Behind the Books

I started writing when I was a young teen. Poems, fragments, story ideas, confessions... pages and pages I quietly kept to myself. Writing was a private way to release what I could not always say out loud. It helped me process, purge, and carry things that otherwise felt too heavy.

For many years, that was enough.

And then 2023 changed everything.

After a tragic homicide in my family, I went back to the one place that had always held me... the page. At first, I wrote simply to survive the days... to keep track of time, thoughts, and feelings when everything felt fractured. But the more I wrote, the more something unexpected began to rise.

Memories. Poems. Old grief. Hidden pages I had tucked away for over a decade.

Writing the eulogy opened the floodgates... and from that process, Tell It to the Stars was born. When that book closed, I realized I was still mid journey. I still needed to walk through the final layers of healing. That became Stars Over Antioch... a poetic chronicle of the season that brought everything into clearer perspective.

By then, I was hooked. I have written weekly ever since... sometimes obsessively, sometimes slowly... but always returning. There is so much beauty, sorrow, mystery, and inspiration in the world around me that I cannot imagine ever stopping.

Somewhere along this path, my writing also became something else... a way to leave a legacy for my children, and to create stories with them, not just for them.

What follows is a glimpse behind each book... where it came from, why it mattered, and what it taught me.

Tell It to the Stars

Where grief meets voice

This book began as survival... a way to navigate shock, trauma, faith, and memory while honoring the life we lost. In writing it, I discovered that poetry does not erase grief... it gives grief shape. It allowed me to hold pain gently instead of burying it. The poems became a conversation between mourning and hope.

Stars Over Antioch

The quiet after the storm

This collection became the documentation of healing itself... the settling, the reflection, the ability to breathe again. Writing it felt like laying flowers on a grave and finally stepping forward. It holds gratitude, ache, release... and the slow rebuilding of self.

Shadows of the Ozark Howler

When darkness moves into the family home

Born from the same emotional roots as my earlier work, this story looks at what addiction and darkness do to families. I watched shadows creep into lives I loved. This book explores the echoes... the fear, the secrets, the grief that communities carry over generations. - You would never know this because I never touch upon these issues in the book, but that’s where it was born from. It is transformation.

South Wind Shatter

What breaks beneath the surface

If Shadows of the Ozark Howler shows the aftermath, South Wind Shatter is the quiet collapse that leads there. It became an analogy for how addiction fractures relationships, faith, identity, and legacy. Writing it allowed me to name devastation honestly... while still searching for redemption in the ruins. If you know anything about skin walkers then you have probably heard about the darker parts of sacrificing someone you love to gain the abilities. I reflected a lot upon this idea.. and before you know it I had a whole book.

Muddy Water Crawl

Folklore, nature, and ancient roots

Inspired by my children’s love for legends... and our deep affection for Arkansas... this book celebrates nature, myth, and the storytelling traditions that shape us. It is a love letter to place, imagination, and heritage. And a road map of places we have been to and those we want to visit.

Monte Ne... The Rising

What refuses to stay buried

This idea began with ghost towns... especially Monte Ne... and the mystery surrounding the submerged “pyramid” at Beaver Lake. Yes, I believe he built it. The story asks what happens when history will not stay silent, and the past rises like a tide.

Where Curtains Fall

Stories created side by side

This book is deeply personal in a different way... it was shaped with my sons. We talked through ideas, scenes, characters, and the kinds of stories they wanted to read. Creating it together turned the writing process into shared adventure... part imagination, part collaboration, part love letter to them and the worlds they dream about. Noir setting, detectives and mysteries.. ideas brought to life.

Highly Scientific Record

Raw, humor, and the joy of invention

Also inspired by my sons, this project celebrates coming-of-age... the way kids observe life with humor, wonder, and unexpected wisdom. Working alongside them reminded me how playful storytelling can be, and how meaningful it is to build something that might outlast us... a record, in its own way, of who we were in this season.

Continuing the work

I believe in leaving a legacy... words that speak long after we are gone.
Some of these books grew out of grief. Others out of laughter and imagination.
All of them are pieces of our story... mine, and now my children’s too.

And I imagine I will be exploring those worlds... together and alone... for a very long time.