"The first and only time I visited the Montana State Training School/Boulder River School/MDC was in November 2016. I had a funny feeling that day as I wandered the historic south campus, trying doors and pressing my forehead against windows. I felt as if I were spying, though no one had lived in those buildings [...]
Words with the Dead
"At first when writing my novel, I kept trying to capture my mother’s love for her home, her wanderings, her childhood dreams and games, but as I wrote I knew I wasn’t getting it. That first vision of my mother in the cottonwood flurry was a vision from my own life, not hers, and I’ve [...]
Cindy Will Not Be a Waitress in the Afterlife
"Although she excelled at making potholders, Cindy wanted to be a waitress at the Park Cafe in Anaconda when she turned twenty-one. But her twenty-first birthday came and went and she never did land that job. It wasn’t possible. There were no community-based services for people with disabilities. There were no job coaches to help [...]
New film based on Katabasis
Katabasis is an essay I wrote about my mother's death and the regret that plagued me in the years following. It is anthologized in Bright Bones from Open Country Press (https://brightbonesmontana.com/). The soundtrack was composed with tinfoil and a bottle using my iPhone.
Guest blog post up at Submittable
"I have tended to live my life as if there are guarantees: as if writing will wait patiently for me until I am ready to do it, or have time and energy to focus, or feel mentally well enough to devote myself. But after the 2016 presidential election, all that changed." Read the entire essay [...]
New essay-based film: Sing
https://youtu.be/nypXYu2xToA I completed a new essay-based film during my writing hiatus. This one is based on "Sing," published in the The Nervous Breakdown in May 2017. This is probably the most composed score I've done. I used to be in a bell choir, and I think you'll be able to hear the influence. There are about 9 [...]
New film–last film for a while
This is the last film for a while, and the first film in which I've attempted to capture some of my writing. It's based on the first paragraph of my essay, Orphan Girl, which sounds like it's about coal and copper and mining, and it kind of is, but really, it's about depression. It was [...]
