Writing

Ramshackle Knight ~ A Folk Tale

"After snarky and resourceful Princess Aura is abducted, the worst possible person sets out to rescue her: Derwyn. Being bumbling, cowardly, and weak, Aura may just have to rescue herself and her unqualified hero before he gets everyone killed."

My first novel and a labor of love for over 10 years, Ramshackle Knight is a trip through the messed-up world that folk tales create and offers a look at why we've always wanted to save the princess, and why she deserves to be saved.

Available now on Kindle.

Theatrical Adaptations and Playwriting

I have adapted several HP Lovecraft Short Stories into Stage Plays for Mercurial Theatre Company in Austin, TX
Those plays are

There are others on the way, as well as original scripts for the stage. Some of those adaptations include:

At the Mountains of Madness
The Festival
The King in Yellow
Macbeth
The Thing on the Doorstep
et al

Follow along at Mercurial Theatre.

Short Fiction

Mask

Darkness. Each breath returns humid moisture to my face, and my eyes are straining to open but cannot lift an extra weight. A bristle tickles the back of my ears and a pain is arising in my chest. I feel my internal arms and I spur them to awaken and move about. They move helplessly above me grasping at the void before reaching closer to my face. The cool air lashes my burning forehead as the sheet is pulled from my face. Then the light from the streetlamp outside lets my eyes know that they are still in working order. My mouth is released and the moisture that had collected was now absorbing the crisp air of the night. My hands plant themselves into the shag fibers and I move up to face the window. The orange fog of light barely makes its presence known. My head twists sideways and a refreshing pop clears my ears....

Mask

Wind Chimes

I turn away from my bible for the last time and look out the window again. Yellow fields of dried-up wheat and a dusty road say the same thing they had been saying to me: He’s not here. And this last time said what I had felt for weeks: he’s not coming back. I guess the last half of your life, you cry a lot.

Wind Chimes

Fortune Chuckles

“Is everybody ready to boogie down!?”
            That’s not something anybody wanting others to have a good time should say. He might as well have said ‘everybody Wang Chung tonight’. From the look of him, “Wild Wayne” the DJ looks like he’s been doing wedding receptions for a while.
            Relatives and strangers at varying levels of intoxication dance all around me to whatever beats Wayne decides to put down, and for the most part they’re the most cliché reception songs possible. That’s why I choose not to dance. You have to play just the right thing if you want me to grace the dance floor. That’s how I justify my sitting at this table pulling dust bunnies from my corduroy suit. That’s another reason I’m not getting up; my wickedly stylish suit makes dancing a BO cultivating ritual. And that’s something I do not need to rush.

Fortune Chuckles

Mr. Nice Guy Loser Man

“What is your biggest problem with the opposite sex?” she read from the list.
I enjoy these silly exercises. They’re one of the main reasons I love Interpersonal Communication so much. Just about every class we group up in a circle, stare at each other, and answer prompts like “What was your most embarrassing moment?” or “what would you do if you could read minds?” The other members of my small group share their answers first, each varying in eloquence and honesty.
“I’d have to say, basically… the way girls think different than from they act,” says the dude with the flattop.
“The way girls let stupid shit bother them,” says the guy whose name is Jim, Jerry, or something else with a J.

Mr. Nice Guy Loser Man

The Joker

“This is the epitome of stupidity. You realize that, don’t you?”
Willy can be so supportive in a time of crisis. He removes his thick-framed glasses, wipes them off of his white button-up, and shakes his head of precisely cut hair as he puts them back on. We’re sitting in an urgent care facility and I’m holding my finger up, tightly bound in paper towels. The doctor has kept me waiting for at least two hours and my head is getting cold with sweat again.
“Is the air getting less… you know, airey?” I ask, my eyes glazing over as I sway to the right.

The Joker

Float On

Polychromatic glass shards exploded in all directions as the old lamp hit the hardwood. All Peter could do was stand there in the doorway holding the second to last box and gape at the beautiful chaos that he was powerless to prevent. He put the box down and shuffled carefully to where the remains lay. Speaking to his deceased lamp, he said, “I could have sworn I put you in the center of the table.”

Float On