Here is a collection (hopefully building) of shorter work for your reading pleasure.
“The Hoofman of Haynesville.” (~500 Words). An oral Aroostook County, Maine legend, as told to me in my teens by a family friend. It’s always been one of my favorite legends of the haunted Haynesville woods. It’s creepy in a safe sort of way (not being a hunter, much less a jacklighter, I’m pretty safe from the Hoofman’s wrath if I ever run into him) and bonus points for the teller that in the version he told it to me, it wasn’t “a friend of a friend,” but himself who encountered the Hoofman at his camp in Haynesville. It made the story all the more palpable; even more so when his now adult daughter invited me to the actual camp that featured in the version he told me as a teen. Shared August, 2025.
“My Little Pony.” (~1900 Words). I am terrified, absolutely terrified, of horses. (Don’t judge me). As you can imagine, this made growing up on a farm attached to a riding school difficult. This humorous essay explains why. Shared August, 2025.
“The Forest Bride.” (~1800 Words). Short fiction. The story is a retelling of an oral fairy tale I had the pleasure of reading a (sadly too) brief synopsis of in a second-hand world mythology encyclopedia (Thematic Guide to World Mythology. Lorena Stookey, 2004). The ‘monster’ of the piece, the kishi, is an Angolan daemon I’d not seen in fiction before; surprisingly so, as I thought it a fun little terror. Shared August 2025.
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