Welcome to my writing page. On this page you can find updates on my current writing projects as well as links to some of my published stories.
Novels
You can check out the first three chapters of currently published novels by clicking on the covers below:
John Dolion is a marketing genius. A young executive who has risen through the ranks to VP Marketing for one of the largest mobile phone companies in the world. The problem is the mobile handset market is at saturation, the market is mature, sales are flat, and the beleaguered company is in trouble. But JD has a plan.
Jessica Bain is a young San Francisco detective struggling to forge a career while balancing life as a solo mother to a teenage son. She’s frustrated by being constantly relegated to investigating cold cases and missing persons’ files. Cases deemed by her colleagues to need ‘a woman’s sensitivity.’ That is until a string of teenagers begin to go missing with one troubling thing in common – their mobile phones.
As the abductions increase their two very different lives are set to collide.
If you enjoyed this preview, you can purchase the full novel from Amazon in either paperback or Kindle formats here:
Paul Abrams has the perfect family; loving wife, beautiful children, and is about to get the dream promotion he’s been striving toward for years. Life is perfect.
All that is about to change.
When Paul is involved in a hit-and-run accident, he is forced to recover at home. Now an unemployed invalid with no money coming in while he recovers, he is forced to see things differently and comes to realize his family isn’t as perfect as he thought.
His wife Gina is having an affair with the local real estate agent, his Grade ‘A’ student son Alex is a career drug dealer, and his sweet but naïve daughter is about to run away from home to be with her online boyfriend. On top of this, upon hearing of his plight, Paul’s freeloading brother and his vacuous girlfriend move in to ‘help’, along with his senile elderly father…who may not be so senile after all.
As everything descends into chaos around him Paul reassesses what he wants from his life in the first place.
Will he be able to bring his dysfunctional family back together the way he once thought? Does he even want to anymore? Or perhaps along the way he may just discover true love.
If you enjoyed this preview, you can purchase the full novel from Amazon in either paperback or Kindle formats here:
Daniel Messenger is returning from holiday to begin his tenure as Press Secretary to the incoming President-Elect. After a chance encounter, he finds himself in possession of a mysterious crystal. Could this be the cornerstone to a centuries-old prophecy with the potential to unlock the greatest power source on Earth? Whatever it was, someone wanted it back – badly enough to kill for it.
To avoid a global catastrophe, Dan alone must return the crystal to where it came from – deep under the Arctic ice.
Thrust into an unlikely fellowship, navigating between the CIA, MOSSAD, and the Italian Mafia, who can he trust? Dan alone must unravel the shadowy struggle for power that lies hidden from the public…but the clock is ticking.
If you enjoyed this preview, you can purchase the full novel from Amazon in either paperback or Kindle formats here:
Short Stories
Every year for the last few years I have entered, (along with thousands of other writers around the world), NYC Midnight’s Short Story Competition. I first started with this series of writing contests shortly after I published my first novel Gabriel’s Trumpet.
While it may seem like a bit of a counter-intuitive distraction to enter a number of short story contests while I am already struggling to finish a number of longer works in progress, I like these contests in particular because they challenge authors to write in a genre which they may not be familiar with. Not only has this helped me to experiment with voice as I have tried different genres in my novels to date, but it has helped my writing generally.
NYC Midnight Short Story Competition 2022
In this competition, writers are challenged to write an original short story based on a randomly assigned genre, subject, and character. My entries for this years’ competitions are below:
Round 1: January 14-22, 2022
Genre: Romance
Subject: Aerobics
Character: A Roadie
NYC Midnight Rhyming Story Competition 2022
This is a new contest from the people at NYC Midnight this year. In this competition, writers have the additional challenge of having to write a flash fiction story (600 words max) based on a randomly assigned genre, theme, and emotion – which must rhyme!
My entry is:
Round 1: September 23 -October 1 2022
Genre: Romance
Theme: Temporary
Emotion: Motivated
Beneath the Tree upon the Hill
NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition 2022
In the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction competition writers are challenged to write a Flash Fiction story (1000 words max) in 48 hours based on a randomly assigned genre, location, and object.
My entries to this years’ competition are below:
Round 1: June 11-12, 2022
Genre: Romance
Location: A cable car
Object: An x-ray photograph
Round 2: August 12-13
Genre: Crime Caper
Location: A carousel
Object: A toupee
NYC Midnight Micro-Fiction Competition 2021
This contest is similar to NYC Midnight’s Short Story Competition, however in this contest writers are challenged to write a very short piece of Micro-Fiction in just 24 hours, based on a randomly assigned genre, action, and specific word (which must appear at some point in the story).
The challenge here is to write a complete (and coherent) story in 24 hours using just 100 words. This is indeed a challenge for someone like me (I never could say anything in 25 words or less) but has helped me enormously to focus even in my longer works of fiction. My entries to this years’ competition are below:
Round 1: May 14-15, 2021
Genre: Sci-Fi
Action: Tanning
Word: motion
Round 2: July 24-25, 2021
Genre: Sci-Fi
Action: Searching for a pet
Word: impress
There is also a slightly longer 250-word version of this contest. In 2020 my entries for the 250-word version were:
Round 1: November 20-21
Genre: Ghost Story
Action: Playing a card game
Word: Return
Round 2: January 16-17 2021
Genre: Action/Adventure
Action: Falling into a river
Word: Season
Wattpad
I have published some of my favorite entries from NYC Midnight’s series of competitions on Wattpad. You can check out my Wattpad page here:
Or you can select a specific story by clicking on the cover images below:
This story won my heat in Round 1 of the NYC Midnight Short Story Competition 2017.
Genre: Suspense
Subject: Addiction
Character: A gang member
This story placed 3rd in Round 1 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition 2018
Genre: Crime Caper
Location: A gun shop
Object: A disco ball
Furious Fiction
Furious Fiction is a quarterly flash fiction contest run by the Australian Writers Centre and open to entries worldwide. In this competition writers are given 55 hours to write a story in no more than 500 words and include a set of assigned words and/or prompts.
This quarter my quirky little crime caper ‘Vegan Vegan’ made the long list for March 2022 from around 1300 entries. For this quarter the assigned criteria were:
- Each story had to include a character that commits a crime.
- Each story had to include some kind of DOOR being opened.
- Each story had to include the words CHALK, TALK and FORK.
2021
My story ‘The Intercept’ made the long list for February 2021 from around 1700 entries. For this story the assigned criteria were:
- Every story had to begin with the word THREE.
- Each story had to be set in a SCHOOL.
- Each story had to include the adjectives: MAGNETIC, UNCOUTH, SUSPICIOUS, FLOWERY
2020
My story ‘Castaway’ made the long list for April 2020 from around 1700 entries. For this story the assigned criteria were:
- Each story had to begin on the side of a road.
- Each story must include the words APRON, PIGMENT, RIBBON, ICON, LEMON
- Each story had to include a splash.