What have I written so far? Besides the hardware and software manuals I wrote as a technical writer, I've written short stories for children and for adults, poems, several humor pieces, some informative articles, and a few personal essays. My primary focuses are fiction and humor, so I often write humorous fiction.

I've finished drafts of two novels: Chasing Monday, a coming-of-age novel about a 15-year-old girl, and Purple Panic, a quirky midgrade book involving chewing gum. My other novels in progress include Can't Beet It, a humorous YA novel about a guy with a lousy job, and End of the Line, a YA novel about the aftermath of a suicide. If I can nail the logistics down, I may also try a time travel novel, tentatively titled Since You're Gone. I also have several picture book manuscripts in various stages of development, and ideas for chapter book and middle grade series.

Want to sample my writing? I'm not comfortable putting my current writing projects on the web, but there are links below to a few of my previous manuscripts that are online. You can also read some of my first (and a few second) sentences, as a teaser.

Published Works

• Mom's Five-Star Good-Bye, The First Line
  
• Several short articles and profiles, Garden Center magazine
• Humorous anecdote, Today's Christian magazine
• Owen Nolan's Square-Wheeled Bike, Summer Shorts anthology from Blooming Tree Press
• High Dive, Summer Shorts anthology from Blooming Tree Press
• In With The Old, Once Upon A Time
• Oh, I Wished I Were an Oscar Mayer Winner, SCBWI Bulletin
  
• Falling Through the Quacks, Tall Tales and Short Stories, Vol. II from Tall Tales Press
  
• A Name for All Time, The First Line
  
• High Dive, Guideposts for Kids
  
• Supplication, Purpose
  
• All's Fair at Science Fairs, On the Line
  
• The Diet, Peeks & Valleys
  
• Mom's Chair, Welcome Home
  
• Inside Out House, Guideposts for Kids
  
• Fast Food for Thought, ByLine
  
• By Any Other Name, Welcome Home
  
• Goofy About Writing, ByLine
  
• When the Muse Strikes Out, Once Upon A Time
  
• Holly McPolly McDolly McBean, Half-Price Books' 2001 Say Good Night to Illiteracy collection
  
• Mine was one of three poems from the book read aloud by singer/songwriter Sara Hickman on a promotional CD for Half-Price Books' charitable Half Pint Libraries program.
  
• Dear Editor, Once Upon A Time
  
• Making Your Place on the Corporate Intranet, Intercom
  
• Rabbit Fever, published as Crazy as a March Hare over Dusty, Austin American-Statesman
• The Canon and the Can, CheeseNet (this one hardly counts as published, but I like it, anyway!)
  

Under Development

• If I Were Little
  
• Red Feather
  
• Can't Beet It
  
• Sage Struck
  
• Car Troubled
  
• For Better or For Worse
  
• The Jungle in My House
  
• Lainie and Jill
  
• Through the Glass
  
• Toothless Wondering
  
• Second Looks
  
• Ending Some of It
  
• A manuscript about flamingos
  
• a YA time travel manuscript
  
• a humorous chapter book mystery series
  
• The Zoo That Grew
  
• Magic Socks
  
• Warm Day in Winter
  
• Pig for a Night
  
• Uh-Oh
  
• Purple Panic
  
• Quench
  
• Chasing Monday
  
• End of the Line
  

          and various others in early stages....

Updated 9/11/08