Writing, Copy, & Editing
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My Substack project, Survive Imagination, explores my creative journey as a fledgling artist through personal essays, speaking to the inner life: the parts we hide, the truths we fear, the beauty that lives inside darkness. | READ
Too Many Monsters: Nuances of Victorian Fear in Showtime's Penny Dreadful, Audeamus National Multidisciplinary Journal (2017), pg. 30. This research piece examines the literary, historical, and popular culture influences in the Showtime original series Penny Dreadful. | READ
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And Then? And Then? What Else?, Daniel Handler (2024): If you, like me, were obsessed with A Series of Unfortunate Events as a kid, and always sort of wondered how Lemony Snicket (Handler's pen name) came up with (1) that silly name, (2) a world set in a timeless and yet undeniably vintage setting––is it the Victorian era or the 60s?––or (3) a story about orphans relentlessly bashed by bad luck and misery meant for and beloved by children, this book is certainly for you. Conversely, if you're interested in the tapestry of art, film, music, books, and all the influences that weave together to form an author's writing life, this book is still certainly for you. It's as much a memoir as it is a treatise on inspiration and how it ends up appearing throughout a literary canon, or plain sticking in an artist's brain for years on end. Handler is wonderfully perspicacious (a word which here means "smart and observational"), and as a fan, it was such a joy to recognize how his myriad inspirations spoke to why I loved his kids' books when I was younger, and how those books in turn inspired and influenced my own sensibilities.
On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder (2017): I know this book has been around for a while, but if I could recommend one quick read to help quell the world-state anxiety some of us are feeling (or at least allow us to feel well-informed and prepared), it would be this one. Seriously, you can finish this in one dedicated afternoon. Or, you can pick up and digest one of Snyder's tips a day at a time. There are vital reminders from history and actionable steps we can implement to ensure we remain active, conscious, and deliberate participants in our democracy.
The Cardboard Kingdom, Chad Sell (2018): Nintendo Labo? Nah. I raise you a Cardboard Kingdom. This delightful graphic novel is a game of Dungeons & Dragons, a superhero story, and a kaiju match all in one. Any nerdy, imaginative kid will get a kick out of this read; plus, it boasts a truly diverse set of characters that deal with all sorts of problems but find solutions through their friendships and cardboard craft.
The Light Between Worlds, Laura E. Weymouth (2018): In Weymouth’s story, the Hapwell siblings have returned to a barely post-World War II England from a magical realm called the Woodland. Youngest sibling Evelyn can’t find home in the world to which she was born, while her older sister Philippa dives headfirst into her old life to escape the world she left behind. Told from both sisters’ perspectives, The Light Between Worlds is a lyrical exploration of one’s true place—among the people we love, within ourselves, or in woodland realms beyond our ken—and the lengths we will go to chase it.
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A few examples of my social media copy work. | VIEW
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I copy edited, line edited, and fact-checked the following articles for these publications.
The Arrow Journal
Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: Reflections on an Africana Buddhist Hermeneutic
Los Angeles Review of Books
Anna Kavan and the Rise of Autospec
Detours Through History: Three New Translations of Bohumil Hrabal’s Early Prose
A Lady Macbeth for the Instagram Age
The Body Keeps the Record: On Julian K. Jarboe’s “Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel”
The Language of Self-Discovery: On Jessica J. Lee’s “Two Trees Make a Forest”