Contests and Publications
Winner of Creative Pinellas’s Emerging Artist Grant - Fall 2022
This fall I was awarded the Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Grant for 2023. I can’t even begin to express how happy I am to receive such an awesome award. After years and years of writing things are finally starting to come together! In addition to trying to add way more stuff to my own website, I will also be blogging on Creative Pinellas’s website as well (click anywhere on this sentence for the link). I’m in the process of applying for my first residency, and I have been working closely with my writing mentor, Greg Byrd. Overall, I’m just so excited and I can’t wait to get more pieces published.
After More Months of Writing - July 2022
I’ve been busy! A nonfiction piece I wrote, “Raw,” will be in the Tampa Review in the coming months (link and story on website to follow). Tampa Review has the lowest acceptance rate of any magazine I’ve written to in the past. It felt good. I’ve also been working on a St. Petersburg Brewery Guide, something I will continually post for the coming months.
Sorry for the lack of content! I’m working on it!
Months in the Making - February 2021
It’s been a few months since I posted anything here. I said I’d post a link to Coffin Bell’s magazine once my story, Smoky, got published (so click anywhere on this sentence for it). I felt really proud of this one. Not only was it great to have one of my personal favorite stories published by an awesome horror mag, it was great to have it in such a distinguished one.
I do have other updates as well. I’ve been writing a novel during quarantine, and well, it is finished. Not finished finished, but first draft finished. That means it should only take daily reading and editing for months before it’ll be ready to start submitting!
August 2020 - Good News!
It’s been a great writing year so far!
Mesa Visions 2020 (which has an electronic copy here) was the start of some good news. I won first place in fiction for my piece, “Dugout” and second place in creative non-fiction for my piece, “Addicted to Mugshots.” I’ll post these pieces on the website as soon as everything gets cleared and the print copies come out.
In addition to this, my piece “Three Thief River,” (see post below) won a national competition from the League for Innovation 34th Annual National Student Literary Award Competition in the category of One-Act Play.
On top of those wins, I also will be in Coffin Bell for a short story I wrote years ago, “Smoky.” It’s truly one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever written and I am so happy to have found a home for it.
April 2020 - First Place in Mesa College Climate Reality Art & Design Contest!
This was a contest where I submitted an Earth Day poem about climate change, and the challenges we face if we don’t improve as a species. The poem, The Earth Won’t Care,” will be printed in Mesa Visions Magazine and I will post it on the website after it has been printed. Below is the flier!
April 2020 - League for Innovation - Best One Act Play
For this contest, I won best screenplay for a one act play. It is currently being reviewed in a national competition and hopefully will win there too. SDCCD set up a website where you can read about the win and I made a YouTube video it as well (with the help of a Fiverr voice actor). Below, is the judges comments on the play:
"In a very compact script, the playwright has invited us into a tension where we learn about family history, family bonds, and family values. The effective pacing of the dialogue and the deliberate actions of the characters effectively build the urgency of the situation. I would love to see more from this writer." -Mabelle Reynoso
October 2019 - VAMP Reading - Creative Non-Fiction