An excerpt from Order in the Court by Casey Lawrence — “I’m a gold-star lesbian, obviously.” “Gold star?” I asked bemusedly. “I didn’t realize we were being graded, or I would have studied harder.” Valerie laughed softly. “I got the feeling at Pride that you were a late bloomer. A newbie. Gold star just means a lesbian who hasn’t been with…

A weird story told in clichés — This story was written to fulfill the challenge set by Willow Dickerson: “[W]rite in such a way that [you] fool people (or maybe even AI) into thinking [your story] was written by a program.” I have given it my best shot, so here is a story written using absolutely no…

A teaser for my bisexual YA thriller, JMS Books 2023 — My YA novel Out of Order was first published in 2015 with Dreamspinner Press. After a prolonged period of being out of print, I am excited to be rereleasing the book, along with two sequels, with JMS Books in 2023. Please enjoy the following excerpt. It was hard to choose…

Spring Essay Writing Contest response — renewal — It started with a spot between her eyebrows. A patch of dry skin where the wind kissed her forehead on her morning walk. The winter had been cool and dry that year. A layer of frost, like powdered sugar, dusted the brown grass. She picked at the little patch of…

An “AI Made Me Do It” Story — —Project complete. Model rendered. “Already? Damn, you’re good. No wonder AI is going to replace us all.” — Thank you, Dan. “You’re welcome.” He said it out of reflex. Well, it never hurt to be polite, even if you were talking to a machine. His mother had always joked that…

The Continued Thoughts of Molly Bloom — Content warnings: childbirth, (mild) body horror, abortion reference, stream-of-consciousness style/intentional run-on Yes it was all his fault sending her away like that where I couldnt keep an eye on her fourteen such a tender age all of the fire and none of the sense I wasnt much older the first…

A Sapphic romance, a UHAUL, a black cat, and a trip to the vet — Sam looked at the cat. The cat looked at Sam. It was a black cat, because of course it was, with one little white paw: exactly the kind of cat that a witchy, crystal-collecting bisexual Millennial would pick up off the street and take home to nurture. And it did…

An attempt to use every May Word-A-Day prompt in one story — TW: fire, injury Niamh Kelly sure knew how to throw a party. Any occasion, any time of year: she was your girl if you wanted to throw a rager. She was the only girl I knew who could turn a memorial into an excuse to get wasted and blast EDM…

A poem about poems — If I wrote one hundred poems, would one of them be good enough, speak to someone, scratch an itch, or grace the pages of a book that someone might read again in one hundred years? Would a poem win a prize or gain a retweet and a like from that…

A story of an odd-sized casket — This story was my entry to the Owl Canyon Press Hackathon #4 (2020). Winning stories can be found here; although my story was not selected, I still think it is worth sharing. The first and last paragraphs were provided by the contest. The challenge was to write eighteen paragraphs to…

A story of what it was, and what it turned into. — TW: Domestic violence You can’t remember the last time you went to a party. You bought a dress for this, one with long sleeves and a high neck. You should feel elegant, but you still feel like you’re playing dress-up in mommy’s closet. When you had lipstick on your teeth…

Humans are weird, if you think about it — “We have enough data to begin Phase Two of our hybridization project,” Crewmember Zezreckus announced animatedly as xe stepped into the eating chamber. Crewmembers Sidrockus and Petrarkas buzzed excitedly, waving their feelers to demonstrate their appreciation of xir news. “Where is Human Peter? …

Daily Special 29: Shopping — It started with a tap tap tap. Startled, I opened the door to my fitting room, peeking out. I expected to see a sales clerk asking how I was doing, or offering to get me another size in the dress I was trying on, but there was no one there…

Daily Special 16: A day-trader’s secret nightlife — There she is: my next mark. I press my tongue against my teeth, watching her. She holds a half-empty beer to her cheek as she sways her hips to the music, clearly intoxicated. I’m not the only one with eyes on her; half the men in this club are clearly…

The same story, told in exactly 100, 500, 1000, and 3000 words — A brief explanation: This November, in lieu of NaNoWriMo, I’ve challenged myself to write something every day based on the daily writing prompts posted by Ravyne Hawke for the publication Promptly Written. The fiction prompt for 4 November reads: You run into someone from High School that you haven’t seen for a decade…

The book I was writing has just been published… by somebody else. — Finding out that an idea you’ve just come up with has already been done can be disappointing. It happens to every writer, and it’s always a let down. That “absolutely unique” plot point you were so excited over is actually a genre cliche. The twist in your psychological thriller has…