"when asked if, as a veteran teacher, I've gotten used to it" published in the final issue of Pedestal Magazine

Many years ago, when I started sending my work into the world, I came across The Pedestal Magazine. It became my white whale, the place I kept sending work to, and being rejected.

As my writing improved, I received personalized rejections, making it clear that they were taking my work seriously. Then the personalized rejections turned into “you were among the finalists,” but still didn’t make it into the pages.

During this time, the published wonderful reviews of both the Colored page and The Third Renunciation


After 25 years, Pedestal has published their last issue, and my poem “when asked if, as a veteran teacher, I’ve gotten used to it” has been included in its pages.

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"Protection" [CNF] published in Portrait of New England

“I started carrying a knife in my junior year of high school. It was around the same time a big brother figure lent me a copy of the novel Vertical Run. The plot: a business executive named David Elliot walks into his office one morning, and his boss aims a gun at his head. He survives the encounter, but a band of ruthless mercenaries shows up attempting to put a bullet or 12 in his back. Dave, a Vietnam vet, has no idea why everyone wants him dead, but he’s more focused on making it out of the high-rise alive than solving the mystery. It was a great read and became one of the handful of books I’ve voluntarily read more than once. While the prose isn't Nobel Prize worthy, it did contain a scene that spoke to something in my anxious mind—a flashback wherein Dave’s unit receives advice from “the Black Mamba,” a colonel they served under. When I later bought my own copy, I dog-eared the page, highlighted the quote, and went about memorizing it.

And what do logic and reason tell us, gentlemen? What they tell us is this: when someone shoots at you, the only rational response is to — with dispassion and dispatch — render that enemy incapable of shooting at you again. There is, gentlemen, no reasonable alternative to this course of action.

It became a mantra, one of the theme songs of my life, constantly playing in the back of my head.”

My creative nonfiction piece “Protection” is a tour of Boston Commons and the Public Gardens and how to appropriately wield a knife in a public setting. It has been published in the latest issue of Portrait of New England.

Click on the link on the below. “Protection” begins on page 33.

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"Gloucester Harbor | 78" published in Nixes Mate

I took a long, wandering walk in Gloucester this summer and stumbled upon an old haunt and old memories. I started writing a poem. It turned into…something. A long poem? A lyric essay? A hybrid piece? I’m not really sure. Also not sure what to do with its content.

Regardless, “Gloucester Harbor | 78” now appears in the latest issue of Nixes Mate Review.

"Samaritan" (fiction) published in The Metaworker

He needs to regain control. No one knows he took her. There’s no one behind them following. He’s safe. For now. He wrestles his phone out of his pocket, then stops. If her mother sees his name pop up, she’ll ignore the call. He looks into the back seat and snatches the phone clenched in her daughter’s trembling hands. Shoots her a cold look, shutting down the beginnings of her protest. It’s already unlocked. He scrolls through her most recent texts, finds one from earlier in the evening labeled Momma. He wipes the blood from the screen onto his pants before hitting the phone icon and holding it up to his ear. 

Every once in a while a publisher reads my fiction and doesn't say, “stop this. Go back to poetry and CNF. Please.” This is such a time.

“Samaritan” is a dark little piece that was just published in The Metaworker.

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"best date ever" published in Tidings (2026)

he escorts her loveliness into his rusting ’84 Nissan Stanza, which—

stuck in rush hour traffic—overheats fifteen minutes after leaving

campus, twenty minutes from the first date he painstakingly planned

after she asked him out for Valentine’s Day…

“best date ever” is a college memory in poem form recently published in the latest from Tidings. Read or download the whole anthology here. “best date ever” is on page 39.

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"…it is not the stones, / But the child’s mound—” nominated for a Pushcart Prize

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Earlier this year, Flight: A Literary Sampler published my golden shovel “…it is not the stones, / But the child’s mound—” in their inaugural issue. Now they have nominated it for a Pushcart alongside some amazing writers, which is very cool.

Read it Here
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"Stage Proxemics" nominated for a Pushcart Prize

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I'm honored to announce that my creative nonfiction piece “Stage Proxemics” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Pangyrus.

My brother is a fucking badass. Always has been. Even before he was my brother. I learned how to walk trying to keep up at Afrocentric art shows, poetry readings, dramatic performances, rallies, and protests. He taught me that Black Lives Mattered before the proto-progressives in Boston had heard of George Floyd or Rodney King. I tell people I’m on at least five government watchlists. Between lessons about IRA activities in local catholic parishes and revolutionaries smoking cigars with Fidel Castro, at least one of those lists is definitely his fault.

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Two Poems in Wayfarer Magazine

"Won't you come and Celebrate with me" and "when asked to explain racism as a system of power, again" were published in Wayfarer Magazine.

"Biophobia" [creative nonfiction] published in The Manifest Station

This goes out to all of the people who enjoy being in the “Great Outdoors” and those who dig below surfaces they should really leave alone.

“Biophobia” started as an exercise in a Kenyon Review Residency last summer and is now a creative nonfiction essay published in The Manifest Station.