Selected Writing

"Chilean Fruit Bats"; in Joyland

"In the corner by a bookshelf full of tattered spines stands an old telephone booth in that same shade of faded, forgotten white. The cavity where a payphone had once lived lays open inside it like a wound. She considers entering it for privacy –– or ceremony –– then imagines the countless tourists in peak season, holding tiny devices up to their faces, or gesturing with both hands as shiny cordless buds sit perched in their ears. She cannot help but think how someone from the original era of this room, and such telephone booths, might mistake these people for crazy, talking to their palms or into nothing at all. This absence we equate with modernity."

"Just Visiting"; in Joyland

"By evening, a German man would swear he had seen the woman in orange leave, walking quickly towards the train station where he had taken his wife, suddenly ill with a stomach ache; a Chinese couple would attest that she had gotten in a car with a strange man, kissed him and put her heels up on the dashboard; and a child would say he saw her, naked, in the trees."

"Oh,Galileo"; in The Seventh Wave

"The purple haze of Jupiter surrounds us in its cool-toned glow. Sparks suspended from the campfire atop our teeny tiny asteroid flicker into the air. Our own, defiant atmosphere. A passing asteroid narrowly misses us and I turn to Aaron, his smile bright against my flashlight. He’s pleased with himself. I can see why."

"In the Silence, we all scream"; in DrDOCTOR

"The sunlight is so blindingly white above us now that it seems blank, but I know that’s not true. I lift my hand toward the sky and suck the last of my ice cream through the bottom of the cone. The bright pastel covers a plain vanilla, but I can still taste the sunset."