I’m interested in what’s stuffed in the closet, what’s underneath the dresser, the messes we make of things we don’t want to see. Pasts, presents, and futures tangled up behind doors, forming shapes we never intended, blossoming into the surreal.
I write stories about these shapes because it’s the only way I can understand what’s happened in my own life. I converted to a conservative sect of evangelical Christianity my sophomore year of college, and left the movement when I was halfway through twenty-six. The perspective I gained during my seven years inside has forever changed my view of how to tell stories, and which stories, urgently, need to be told.
I’ve written a memoir about my time in evangelical Christianity, from what drew me into the movement to how I finally broke free. With personal narrative and critical analysis entwined, I explore the well-oiled missionary machine I was a part of, as well as the vast implications it has on our current political landscape.
My work has appeared in Helping Orphans Worldwide (H.O.W.) Journal, Carrier Pigeon, Publisher’s Weekly, BORT Quarterly, and elsewhere. In 2011, I was selected by Mary Gaitskill as the first place winner of the H.O.W. Journal fiction contest for my story, “The Repository Emporium”. I have been an editor, reader, and reviewer for The Literary Review since 2009.