Single, Middle-Aged Cat Lady Seeks…

“So you said in your profile you enjoy traveling…?” “Yeah, love it. Try to get out of the state at least once a year,” Conor said around a mouthful of steak. Mia breathed in deeply and resumed cutting into her grilled chicken, taking another tiny bite of it. Finally, some common ground, she thought. That … Continue reading →

Gifts I Won’t Buy For My Nephews (2020 edition)

While I’ve a couple of weeks to write, I figured the way I can effectively get back into it just after a truly hellacious year (thanks to COVID and all the problems that come with teaching online) is to return to something short and sweet I’d traditionally done here. The empty Amazon boxes everywhere from … Continue reading →

This Entry on Writing Has No Focus

I’ve not kept this up much as I’ve been attempting to multitask writing projects this summer and failing miserably at it. It’s a balancing act that is so hard for me to manage. I’ve put aside the project I’d started last November, a psychosexual horror thriller, and have started a new one that has a … Continue reading →

When Certain Writing Turns One Vulnerable

Okay, so, yeah, about this horror novel stuff that’s been going on… I didn’t think my first big piece of published work, the one that’s going released for mass consumption in a few months, would be a horror novel. In hindsight, I should have. I’m good friends with the genre. Have been since I was … Continue reading →

Dueling Worlds

Nobody told me it was going to be like this… Regular Working World: One in which I plod through, day to day, nodding and smiling in support towards colleagues and students and the occasional administrator. I teach, I answer questions, I grade papers, I question myself, I re-grade some papers, I teach some more, I … Continue reading →

When Writing Truly Became My Therapy

I’ve been stagnant here, and for that—as well as my lack of participation in the blogging community—I’m sorry. I’d a single writing goal over the summer, and that was to FINALLY finish my horror novel, that beast that’s been keeping my mind and soul occupied when other things should have been. I’d promised myself it … Continue reading →

The Al Bundy Phenomenon (aka GTFO of the Past)

I never once understood those people who love living in the past. Personally, I find it almost masochistic, reliving those days one cannot get back, never mind those days where too many mistakes were made. It’s a bleak viewpoint, I realize. It seems ever more evident though in the public sphere—the old, rich, white guys … Continue reading →

Christmas Gifts I Won’t Buy My Nephews (2017 edition)

YAY! It’s that wonderful time in the year again! Well, for kids anyway. Everyone else, not so much. It’s often the same: Women wind up taking over the majority of the preparations, often on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Men wind up (literally) in Christmas lights, unsure as to what’s going on or how … Continue reading →

It’s the Little Things (flash fiction)

Eleanor Sutton, PhD, had been at Bakerfeld College far too long. Twenty-eight years to be precise, not including the years she’d been an adjunct (three course load at Bakerfeld, four at a for-profit, two at a prison where she taught inmates how to diagram sentences, and none of it would cover the various debts her … Continue reading →

Horror Movies Reminding Me I’m Not Dead Yet

(WARNING: Significant plot spoilers for A Cure for Wellness & Get Out)   The pop culture gods are fucking with me right now. They often do anyway, but I’m not laughing at their message anymore. I’m watching; I’m paying close attention. I’m panicking. Lately, I’ve been questioning my own health, my own midlife crisis, desperate … Continue reading →