books (and other stories)
short fiction
"The Voyager" finds Marley about a year and a half after "Fault Lines" takes place, now living — and thriving — in Seattle, close to her twin brother Jamie and his boyfriend Nick. When a work trip takes Jamie across the counry, Marley is determined to look after a recently laid-off Nick in his abscence. But when confusing feelings for a coworker and the launch of NASA's Voyager 3 probe collide with her clumsy attempts at caretaking, she must realize that Nick's distress signals might look very different from her own. You can find it in Issue 7 of Wizards in Space or you can read it here!
"Or the Comeback of the Year" explores two timelines in the career of pop-punk wunderkind band the Heartbreak Phantoms. In the present, an article in a music journal celebrates the band’s return from hiatus, listing out their top 10 songs and inviting fans to sound off about what those songs mean to them. These anecdotes are interspersed with text messages chronicling the band’s dissolution three years earlier. Or: Fall Out Boy’s hiatus meets MCR’s return with a splash of Marianas Trench’s “Dearly Departed,” by way of The Last Five Years. Read it in Issue 2 of Groupie Mag!
"The Freewheelin' Daileen Aril" follows seventeen-year-old Daileen as she attempts to ask out the girl she likes through their mutual love of folk music in a near-future where the genre is on the verge of dying out. Although Daileen and Astella know each other IRL, all of their real, deep conversations happen on the fan forum for their favorite band Dezebel, and Daileen despairs of ever working up the nerve to confess her feelings for Astella in person. But when Astella makes a move to take their relationship into the real world, Daileen must decide if she's ready to step out of her carefully mastered groove — and go live. You can start reading it in Issue 1 of Groupie here, and finish it on Groupie's site here!
"Love Songs for Circumnavigation" follows Alma, who must come to terms with her asexuality as she decides whether or not to salvage her relationship with the boy she loves but won't let herself want — while they're both at the same concert, which just happens to be the tenth-anniversary show for Alma's favorite concept album, The Sound of Daybreak on the Ocean. If you like folk rock, band lore, hopeless (pan)romantics, and/or the Paradise Rock Club, you might enjoy this story. You can find it in Issue 5 of Wizards in Space or you can read it here!
"Fault Lines" follows Marley, a young woman named after — and obsessed with — her great-great-grandfather's apocalypse theory. As the penultimate event in his prediction looms on the horizon, Marley must reckon with the tiny apocalypses taking tolls on her life — her brother's new boyfriend, her thesis adviser's doubt, and her own tightly lidded loneliness — before the outcome of her great-great-grandfather's theory alters her carefully plotted course for good. You can find it in Issue 3 of Wizards in Space or you can read it here!
"Or the Comeback of the Year" explores two timelines in the career of pop-punk wunderkind band the Heartbreak Phantoms. In the present, an article in a music journal celebrates the band’s return from hiatus, listing out their top 10 songs and inviting fans to sound off about what those songs mean to them. These anecdotes are interspersed with text messages chronicling the band’s dissolution three years earlier. Or: Fall Out Boy’s hiatus meets MCR’s return with a splash of Marianas Trench’s “Dearly Departed,” by way of The Last Five Years. Read it in Issue 2 of Groupie Mag!
"The Freewheelin' Daileen Aril" follows seventeen-year-old Daileen as she attempts to ask out the girl she likes through their mutual love of folk music in a near-future where the genre is on the verge of dying out. Although Daileen and Astella know each other IRL, all of their real, deep conversations happen on the fan forum for their favorite band Dezebel, and Daileen despairs of ever working up the nerve to confess her feelings for Astella in person. But when Astella makes a move to take their relationship into the real world, Daileen must decide if she's ready to step out of her carefully mastered groove — and go live. You can start reading it in Issue 1 of Groupie here, and finish it on Groupie's site here!
"Love Songs for Circumnavigation" follows Alma, who must come to terms with her asexuality as she decides whether or not to salvage her relationship with the boy she loves but won't let herself want — while they're both at the same concert, which just happens to be the tenth-anniversary show for Alma's favorite concept album, The Sound of Daybreak on the Ocean. If you like folk rock, band lore, hopeless (pan)romantics, and/or the Paradise Rock Club, you might enjoy this story. You can find it in Issue 5 of Wizards in Space or you can read it here!
"Fault Lines" follows Marley, a young woman named after — and obsessed with — her great-great-grandfather's apocalypse theory. As the penultimate event in his prediction looms on the horizon, Marley must reckon with the tiny apocalypses taking tolls on her life — her brother's new boyfriend, her thesis adviser's doubt, and her own tightly lidded loneliness — before the outcome of her great-great-grandfather's theory alters her carefully plotted course for good. You can find it in Issue 3 of Wizards in Space or you can read it here!
novels in progress
Slow Notes Toward a Symphony of Longing is a contemporary paranormal sapphic retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice by way of Pushing Daisies. Also includes: summer-after-high-school existential dread, an electric string trio, queer friend groups, slow-burn ghost romance, and walking into the underworld for the girl you love.
Read the prologue and first chapter now on Voyage YA!
Read the prologue and first chapter now on Voyage YA!
Fix Me in Forty-Five is a contemporary queer YA novel about anxiety, toxic friendships, and how great it is to go to therapy. Also includes: art nerds; carpool-copilots-to-lovers; queer friend groups; a giant collaborative playlist; a super campy production of Dracula; putting on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.
If you look closely at this graphic, that's the playlist.
If you look closely at this graphic, that's the playlist.
Give 'Em Hell, Kid is a paranormal queer YA retelling of Hamlet by way of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade. Also includes: ghost-hunting; friends-to-lovers; drama club; questionable coping methods; your friendly neighborhood hearse.
@VickyCBooks on Twitter made this amazing doodle of one of the last lines of the book! I'm so excited and I want to put it everywhere.
@VickyCBooks on Twitter made this amazing doodle of one of the last lines of the book! I'm so excited and I want to put it everywhere.
