Literary Works
Poetry
- A Nap In Venice
- A Prayer
- A Walk
- For A Long Marriage
- In Winter
- Jazz Man
- Mother Line
- Palm Sunday
- Plastic Wrap
- Severance
- Summer Stone
- Sunday Postlude
- The Ache
- The Blossom Time Is Coming (Hymn Translation)
- The October City Rots
- The Soloist
- Tonight's Apocalypse
Fiction
For Children
The Cable Cats (novel) - Middle Grade - 2017
The Cable Cats is the story of Juniper and Bastet Hobbes, sister and brother cats despised and chased off their home planet of alpha felines, and Ursula Hobbes, the grieving former First Kid of San Francisco, now a prisoner in her own home. Brought together by deeper forces than they initially realize, the trio stumbles through a last-ditch effort to rescue San Francisco from the fangs of Füry Byte, the cunning leader of the planet Wagnarök. But the Hobbes find that fur-ripping claws, flaming poo bombs, and deadly purrs and barks are nothing compared to the clash of their own conflicting ideas about who they really are and who they can trust.
Frankenstuffie - Board Book - 2017
Frankenstuffie is the story of a small girl who brings her beloved stuffie to life to help her with a school bully. Aka, it's a preschool Frankenstein.
How to Be A Cool Guy - Children's Literature - 2017
Griffin Wright, ordinary boy extraordinaire, is starting second grade at a new school and is desperate to make friends. But when did fitting in become so hard? Hmm, what if he wears not just one, but two sunglasses this year?! Read along as Griffin figures out how to be the coolest guy in second grade--or maybe not. Note: This is a partially completed story. Please feel free to finish it yourself (or have your child write the rest). I would love to read your versions.
For Adults
The Department of Evil
In development
Kara Becomes Funny (novella) - 2024
No one thinks Kara is funny—not her tech-sick husband and definitely not her disappearing, mushroom-loving daughter. But becoming funnier than anyone could ever imagine may be all Kara has to keep her barely there family together in the disintegrating reality of a world just around our corner. How funny can a middle-aged lady on the edge of losing it become? Lights up and mic on! Cue the talent ...
Mother Again (novella) - 2023
Desperate to escape the disintegrating United States, a failed singer, her husband, and three kids (and one irate cat) follow the advice of NPR and rematriate to Denmark—never mind that they have no family or cultural ties to the country (where is anyone from, really?). All seems to be going well, at first, until Ericka and the rest of her family have to confront what it means to find a new home in a world that has increasingly incompatible visions of what it means to be alive.
Desperate to escape the disintegrating United States, a failed singer, her husband, and three kids (and one irate cat) follow the advice of NPR and rematriate to Denmark—never mind that they have no family or cultural ties to the country (where is anyone from, really?). All seems to be going well, at first, until Ericka and the rest of her family have to confront what it means to find a new home in a world that has increasingly incompatible visions of what it means to be alive.
Pure Radical (novella) - 2022
Teri, a passionate teacher, is thunder on Twitter. So, she is flattered but not exactly surprised to be invited to a year-long retreat for the most radical voices on Twitter to build the utopian society of their dreams. After all, what could go wrong when 100 of the purest and loudest visionaries on the Internet live together in a harsh wilderness with only a bonfire, their increasingly surprising Twitter followers, and no possibility of leaving to bind them together?
Teri, a passionate teacher, is thunder on Twitter. So, she is flattered but not exactly surprised to be invited to a year-long retreat for the most radical voices on Twitter to build the utopian society of their dreams. After all, what could go wrong when 100 of the purest and loudest visionaries on the Internet live together in a harsh wilderness with only a bonfire, their increasingly surprising Twitter followers, and no possibility of leaving to bind them together?
Magic, Inc. (short story) - 2021
In a world where every breath is precious, Harriet, the woman who clawed her way out of the open-air toxic dump of rural California and into the pristine Palo Alto dome by climbing over just a few bodies, now has the next trillion-dollar idea: sell synthetic magic using a new bracelet app loaded with mood-controlling drugs. Yup, everyone loves the bracelet! But what price will the real magic of the world make her pay to breathe such rich air?
In a world where every breath is precious, Harriet, the woman who clawed her way out of the open-air toxic dump of rural California and into the pristine Palo Alto dome by climbing over just a few bodies, now has the next trillion-dollar idea: sell synthetic magic using a new bracelet app loaded with mood-controlling drugs. Yup, everyone loves the bracelet! But what price will the real magic of the world make her pay to breathe such rich air?
No one loves Amanda Janes.
Former political star, Amanda Janes, grew up on stories of her parents’ sparkling, terrible love story. A love story she wants to avoid repeating at all costs, particularly during her last-ditch, desperate run for mayor.
But one foggy Saturday morning, she meets a mesmerizing man on a crowded train heading into downtown San Francisco. He's reading the same political manifesto, finishes her sentences, and, try as she might, she can’t look away. In fact, when the doors open again, everything becomes possible--both love and the darkness that killed her mother and sent her infamous father to prison for life. But Amanda knows things are different this time, aren't they?
What won't Amanda Janes burn down to get everything she's ever wanted?
This is a modern Romeo & Juliet story set in the radical world of San Francisco politics.
The Good School (novel) - 2018
Rage comments fly when two very different moms stir up high-stakes controversy on the San Francisco Mothers Board, the uber-popular app for privileged moms. Chronically ambitious Jess Hayes (JessMom415) relies on her Mothers Board friends to ensure that she’s doing everything a (good) mom should do for her son, Blake. But she and her husband, Paul, reach a breaking point in their marriage when Jess’s anger over learning that Blake will be barred from private school prompts her to make a giant mistake with far-reaching consequences–including her position on the Mothers Board.
Megan Mosley (Meega), meanwhile, is a widowed mom grappling with how to remove her precocious son, Marcus, from an increasingly toxic school situation, pop the bubble of privilege that is the Mothers Board–and keep up with the flirty texts from a new man in her life. But her choices become far more dire when enemies on the Mothers Board jump into the local School Board race with a petition to make it easier to suspend her darling boy, and other kids like him. A chance meeting IRL sends both women—with the help of their good friends (including Johnson W, San Francisco’s legendary Kindergarten Whisperer)—on a journey together to rethink both who they want to be, on and off the Mothers Board, and what it means to send their children to a good school.