzling surf, the sound like distant fires, warning them of the flames to come. The sun a lemon drop in a static sky.

The Body Holds Onto What it Needs The Lascaux Review (Flash Contest Finalist)

“I’ve been seeing someone,” he says, between bites of kettle corn. The burnt sugar smell comes between them, and she wishes he’d stop chewing.

City. Night. Bursting. Your Impossible Voice

Look, I know I shouldn’t be looking, but the city heat has me out on the streets, the dusty air pushed between buildings by gliding cars, windows open, soft music orchestrating their growling engines down the road, bumper to bumper, red lights sending messages to the twinkling skies, exhorting their ownership over the land.

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Interviews:

Friday Five: Q&A with flash fiction writer and editor Tommy Dean by Andrew Careaga

1. How would you define flash fiction and how does it differ from the more traditional short story?

Flash relies on fewer opportunities, less guidance for the main character and the reader, more depth created by figurative language, and just-right details than accruement of backfill and backstory. Short stories and novels are the whole nine rounds of a boxing match, while flash is a duck of one punch, and the quick retaliation of a one-two punch for the knockout win.

Tommy Dean - In Conversation by Jennifer McMahon Frazzled Lit

Video

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Write with Me:

Catching Lightning: A Flash Reading/Writing Club

When: Fridays, February 28-April 4th (skipping March 28th) from 3-4:15 pm EST

online/Live, 9/15 spots left

In my generative Zoom classes, I often wish I had more time to invest in each example story, to fully expose its foundations, to bring to light the craft moves made by the writer, and to discuss the story’s merits with my students. I wish I had more time to build community with all of you, to find the joy in discussing the value of flash fiction and how exhilarating it can be to bend and break the traditional writing rules and precepts.

Frankly, I’d love to spend more time working together to find new ways of expressing craft moves and elements in our flash fiction, to learn from the masters of the form, to create an in-person form of community. To do that, I want to create this club, where we meet on Zoom 1 time per week to analyze and discuss 1-2 flash/micros and then spend time writing together.

How it works:

1. Meet 1x per week for 5 weeks (75 minutes per meeting)

2. Participants will receive the story/read the story before the meeting. (The group may decide to use a particular book, or stories will be found in litmags online).

3. I will develop a brief lecture/analysis on how the story(s) work to show a particular craft move(s).

4. We will discuss the story(s) as a group. Share as much or as little as you want each week.

5. I will provide a writing prompt based on the story(s). We will have time to write and share a piece of our draft.

6. At the end of five weeks, each participant can turn in a draft of one flash for my feedback/critique.*

Cost: $20 per session or $85 when paying for the full 5 weeks

*Participants must at least pay for 3 out of 5 sessions to receive a critique.

Writing Flash Fiction with Raymond Carver

March 9-23, 2025

Asynchronous using Canvas (free learning platform)

Cost: $140

9/12 spots left!

In this 2 week asynchronous workshop, we’ll use the work of Raymond Carver to investigate how to create tone and mood in our flash and micros. The way Carver’s characters long for and fight against isolation in an alienating world. We’ll focus on how Carver balances character, setting, and conflict while deploying his famous minimalism. How can we apply his craft moves to our own writing in 2025? Let’s find out together!

Participants will receive craft analysis of six Carver stories, have the opportunity to write to six Carver-inspired prompts, and receive positive feedback from their peers and the instructor. Prompts will be launched on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two weeks.