The Protectors
Little A, 2016
A coal town in the foothills of rural Appalachia is a good place for a young girl and her sheriff father to start over. After all, it's only the boys in town who are dying. A novella with original illustrations and live-action film clips for Kindle in Motion.
Wait
University of Wisconsin Press, 2011
In a small town under a spell, a child bride prays for the sheriff's gun. Iron under a bed stops a nightmare. The carousel artist can carve only birds. This collection of poems is part fairy tale, part Gothic ballad—and on the outskirts of town, someone new is waiting. Winner of the Brittingham Prize, selected by Cornelius Eady.
“...riveting, almost gothic ferocity. The universe of Wait crackles, burns brightly, while also leading into a darkness of its own. The collection is impressive not just for its immense formal grace, but also for the adamant, forceful desire—its ‘call of skin’—that singes through every poem.””
Ohio Violence
University of North Texas Press, 2009
In the fields, in the woods, in the dark waters of Ohio, something is happening. Girls disappear, turn on each other. Men watch from the rear view as the narrator hedges, changes her mind, won't tell, then shows all in this break-out collection of bittersweet and cataclysmic lyrics. Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize, selected by Eric Panky.
“a gut punch of a debut.”
“Your heart is bound to be forever bruised.”
Lot of My Sister
Kent State University Press, 2001
Wick Student Prize Winner
Maggie Anderson, Series Editor
“Confessional and meditative sequences… shadowed by the tradition of dramatic narrative; they propose types of redemptive performance…. a lost, outcast belated family is assembled by invocation.”
“This is intricate, strong, and very tough work.”