art

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Hobart Magazine's Baseball Issue!

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I am so excited to share new artwork with you all… and my first piece of creative nonfiction too!

Hobart Magazine editor-in-chief Aaron Burch was amazing to work with on all three art pieces commissioned for the annual baseball-focused issue, as well as on my essay about the ‘89 World Series and falling in love with the magic of baseball as a kid in the Bay Area that was also featured in the issue.

You can read the essay here, and read the poems and stories I got to pick out by clicking on the image of the art I created for each piece.

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End of Year Round Up

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2021 Fiction, Poetry, & Art

Four of my illustrations from various publications (detailed below).

I’ve never written an End of Year Round Up / Awards Eligibility post before. Writing takes a while to get from a daydream you're trying to wrestle into words and the actual story you hold in your hands. I'm thrilled these stories made their way into the world this year. All these stories (and a poem!) mean the world for me to be able to share with you all. There’s literary, fantasy, science fiction, and pop culture represented—a little something for everyone.

Almost all of these pieces are viewable online but if any nominating readers or editors would like to read my science fiction story “Experiment Ninety-Four” in Collective Realms Magazine*, published Winter 2021 but now out-of-print, I can provide a copy for you if you reach out to me via my Contact page.

Thank you if you consider voting for me, but just as big of thanks if you just take the time to read. More stories will debut in 2022. Meanwhile, I'm busy on two novels (one in its first draft, one in revision). I met my New Year's courage goal of FINALLY submitting a poem (I have five weeks left to sub nonfiction!)

It was a good writing year.

Short Fiction:

  • “A List of Everyone in the World” in Hypertext Magazine’s Winter Issue. A queer, nonbinary love story between a misanthrope and social butterfly.

  • “Experiment Ninety-Four” in Collective Realms Magazine*, January/February 2021. A science fiction short story featuring a boy alone on a space station, who yearns to escape and find his own path in life.

  • “Stitched’ in The Future Fire, July 2021. A feminist re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood for people who typically hate both that particular story and fairytale retellings in general. A queer and neurodivergent myth, it’s an exploration of an outcast driven to confront her own untamed nature. You can read Charles Payseur’s (Quick Sips Review) praise for the story here.

Poetry:

Art:

  • “Dawn Treader Station” in Collective Realms Magazine’s January/February 2021 issue.*

  • “Cara” and “Tethered” in The Future Fire’s July 2021 issue. You can read about the art, especially one of the pieces being an homage to beloved illustrator Trina Schart Hyman, here.

  • The entirety of the online issue for Hypertext Magazine’s Winter 2020/2021 issue, including three pieces which were nominated by the editors for a Best of the Net award in Art.

*Collective Realms shut down in June 2021 and the EIC took the site offline. The story is currently off on submission for a reprint market, but you can read the PDF here until then.

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New Art and A Story in the July Issue of The Future Fire

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a woman in blue looks through a mirror, but her reflected image is a wolf, not herself.

(Adapted from two posts originally published on my Patreon.)

I have new art pieces that are up with a brand new story of mine. The illustrations and my latest story, "Stitched", is in the July issue of The Future Fire. You can read it at the link, or as an ebook available on their site. 

Thanks to Djibril al-Ayad for publishing this story, and for commissioning two pieces of art to accompany it. I'll be doing a post this week about the art, but for now, I hope you all enjoy this story!

art of a woman drawn in a fairy tale style, her red cloak blowing in the wind

About the Art:

They commissioned two pieces from me. The image you see here is a personal one. One of my favorite illustrators is an artist named Trina Schart Hyman. I used to hunt for her books when I was a kid. I didn't know why I gravitated towards her books, but something about the style enchanted me. Her images are the bottom right two, mine is on the top and the bottom left. 

When I do commissions for artwork for an author or poet for website design, I often ask my clients to send me artwork that inspires them and then we choose a direction together for the artwork. I wanted to do something similar for myself: do one piece in my style (which is below) and the other as an homage to an influence of mine. 


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Illustrations and Short Story in Hypertext Magazine

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My commissioned illustration to accompany my short story, “A List of Everyone in the World”

My commissioned illustration to accompany my short story, “A List of Everyone in the World”

A few months ago, I got some wonderful news. A short story I had submitted to Hypertext Magazine, “A List of Everyone in the World”, was accepted for publication in their Fall 2020 issue. The editors also nominated my story for the Best American Short Stories 2020 anthology.

I was so excited by this. I love this story of a misanthropic girl swept off her feet by a person and having to challenge her own fears of opening up in order to give her heart a chance to grow. And as happy as I was that it found a home with Hypertext, I was completely blown away that the editors gave it the anthology nomination.

You can read it here.

But another opportunity popped up from this interaction with Hypertext beyond the literary. When I was communicating with the editors on the final copy of the story, I offered to draw something to accompany my story. I figured, why not? I sent the editors my art portfolio. The worst they could say was no.

Christine Maul Rice, the editor-in-chief of Hypertext Magazine got back to me a week later. She asked if I could do more than an illustration for my story; she asked if I could create a new illustrated masthead for their site and draw a custom spot illustration for each piece in their December 2020 issue.

Chris and I worked closely over the last two months on the masthead and she gave me prompts on every piece featured in the magazine with the exception of my own story. I had so much fun working on these pieces and I’m incredibly proud that my story is appearing both online and in print with Hypertext with this art, and I was so excited to create art for the other amazing writers in this issue.

Below is a collection of the images, but I encourage you to go to Hypertext and read all the fantastic stories and essays that these were created to accompany.

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Welcome to April!

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Welcome to April!

I'm going to start April off with some news about the new documentary, some artwork, updates on my fantasy story draft that I've been releasing through my Patreon, funding resources if you're struggling with COVID setbacks, and some of my favorite recipes from March.

My husband and I have lost so much work through film, websites, graphic design, and just regular day job loss in the last several weeks. I'm so grateful we've stayed healthy, for the most part, through March. It's a lot of uncertainty, not just for us, but for everyone. For those of you still investing, I will make sure April is full of recipes, stories, and art to help us all get through this tough time together.