The Trail
This is a selection from the beginning of my current work-in-progress novel, The Trail. This novel is a genre-bending story about three strangers who find themselves drawn together on “The Trail”, a sort of Twilight Zone or Welcome to Night Vale like reimagining of the Appalachian Trail, full of ruined cities, warring literary cults, monstrous demon birds, and fascist politicians. The novel deals heavily with politics, gender identity, and sexuality all framed by the surreal landscape of The Trail. I’ve included the first four short chapters, each from a different PoV.
Unrequited Love Lake
This is an excerpt from an older story. It is a murder mystery story, heavily inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries. It follows a bi Indian American teenage girl living in rural Oregon, obsessed with solving crimes, while also dealing with living alone and facing racism in smalltown Oregon. She becomes embroiled in what looks like a copycat murder, events repeating themselves from the famous case ten years prior.
“Compulsory Heterosexuality in The Mirror in the Well”
This is an academic essay I wrote for a 2019 class on sexuality and gender in literature. It focuses on connecting famous poet and feminist/queer scholar, Adrienne Rich, to a short novella we read in class, The Mirror in the Well, by Micheline Aharonian Marcom. This essay synthesizes many texts of critical theory and ideas from the novel. It required a lot of reading and research and making connections to tease out some of the broader themes hidden in the novella.
