What’s all this, then?

Welcome to my digital portfolio, a snapshot of my academic goals and literary history all in a convenient virtual bundle.

Above and to the right are links to pertinent details such as my personal statement and about me. Below are samples of my academic and fiction writing in the Essays and Stories categories, which are also linked in the right-hand column.

The purpose here is to let instructors, committees and fellow students get an idea of who I am and what I’m trying to achieve. If you’ve got any questions for me, feel free to email me or leave a comment in one of the posts.

Dawn Rises In Purgatory: Chapter 1

Greg didn’t really believe it was the end of the world until he stopped at the gas station.

He was willing to concede that it was the end of him, Sgt. Gregory Torvald. Maybe not today, but soon. His body ached all over, his eyes itched and went fuzzy at the most inconvenient moments, and the fever made him feel detached and as if time was passing far too slowly.

It was fortunate that the shivers and coughing fits only hit him once in a while. He probably would never forget that one guy, the corpsman, who started coughing one afternoon and didn’t stop for a day, not even when the blood came up and he’d torn muscles in his back and stomach.

For a dead man he was doing better than he could expect. Heck, there were times he felt pretty much okay, like now. Not healthy, really, but not like he was going to keel over right then and there.

Payment In Crimson: Chapter 1

Dawn was heralded only by a slight brightness in the heavy overcast. That was only the latest in a series of things that had gone wrong this morning, but it was the most important miscalculation of Adam’s life.

The gloom should have at least been accompanied by a dramatic thunderstorm, lightning crashing and winds driving the rain sideways in recognition of what Anthony felt sure would be an epic battle inside Parker’s tasteful Edwardian house.

Anthony waited outside, half a block away. He was supposed to be the backup if something went wrong, or the getaway driver if Adam’s half-baked plan worked. He had his doubts, but either way, the boss would get what he wanted.

Oldshoe: Chapter 1

I was tired of walking. That’s how it started.

I hated to admit it, but there it was. I, whose primary means of travel earned me the name “John Oldshoe”—a name known to some—didn’t want to walk any more.

The heat was partly to blame. By the end of May, Mississippi was sweltering. It was nearly impossible to tell where sweat ended and the heavy air began. My clothes were really just an arbitrary border between the two, soaked from both directions.

We should also consider how long I’d been walking and how hard I was traveling.

Misspent Youth: Literacy Through Geekdom

Sections

• The Magic of Reading
• Creating My Own Stories
• One Literacy to Rule Them All?

The Magic of Reading

The Wind in the Willows

I blame my parents. They insisted on reading in my presence every day. Of course, they read me children’s books, Dr. Seuss, the Wind in the Willows and the adventures of Curious George.

Yet even when they were not reading to me, they still read newspapers, magazines and big fat books full of mysterious words. My mother loved thrillers, books that usually had a rose, a gun, or a hammer and a sickle on the cover. My father’s books often had aliens, spaceships or mysterious gray-clad men in pointy hats and dragons on the cover. They didn’t share these books with me, so I knew they were keeping important magical secrets from me. If my parents could read those books for hours — which to a three-year-old child is a significant fraction of forever — then obviously there was something there I needed to discover.

Creating stories online: Two perspectives

Sections

• Marble Hornets
• The Guild
• References

The traditional means of producing media are starting to falter.  The ratings for over-the-air television broadcasts are dropping, and sales of print books are falling.  Creators of stories are faced with a greater challenge in finding venues to share their works.  While there are more people writing and submitting content than ever, publishers and studios are struggling to get enough revenue to continue buying and distributing content. In this fiercely competitive environment, creators are forced to look to new media to bring their stories to their audiences.

The internet has been a means to share content for years.  There are many original works that would have never found a traditional outlet, from webcomics, podcasts, homemade animations, to creative blogs in which every entry is a new chapter or short story.  This model has allowed creators to find audiences without the intervention of major publishing and distribution sources.

The Many Versions of a Downtrodden Magical Detective

Sections

• Overview
• Original Text
• Audiobook
• Television Series
  • Storm Front Episode
• Graphic Novel
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Where once it used to be unusual for a text to be adapted into several different forms, today there are several works appearing in varied formats. The internet provides another place for an audience to discuss and adapt works on their own. Message boards provide a forum for discussion years after initial critical response to a work is completed, emails make it easy to send thoughts to an author, and websites provide venues for the sharing of fan-created fiction and art inspired by a text.

The Dresden Files book series by Jim Butcher has been adapted multiple times. The series follows the story of Harry Dresden, the only wizard listed in the phone book, who works as a private detective and a sometimes-reluctant hero who stands between the monsters and normal people. The series currently has twelve books and a number of short stories, audiobooks, comic books (also known as graphic novels), a television series, and a role-playing game. The most adapted volume of the series is the first book, Storm Front.