projects

Novel: Fancy Gap

My thesis project for University of Toronto’s MA in Creative Writing, Fancy Gap, is a novel about a family separated by illness and addiction in southern Appalachia. Religion, sexuality, amnesia and the region’s sociocultural failings propel two brothers and an estranged, self-radicalized, born-again grandmother into a cause de crise for the mountainous border region of western North Carolina and Virginia. This project was supervised by Pasha Malla.

Status: Editing for Publication

Poetry Collection: I Come Up From The Earth

A poetry collection written from 2009-2021. The collection began as a mediation on my own ontology and an exercise in meaning-making. As all art is somewhat correlated to experience, this collection is tethered to my ethical worries about serving in the US Army as a medic, a concurrent mental scream of ineffectual pain concerning my mother’s second bout with breast cancer, a sharp nostalgia upon returning to my home in the South to visit her, and a sense of consequence following my expansion and trespass into the very real worlds of others. The collection is primarily concerned with the waking dream of loss, the double exposure of memory, the circus of family, and the burning smell of sentimentality.

Status: Seeking publication. Poems completed with the help of Karen Solie and AF Moritz.

Short Story Collection: Mamas

Short stories about maternal devotion. Very much in-progress and developing.

Poetry Reading Series: Dirty Laundry

Click here for an interview about this. “Dirty Laundry” began as a poetry reading series in 2016. I imagined it as an event with a “relaxed performance” ethos and a dedication to diversity and accessibility. Relaxed performance is a trend that began in the mid 2010s in the UK, where accessibility of all types, not just physical or financial, is prioritized beyond a polished, sterile delivery of the creative material.

Dirty Laundry achieves this, in its own way, by bringing poetry (which has, unfortunately, climbed rung by rung into the inaccessible upper-echelons of the academy) back down to earth and ensuring that participation is made egalitarian, that representation is the primary concern and that no one is left out.

I found that laundromats, specifically in Toronto, go underutilized in some of the peak times in which it costs hundreds of dollars to host a reading night at a local bar, which, for many reasons beyond the financial barrier, are also often inaccessible to people who wish to participate in the arts. These “open all night” laundromats are situated, generally, in lower-income neighbourhoods, and are situated on the main level of a building, with eating areas, accessible, ground-floor washrooms, are well-lit and are close to public transit. Why not, then, host an exceptional experience, the performance of poetry, in an egalitarian, accessible space?

Beyond the logistics, the contrast between the quotidian, chore-like nature of the laundromats themselves, and the electric-feeling excitement of a poetry performance speaks volumes to how rare it is that we find ourselves participants in art while we are caught up in our daily tasks. Attendees of these events are asked to bring their laundry with them, to wash it and fold it as the poetry and stories of the speakers unfold before them.

In keeping with the “relaxed performance” ethos, the laundromat remains open to its regular customers who are encouraged to participate in whatever manner they desire. This has led to impromptu readings by people in the community in which the laundromat is located, surprise guest-readers of certain literary notoriety, and a general feeling of camaraderie and closeness that, I believe, makes the event stand out as one of community and the sharing of art, rather than the elitist, promotional feeling that can be found at more prim and proper literary events.

Status: Dirty Laundry continues to this day! Mostly in Hamilton, Ontario, as hosted by Monday Press