Writing Projects

I write fiction for middle grade readers.

Current WIPs:

Rise: The Starchild Saga (middle grade fantasy)

After seven years in foster care, twelve-year-old Parker only wants to be on his own. But when he jumps through a portal to run from his eleventh foster placement, he doesn’t find the happy escape he imagined. Now he inhabits a world ravaged by a deadly disease called the Scourge. Parker pickpockets in order to pay for the only cure—until he discovers the cure is fake.

He figures he’s pretty much doomed until he finds Emily, another kid from Earth. She tells him the Scourge isn’t just a disease. It’s a sentient, tangible darkness that comes and goes in the forest. The only way to fight it is to wield stardust. Until he can do this on his own, Parker decides to stay with Emily at her home, the Refuge, where he meets her hodgepodge family of refugees. 

Just as Parker begins the hard work of trusting this new makeshift family, a series of disasters occurs at the Refuge. Circumstances point to Parker as the culprit, and his strange dreams make him wonder if he’s actually guilty and not just framed. He can stay and prove his innocence to himself and his new friends, or do what he’s always done—run.

Word count: ~80,000

Status: completed

First in a planned series

The Birding Tree (middle grade magical realism)

Eighteen species of wild birds live in ten-year old Libby’s front yard, and for a future ornithologist like her, it’s a dream. She’d trade human friends for avian ones any day, and her thirty-two birdhouses, eleven bird feeders, stacks of field notes, and lack of friendship bracelets prove it.

But while Libby would prefer to spend the summer telling stories about the birds to her little brother, her mom has other plans. She wants Libby to attend singing camp with Flora, and hang out with Miles, the grumpy new kid who lives across the street. But how is Libby supposed to keep the quail and their eggs safe from the neighborhood tabby cat, or defend the robin fledglings from the predatory hawk, if her mom’s going to force her to make real friends?

She feels bound to protect the bird habitat she’s built, and she believes she can if she stays in her front yard. Because all those silly stories she’s been telling her brother? They actually come true. And if she can tell the right ones, maybe she’ll secure a happy ending for everybody.

Word count: ~28,000

Status: completed