This article was originally published for Indie Darling Magazine, September 2026 There is something dark, tragic and almost romantic about the “tortured artist” archetype—the idea that suffering is the secret ingredient of brilliance. We invoke it constantly, sometimes without meaning to. What would Frida Kahlo’s paintings have looked like had she not lived inside the …
The couple at the airport couldn’t stop kissing at departures. Even when the cops told them to move, they clung to each other — kissing, talking, kissing again. He was the one leaving, but he kept turning back, his hands reaching for hers like a current still trying to complete its circuit. From my car, …
I’ve loved fairy tales all my life. I used to be one-sided in my judgments, rooting for the protagonist while celebrating the villain’s inevitable destruction because, in fairy tales, the good guys always win — or do they? I made no room for empathy, just: “Off with their heads!” As if everything is black and …
BITTER WOMEN ARE MADE OF SOLD DREAMS AND UNANSWERED PRAYERS NIGHTMARES AND SLEEP PARALYSIS, AN INCUBUS SITTING ON THEIR CHEST DEPRIVATION, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, WEIGHT GAIN, AND STARVATION SOUR GRAPES AND DEAD LEAVES, WILTED ROSES AND ROTTED FRUIT GNATS CORKED WINE, FREEZER BURNT WEDDING CAKE TOPPERS UNWORN LINGERIE WRAPPED IN TISSUE PAPER FLICKERING FLOURESCENT LIGHTING OF …
This op-ed was originally published for Page Turner Magazine in May 2026 It’s 2024, gated communities are under siege, armed guards patrol the high-walled gates keeping out the poor, foreign, sick, and starving. The wealth inequality has widened along with climate-fueled fires, water is scarce, the police are privatized and rarely come unless you are …
This short story originally appeared in Page Turner Magazine on February 10, 2026 He left me behind—my grand père, my papa. I took too long to get ready. Primping and applying foundation uselessly in the sweltering heat of Louisiana. This time, he would teach me a lesson. He would finally prove that my mouth was …
This op-ed originally appeared in Page Turner Magazine in February 2026. There is a shadow of darkness, a looming presence that nips at the neck of progress and laughs at hope. Our terror, our fright, lives with us—or do we live with it? This is a question that sits at the very center of the …
When a young Creole girl named Marie is left alone in her family’s Louisiana home, she uncovers a haunting legacy of vampirism rooted in blood, lilies, and secrecy. Drawn into the curse through a forbidden cake, a burning rosary, and a blood-signed contract, she transforms from innocent to immortal heir of her family’s dark inheritance. …
GRADUATE PORTFOLIO – EMERSON COLLEGE – POPULAR FICTION WRITING AND PUBLISHING *GLOBAL NARRATIVE* *INTRODUCTION TO THE PUBLISHING PROCESS FOR WRITERS* *GOTHIC SUBVERSION* *THE HAUNTED LIBRARY*
Author’s Note: I’ve had the idea of writing an all-female society for years, but not in the sense that there aren’t any men, or that men don’t exist—but they live separately. At one point, the genders did live together just as we do now, but slowly over time, as women became educated and influential figures, …