Writing &
Illustration
As a queer nerd growing up in southern Texas, tractors and stacked bails of hay were my space shuttles and extraterrestrial landscapes. Reading science-fiction and fantasy helped me escape the rough world of rodeos and rigid gender norms. And drawing and writing imaginative fiction allowed me to envision who I wanted to be and the kind of world I wanted to help create.
This childhood love of speculative story led me to study film, theater, fiction and studio art at Southern Methodist University. Then, in graduate school at North Carolina State University, I studied counseling and began to assist others in authoring their own lives. My graduate degree led to a sixteen-year career advising young adults and creating inclusive learning environments. While that work sidelined larger creative endeavors, I never stopped nurturing story ideas and making sketches of scenes and characters. I’m grateful I kept those fires burning because I’m now able to dedicate more time to passion projects.
Here are some examples of things I've been working on.
In September 2022, I wrote and illustrated a qigong workbook and journal. This is one of the first few pages of the workbook: a coloring page explaining some of the attributes of the Three Treasures. The workbook is available in print and can be purchased here.
I’m currently completing a young adult graphic novel. It's a queer ghost story about a lonely teen finding the community he’s been yearning for in some unexpected places.
I’ve also been working on two young adult science fiction novels taking place in a shared universe.
One follows a trio of friends from childhood to adulthood as interplanetary power struggles change their world and test their bonds.
In the other YA sci-fi novel, former friends on opposite sides of a fierce political divide must work together to uncover buried secrets in order to save their people.
Back in 2017, I devoured every novel and story from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle. I was so inspired by Le Guin’s rich worldbuilding and artful character development that I wrote and illustrated a fan book called Worlds of the Ekumen. This image shows characters Genly Ai and Estraven from Le Guin's book The Left Hand of Darkness.
In 2014, I created a short comic about the spirit of Jack Kerouac leading a lovelorn college student through a humorous meditation on the psychology of desire.
Please refrain from using or sharing any of these images or story ideas without permission. If you're interested in gaining permission for use, please contact me.