February stories for you...
Hello friends!
I was recently awarded a fellowship at the Whiteley Center in the San Juan Islands! I will spend part of April there working on my manuscript, forthcoming via Hinton Publishing.
If you love original stories, diverse writers, and fearless voices, Hinton Publishing has launched Speak the Sojourner! This new literary ePublication features fiction, poetry, dramatic narratives, art + so much more - delivered directly to your inbox for $10 a month.
The February issue includes a creative non-fiction essay of mine, Origins. Travel to the Las Vegas Valley and explore the life cycles of cicadas, family trauma, and transformation.
Here is a little sneak peek - but you have to Subscribe to STS for all the goodies!
Every year cicadas burst forth from the desert floor of the Las Vegas Valley, my hometown, emerging with the magnitude of a biblical plague. An image portending ecological and human devastation and suffering brought about and called upon by some oppressive pharaoh’s subjugation. A sign. A sound so significant that every year and over the decades, people of Las Vegas call the Nevada Department of Agriculture to complain about the noise.
Diceroprocta apache, the Apache cicada, was renamed the desert cicada in 2021 through the Entomological Society of America’s “Better Common Names Project.” A communications effort by the bug organizers of America to remove no longer acceptable descriptors of “cultures, populations, ethnicity, or race” from common names.
The scientific remains. Diceroprocta apache.
They ascend; the males come first. Don’t they always? Sound forms like an industrial sprinkler system coming to life. Spu-tter- Spu-at-ter, sputtering until the rhythmic tick hits, flooding open as their tymbals, tiny membranes attached along the sides of alien-like abdomens, begin to vibrate.
The mating call spits out across the valley.
Hundreds of thousands of male cicadas vibrating so rapidly, they enlarge the chambers connected to their tracheae. The entire body becomes a resonance chamber. An amplifier of sound.
The drone and the ticks and the squawks and the buzzing and the screams grow so loud the echoes are all one hears for miles, as each sole cicada’s song traverses over 400 yards. There are no forested landscapes, no mountainsides to swallow up this noise. Vibrations reverberate off skinny dry elm trunks and desert ash trees, creating a soundtrack that can hit 106 decibels. Tiny insects making sound pressure akin to placing your ear next to a car horn and asking your friend to please, blast away. This is how the males attract the females. These bugs are as loud as they wanna fuck.
And more…
A Non-Binary Teen Died After Severe Bullying and LGBTQ+ Youth Are Asking for Help
The death of Nex Benedict is a tragic, real-life consequence of state laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community. LGBTQ+ youth are asking for help. As parents, our support and our advocacy need to be as bold, clear, and loud as possible. Read my newest story for Parents Magazine
‘Love Is Blind’ Contestant Was Nervous To Reveal She’s a Mom—She Shouldn’t Be
On season 6 of Love is Blind, contestant Jessica Vestal didn't want to reveal right off the bat she has a child. Check out my piece for Parents on why she should have.
EPA’s Clean School Bus Awards Carry High Social and Environmental Costs.
Electric vehicles don't come without their own social and environmental costs. Dive into my new piece at the South Seattle Emerald.
