Creative Work

Another register of inquiry

My creative work returns to many of the same questions that animate my scholarship—language, identity, memory, belonging, and narrative authority—but approaches them through poetry, fiction, and storytelling.

Featured poetry manuscript

Three Versions of the Fire

Three Versions of the Fire is a six-part poetry manuscript about desire, betrayal, memory, and narrative ownership. Moving among those inside and around an affair, the collection asks what happens when several people claim incompatible versions of the same emotional history.

01His
02Hers
03The Other Woman
04The Affair
05The Fallout
06The Remains

Selected creative samples

Three registers of storytelling

Creative nonfiction · “The Yelling”

Silent Rooms, Shaking Hands: The Life That Is Mine

Content note: family conflict and domestic violence.

Dad is yelling again.
It’s louder than usual, filling the room, bouncing off the walls like thunder. His eyes are wild. I can’t tell if he’s angry at me. Or Mom. Or something else.
He slams his hand against the wall, and the picture rattles. My heart pounds as I clutch my Woody toy, squeezing it like it’ll keep me safe.
Mom’s yelling too, her voice like glass breaking.
“No empieces a estar queriendo quebrar cosas nomás porque sí!”
She’s pointing, shaking—cracked open, but still fighting. She won’t look at me.
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do! Especially in my house. Si yo lo quiero quebrar, yo lo voy a quebrar!”
Dad’s face is red. I don’t want to look. But I can’t stop. The room is shrinking, pushing in on me. I press my back against the wall, hoping it’ll stop if I’m small enough, quiet enough.
Dad slams his hand down on the kitchen table. A dish falls, shattering on the floor. I flinch.
“Yo hago lo que se me dé la gana en esta casa. It’s my house, mi casa! I don’t care si tú, la vecina, or any other cabrón has to say about it!” he roars.
Mom steps back, her face wet with tears, but somehow she keeps yelling, her words crashing into his like fists.
“A mí no me importa si es tu casa o si tú pagas todo! Lárgate de la casa inmediatamente! Pero ahorita, ya.”
My knees are pulled up to my chest, and I’m pressing into myself, hoping it’ll hold everything together.
I feel a small, warm presence next to me.
My sister, Luna.
I’d forgotten she was here. She clutches my shirt, her face pressed into my side. She’s so small—too small to be anywhere near this.
I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her like Mom would.

Poetry · Shared perspective

“We All Told the Story Differently”

I said it was a mistake.
Something I didn’t plan.
A moment that got too loud
before I could quiet it.
I said it was betrayal.
That I felt it
before I could prove it.
That I stayed too long
because I loved too hard.
I said it wasn’t love.
That it was fire,
then smoke,
then a room I didn’t belong in anymore.

Excerpt from Three Versions of the Fire.

Children’s literature · Spreads 1–2

Celeste and Her Adventurous Little Mind

Celeste had a very little mind.
But it was never quiet.
Her mind liked to run, hop, zoom, and fly.
Mama called it “your adventurous little mind.”
“Good morning, Celeste,” Mama said. “Time for breakfast.”
Celeste looked into her bowl.
The cereal rings weren’t cereal rings.
They were planets, floating in the milky sky.
Her spoon became a shiny rocket ship, ready to blast off.
“Three… two… one… whoosh!”
Her adventurous little mind flew all the way to space.

Works in progress

Other creative projects

Picture-book revision · In development

Kaya and the Long Way Home

After becoming separated from her family, a young capybara must cross unfamiliar water, navigate the human world, and face the approaching night. With help from animals she initially fears or does not understand, Kaya learns that courage does not require facing the world alone.

Illustrated early-reader project · In development

Kaya and the Perfect Fruit

Through letters sent home, Kaya records her encounters with animals whose favorite fruits never quite fit her. Her search becomes a gentle story about curiosity, friendship, patience, and discovering that what belongs to someone else does not necessarily belong to you.

Picture-book manuscript · Complete draft

Celeste and Her Adventurous Little Mind

An imaginative, neurodivergent-coded child transforms breakfast, clothing, sidewalks, parks, and books into extraordinary adventures. With her mother’s gentle support, Celeste discovers that everyday routines can help her care for her responsibilities without diminishing the wonder of her adventurous mind.

Folklore collection · Early development

Cuando hablan las leyendas

Framed by a Mexican American family gathering around a fire, this developing collection reimagines familiar legends from the perspectives of the figures who inhabit them. Moving through grief, fear, punishment, land, family, and cultural memory, the stories ask what changes when La Llorona, El Cucuy, El Charro Negro, and other legendary figures are allowed to contest the versions told about them.

Novel project · In development

Us, Out of Order

An alternating-perspective, nonlinear novel following Maya and Caleb as their initially separate lives move toward one another. The project explores timing, idealization, emotional growth, and how two people can construct different narratives of the same relationship.

Psychological-thriller trilogy · In development

Clinical Judgment

A psychological-thriller trilogy about professional secrecy, vigilante violence, and the inheritance of moral judgment.

Young-adult cyberpunk thriller with adult crossover appeal · In development

The Envy Protocol

Alexander Verne, a teenage hacker, exposes government wrongdoing and becomes the center of an escalating conflict over surveillance, technology, and power. Accompanying him are Geoff, Samuel, and Rita—three vivid figures Alexander knows are not physically real, but whose competing guidance complicates his judgment and responsibility.

Young-adult cyberpunk novel · Early development

The Seventh System

In 3055, six cities compete for status and power by controlling proprietary technologies and human augmentations. Nicolas, a teenager from Wallux, possesses an unexplained ability to access every city’s systems—making him an impossible seventh system that no city can control.

Creative Experiments

What the City Refused to Hear

AI-assisted narrative experiment · Concept redevelopment

Originating from an AI-generated story architecture, this speculative experiment follows Kaelen Vane, a young man who can hear emotional traces embedded in objects and places. As he discovers how his city suppresses painful memories in the name of stability, Kaelen must decide whether forgotten suffering should be contained, released, or finally witnessed.

Completed Creative Work

Silent Rooms, Shaking Hands: The Life That Is Mine

Creative nonfiction thesis · Completed 2025

A vignette-based manuscript about childhood, family conflict, memory, survival, and the difficulty of claiming one’s own life from competing family narratives.

Completed at San Diego State University as part of the MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction.