Forking Paths: Memoirs and Essays

This collection of creative nonfiction (54,000 words) explores an ethnic past as well as a coming of awareness on issues such as evolving gender roles in our society, materialism, the validity of art, religion today, the force of imagination, finding yourself in the gray middle, war, hypocrisy, and the current state of fiction writing. Excerpt.


fiction

Lexicon

A collection of 16 stories (50,000 words) bearing one-word titles which explore issues of identity, or characters finding themselves at odds with the world around them. "Ada" is about a divorced woman in late middle-age who has been successful in arranging her life around no one but her. She sees her children when she wants to, sees men when she wants to, cooks her favorite dinners nightly, and is ultimately both satisfied and not with it all. "Ertug" centers around an aging poet who takes a one-way trip on a ship through deep space. He studies constellations, nebulae, etc., and sees his life’s stories in them, and communicates back to earth through a diary. Eventually a granddaughter, fed up with life on earth and endeared to him, decides to leave earth also after reading his diary. The three main characters of "Antiques" are siblings who are scrambling to break up their dead parents’ house. Each has an idea of who should get what, and the disagreements that arise reflect the dysfunctionality of their family life. "View" is a story about an old tavern in an all-white old suburb, a popular hang-out for all ages, but inhabited by the African American ghosts of the Underground Railroad. A teenage boy who passes by the bar often on the way to his girlfriend’s house is the only one to see and understand the ghosts. A couple of crimes arise and the owners blame some African American outsiders (who come to the bar). "Censored" has a main character who has dreams about wearing clothes form distant eras. He begins to drop off clothing items to fellow office-workers based on their ethnic pasts. As he does this more regularly, he begins to disappear. Finalist, Snake Nation short fiction competition. Excerpt.


The Shoemaker

A story (36,000 words) which follows the lives of two men: Pietro, an Italian who emigrates to America with his family in the 1920’s, and Manny, his great-grandson, who emigrates to California from Pittsburgh in the 1990’s. Though they have never met, they share certain personality traits and obsessions. Pietro is by trade a shoemaker, and Manny is obsessed with finding the perfect pair of shoes. They are both loud and adventurous, but uncertain of changing societal roles and the new lives they find themselves facing. Pietro is sometimes wistful of the old life in Abruzzi, represented by his beloved grandfather Fiorentino, while Manny is entering a mid-life period of wondering where and why he is. Their lives intersect when Manny (a graphic artist) discovers an old, tattered photograph of Pietro and restores it back to life. The tone of this book is reflective, sometimes magical, and often humorous. Excerpt.


Letters from Novosibirsk

An unusual novel (36,200) in which a group of colonists in New Siberia (of the late 21st century) communicate to the rest of the world via a journal in which they offer their profound advice on how to change it for the better. Each of these iconoclasts thinks he or she has the answer for saving human civilization. Trouble is, a group of ghosts in their town (previously known as Vydrino) does not welcome them, nor their attitudes. They pop up at unexpected turns, though never too concretely, to try and rattle the newcomers into a more humane existence. Some of the characters are Wynnet (a statistician who has devoted himself to information), Todd (a monarchist), Kolya (a ghost who died too young and wants to be born again to have another chance), and Karyne (an activist who preaches against eating parsnips). In the end no one’s life is what it used to be—including the ghosts’. Excerpt.


Signs

A magical story (40,000 words) in which two young adults who had known one another in childhood are reunited, accidentally, during their stays in Europe. The first part of the book describes their separate journeys and the extent to which their lives are unfulfilling; the second part describes their reunion and how imagination and creativity play into their sudden feelings: they both notice objects around them that communicate their own thoughts and feelings back to them. Excerpt.


Tales of North and South

This is a collection of related stories and vignettes (42,000 words) which describe characters in a mythical city which is divided into the equal parts of North and South. The North can be considered a progressive and far-reaching place, while the South is more traditional and emotionally intense. In the North we find such characters as a middle-aged librarian whose unusual trip to the South one day to have her hair done shocks her into realizing that her life has come to a standstill, three people sitting down to write letters whose thoughts end up connecting, and a young girl who watches dust motes fall all day. In the South there is a very tall woman (“Big”) who explains to her sons what being tall doesn’t mean, a family whose midnight exodus to a neighbor’s is to see a plant that blooms once every seven years, and a dumpling festival.


poetry

A number of poems in the following collections have appeared in literary magazines. See publications.

Painting a Disappearing Canvas

Rooted in the past and leaning toward the future, Painting a Disappearing Canvas lets alternate times burn through and overlap one another in moments of solitude. These poems take note of the shadows of forgotten landscapes, the shadows of lost family members, and the shadows of war. Excerpt.


The Jester's Court

The Jester’s Court is subdivided into the following sections: Hidden Kings, Barred, Anonyms, Time in Two, Flying Over, Heaven’s Must, The Voices, and Light Breaks. These are poems that connect family ties, historical perspectives, the natural world, and anonymous beauty in a broken world where chance reunions occur and glimpses of another reality poke through the rent fabric of daily life. Excerpt.


children's book

Sylvester and His Polka Dots

A duck named Sylvester hoards a bag of colorful polka dots and hides all day in his hole. But the polka dots become restless; during one of Sylvester's long walks they begin jumping out of the bag and attaching to things of like color. This upsets Sylvester, who must gather them and put them back into his bag. But then he reconsiders... Excerpt of writing and sample illustrations.