I’m really excited to announce I have a new flash fiction piece called “Home, Home” in the first issue of Halo Literary Magazine. You can read the issue online or purchase a copy on their website.

“Home, Home” is part of a series of stories set in Central and West Texas. I hope you enjoy it.

I’m very excited to announce that Per Contra has published my short story “Moving Day” in its latest issue. This story is a weird amalgamation of first love regrets, family obligations, and, of course, West Texas.

I’m heading off to the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference this weekend with a new paper that’s an excerpt from a chapter of my dissertation-to-book revision. The idea for this paper is practically writing itself, happily, and I’m making a snazzy powerpoint to boot.

So many projects are in the pipeline that some nights it’s hard to focus on just one. I prefer keeping busy to sitting still—no surprise there—but at the moment I’m not anxious, just produce-producing a la Carlyle. Hopefully somewhere in these pages is a viable manuscript.

Keep writing, my friends.

The path beyond the hedges
Was rocky—but I took it fast …

I’m really excited to announce that I have a new poem in The Teacup Trail, an awesome online journal published through Tumblr.

In other news, who else is way way way excited that a new Lauren Groff novel drops on Tuesday?!

“What do you want to have at your graduation party?” Mom asked me last weekend.

“Um …” I replied. To be honest, I haven’t really felt like celebrating the end of my graduate degree, at least not yet. I know, I know. My advisors bought everyone beer after the defense, my friends and colleagues toasted me with the free champagne that Valhalla gives to every successful PhD, and I drank deep from the margaritas we grabbed at Chuy’s. But once the initial rush was over, a dull calm has settled over me that I haven’t been able to shake. Yet.

To be sure, this feeling of calm is infinitely better than the stress I endured for the past 7 years. Once I finished my defense, every illness that my body had kept at bay during the last push attacked me at once, leaving me unable to smell or hear for about a month. Now that I’m (physically) better, I’m left with the post-PhD blues. But I’m not so much sad as relieved. Or am I restless? Perhaps I’m reflective. But I’m certainly not rejuvenated or refreshed.

All the same, I recognize that my journey to the PhD was not a solitary one, and doesn’t my family deserve a party, if not for my sake, then for theirs?

“Bar-B-Q,” I said. “And Shiner.” Where there’s good food and good company, good things are sure to follow.

Well, we survived 2014. It was a helluva ride, and, excepting the birth of our wonderful daughter, not a great year. I’m thankful to have made it this far, and if all goes according to plan, will write my heart out in 2015 to make up for the lack of productivity these past 12 months.

My goals (not resolutions, which are made to be broken!) include:

• Month: Write 2 pages/day for the new novel (I’ll talk about it more in the coming days), and query first novel
• Semester: Finish dissertation, and write 3 stories
• Year: Write 1 book review/month for NANOFic and other venues

The year is already starting on the right foot: I am teaching a course this Spring on Robots, Zombies, and Vamps (Oh, my!) The Cultural Contexts of Horror. I have been putting together my syllabus and writing assignments. Some Romantic literature, some nineteenth century German, contemporary works. And the movies … I can’t wait to get back in the classroom again after a long hiatus.

But for now, a nap seems to be in order. Keep writing, my friends.

I’m thrilled to announce I have a new story in Vinyl Poetry, volume 11 called “Fingal’s Cave.”

I also was asked recently to be the new book review editor for NANO Fiction, a wonderful flash fiction journal founded in 2006 by Kirby Johnson. If you have a collection or chapbook of flash fiction that you would like to have reviewed on our site, or if you would like to submit a review, email me: review.editor@nanofiction.org .

As a grad student and a mommy, I often feel that my days and nights are split between my dual responsibilities: raising a person, and tidying up my dissertation. It’s hard to switch back and forth sometimes (ok, most of the time) because I feel like the same person in each role, but my functions are so different as to be laughable. Ever tried to turn in edits to your advisor with a baby screaming in the background? I don’t recommend it.

That said, there are many pleasurable overlaps, such as introducing my daughter to my favorite books. We collect the BabyLit books, which I love for the beautiful illustrations and playful language, if not for the narrative accuracy. I also enjoy reading classic children’s stories that lingered in the back of my memory but that I thought I had forgotten: Beatrix Potter is much wittier than I gave her credit for as a young person, and I’m finally reading Winnie the Pooh instead of simply watching the Disney cartoons.

Some of my favorite afternoons, though, haven’t been spent reading in a comfy rocker. The simple act of taking L on a tour of the backyard or introducing her to the ducks in the nearby pond has rekindled in me a love for the pastoral. On the first morning we came home from the hospital, as I held her close in my arms, a bird chirped outside and L’s eyes drifted in its direction. “That’s a bird,” I said, and my eyes filled with tears. Before L was born, it had been a long time since I had felt the joy of discovery. Now, I’m reminded every day that learning is a lifelong process, and I’m so grateful I get to do it with L.