Stories for Adults

Short Stories

It is challenging to synthesize my varied interests and characters into one genre. Short stories have become an outlet for this. As an Association of Writing Professionals Mentee in 2020, I developed short stories with senior protagonists in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. My characters deal with aging but retain enough agency to pursue their wants.

“For the Love of Dottie,” a cozy mystery set in a retirement community, earned third place the 2022 Bethlehem Writers Workshop Short Story Contest.

Two of my veteran short stories are available online:

1. “Final Respects” concerns a Vietnam veteran’s struggle to find a meaningful inscription for his late wife’s headstone.
   
2. “No Old Bold Pilots” features a retired reconnaissance pilot who contemplates leaving his wife to reconnect with his best friend and co-pilot from the old days.

Poetry

I turn to poetry when prose seems inadequate. A sample of my poetry can be found in the link below.

In “Penelope and I,” a woman contemplates the possibility of losing her husband and son when they leave for war.