Blog *
Blog *
Letters to God
July 17, 2025
If you rip enough paper into tiny fragments and toss them out the window of a car traveling down a Nebraska highway at 55 mph, for a brief moment, it can resemble a blizzard.
It’s mesmerizing how the wind practically sucks the papers from your hand and carries them around the contour of the car. Then for a moment, they swirl and dance, like snowy confetti, before littering the road and the ditch and leaving a brief, but beautiful blight on the environment.
I don’t recommend doing this. Read More
The Making of a Cover
July 2, 2025
My apologies to Herbert James Draper, may he rest in peace, and to altar boys everywhere. Not all of you are ding dongs.
Our cover design choice for The Ding Dong Altar Boy has garnered attention. We received one particularly nasty text asking, “Did you really do this?”
Yes. We absolutely did.
A Travel Guide to Nowhere
June 23, 2025
Why Chadron, Nebraska Might Be the Best Vacation You’ve Never Considered
Everyone goes to Europe.
So much so that on June 15, 2025, citizens in major European cities blasted water guns at tourists and greeted cruise ships with banners that read, “Tourists, Go Home.”
A Bunch of Bologna
May 15, 2025
There’s a reason I hire an editor.
In one of the short stories featured in our upcoming release, The Ding Dong Altar Boy, Donald mentions a memorable fried baloney sandwich he once ate.
Our editor texted me:
“Do you really not know how to spell bologna?”
Apparently not. Read More
Guilty Conscience
March 19, 2025
Guilt and I are well acquainted.
It doesn’t even have to be my own guilt.
I’ve read crime thrillers which left me walking around in a shameful haze, sure someone would discover the murder weapon in my possession. I’ve woken up from nightmares dripping with sweat over horrific mistakes made by my subconscious. Certain movies and TV shows leave me feeling as though I’m keeping a terrible secret, even though the secret is entirely fictional and not even plausible in real life. Read More
The Power of the Pause
February 26, 2025
I don’t usually put my foot in my mouth.
Normally I swallow both feet whole. Then choke on my embarrassment. Later, I regurgitate the scene over and over again, longing for a vow of silence. This lasts until I open my mouth again.
Some people tread lightly with their words. I cannonball. Read More
Dear David
February 10, 2025
Dear David at VRBO. Thank you for your recent response to my inquiry for your beautiful property. It’s understandable you cannot accommodate my request due to the fact I have children. They are rather inconvenient. If you can believe it, they require feedings three or more times a day. They have an endless number of arguments as to why we are always wrong, The youngest one breaks things.
But hear me out. Read More
The Kingdom and The Shadowlands
Easter, 2025
I read Psalm 16 this morning and immediately thought of The Lion King. In this psalm, David offers a prayer of confidence to God. He praises the Lord for safety and protection, for being the source of all good things.
Then David says this: “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance.”
Great Writing Is . . .
February 14, 2025
I spent four years teaching a writing class to middle school students. At the beginning of each year, I’d write on the whiteboard: Great writing is ______________. Then, I’d ask for raised hands. The kids had all sorts of inspired answers: creative, descriptive, entertaining, spell-checked. I couldn’t disagree with any of them.
But it wasn’t the answer I was looking for. Read More
Unfinished Business
February 2, 2025
I once wrote a novel about a college graduate trapped in a dead-end job. She staved off an eventual emotional breakdown by self-diagnosing with every mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
They say, “Write what you know.”
It wasn’t entirely autobiographical. Read More