current work
YA Fantasy
Book One of the Shadow Trilogy
A cross between fantasy quest and climate change allegory. You will meet two brothers who struggle to understand why they have been brought to a world they are destined to profoundly affect.
Readers who enjoyed Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead will find parallels to The Other Shadow. Included are 24 illustrations by the author.
The Shadowlands
A symbiotic mirror world. A person’s ‘other shadow’ is bonded to them for life. In the Shadowlands, it is a life companion. In our world, it is an unseen force that provides a person with insights and imagination, courage and inspiration. It is only seen by its ‘master’ when something is gravely amiss. Such a fate befalls the main protagonist.
The ILLUSTRATIONS
Why illustrate?
Sometimes writers who draw and paint cannot get along in the story-writing process without seeing a visual representation of what they are doing. The big question then becomes whether to share the illustrations. For some, this is over-defining the characterizations. For others, it’s a delightful excursion, taking readers further into the mind of the author and the world they have created. I have no intention of robbing my readers of their right to picture my story any way they want. Rather, I want to offer a selection of my illustrations in the spirit of that excursion. Call them a scrapbook of the places where I have been.
First page
THE OTHER SHADOW Chapter One: The Intruder It was the first night Jodie Swindon had ever spent in a hospital, and sleep would not come. A blue night light raked across the hospital furniture in room nine. Except for the soft beeps of his vital signs monitor, the ward was quiet. The nurse said he was out of danger, although he was to stay under observation for the rest of the night. He touched his head. It hurt from falling down during the seizure. He thought he felt okay now. It was hard to understand why they would not discharge him. And as for home, within a week, the movers would take everything out of the house. They had already packed all their belongings, labeling clothes, books, and games in big boxes with Magic Marker. Jodie, his brother, and their mother would follow the truck in the car. He adamantly did not want to leave, despite the family's opinion of the new place. His older brother Martin said he would forget about the old house and the neighborhood once he got settled in, but Jodie was doubtful. It was so quiet that he could hear the beeping alert of the closing doors from the elevated train platform across the hospital parking lot. It reminded him of something. The worst thing about moving was not unloading all the boxes. It was knowing that his father would later board a different train to leave the city. He would never live with their family ever again. How could Jodie sleep when he was about to lose his dad? He felt tears tickle the sides of his face, running down towards the pillow. It felt good to cry, but he automatically wiped the tears away. ‘I’m no wuss.’ He blinked several times. As he lay there, trying to imagine what his new home would be like, something flitted by like a moth or an oversized winged insect. Insects, especially the flying variety, were abhorrent. Jodie shuddered and strained to make out what it was. This time, he saw it better. Unless he was asleep and dreaming, something was running across the wall, a dark shape scampering like a mouse on all fours. But it was not a mouse. It was the silhouette of a person.