Angel of Hope Memorial at Leif Erikson Park in Duluth, MN. It represents hope and healing for parents who lost a child of any age.

Read “The Sisterhood of Bereaved Mothers” on Mothers Always Write.

This piece won fourth place in the April 2017 Micro-essay Contest. The challenge was to write about something good that sprouted from something else. I wrote about how my daughter Acacia’s funeral helped my mom to heal from the loss of her daughter, Esther, forty-eight years earlier.

“Coyotes from Kazakhstan” appeared in the Summer issue of Sixfold.

This contemporary story follows the journey of Faith, who is struggling to prioritize her marriage, career, and daughter while recovering from the trauma of a stillbirth. The story explores the balance between the seen and unseen worlds and one’s inability or unwillingness to see the truths that are obvious to everyone else.

My inspiration for the story was a slumber party when the girls insisted they’d seen coyotes prowling near the house. The next afternoon, I learned that our bank account had been hacked by someone in Kazakhstan. At the time, I pondered the connection between the girls’ hysteria and what might have been happening in the unseen spiritual realm. I fleshed that idea out in this story.

Read “Love in the Wings” on TwoSistersWriting.com.

This contemporary short story won the “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” contest sponsored by Two Sisters Writing and Publishing. The website challenged authors to submit stories that used Elton John’s song as inspiration–either the song’s plotline or any of its words. Since The Wizard of Oz has been a favorite movie and book in my family for decades, I wanted to enter a story that paid homage in my own small way to L. Frank Baum’s classic.

In this story, I imagine a divorced mother of two teens who decides to re-enter the dating scene when her good friend finds her soulmate on the hot new online dating site, Love-in-the-Wings. This lighthearted story is a perfect read for spring–when love is in the air. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Read “The Case of the Curious Wall,” on TheSame.Blog.

In this memoir essay, I describe the healing journey God led me on after I lost my daughter at age fourteen months. Twenty years later, God showed up again with more healing mercies and in a most surprising way.

Read “Day of the Frying Pan” in the December 2018 issue of Junto Magazine.

This memoir essay describes a day during my childhood when I came face to face with my family’s dysfunction.

Coming Soon: Flying Ketchup Press will be publishing short story collections in 2019, and two of my stories, “Time Race,” a science fiction story, and “Sir Manfred’s Secret,” a light romance, will be featured.