They Hover Over Us, my collection of stories about people from Pennsylvania's Rust Belt, won the 2011 Serena McDonald Kennedy Award and has been published by the contest sponsor, Snake Nation Press.
From Judge Starkey Flythe: "These stories have a stunning reality which is yet clothed and softened by an unforgettable human spirit. Tired subjects a reader might recognize from other writers are here brought to life through floods of light and fresh air, language and perception....Unforgettable, real people, Miss Rhoades, Mona, Cuppy, the power of ordinariness, domesticity, daily existence, the way words can make the usual disagreements of marriage and the home into heart-rending crevasses. A calmly wonderful collection."
My short story, A Completely New Life, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize after appearing in Potomac Review in Spring 2009.
My flash fiction piece, He Never Talked About You, won the 2008 Flash Fiction Contest at Red Cedar Review.
A first draft of my novel, Memoirs of a Little League Dad, was named a quarter-finalist for Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award, 2011.
My short story, The Stuff Left Behind, was a finalist in the 2008 Fiction Contest at Crab Creek Review and later appeared in Epiphany literary journal.
I won or contributed to 10 journalism awards in a 15-year newspaper career, which included nine years as a Pennsylvania Capitol reporter.
