What do you write?

I create mul­ti­me­dia nar­ra­tives in which my own prose, illus­tra­tions, and graphic design all bring their own exclu­sive meaning to the work. The illus­tra­tions and graphic design are meant to do some of the nar­ra­tive work and convey aspects of the story that are not restat­ed in the prose. The content of the pieces is gen­er­al­ly char­ac­ter-driven fantasy for adult audi­ences. Although illus­tra­tions are usually asso­ci­at­ed with writing for chil­dren, I’m inter­est­ed in explor­ing how illus­tra­tions can engage adults by adding depth to the nar­ra­tive in ways prose can’t.

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

Def­i­nite­ly the artist Jim Kay. His illus­trat­ed edi­tions of Harry Potter floored me the first time I saw them and gave me the initial idea for my work. I thought to myself that I wanted to do the same thing, but instead of illus­trat­ing someone else’s novel, I wanted both the prose and illus­tra­tions to be my cre­ation. Even­tu­al­ly I won­dered how far I could push this idea. Jim Kay created his illus­tra­tions long after the writing had been pub­lished, but what could I do in my work if I wrote the prose knowing the art would be accom­pa­ny­ing it? 

Why did you choose Stonecoast for your MFA?

Since my work is a bit unusual, I spoke with several dif­fer­ent low-res­i­den­cy genre fiction MFA program direc­tors on Zoom before I applied to their pro­grams to see if my work would be a good fit. However, my biggest cri­te­ri­on was kind­ness. Stonecoast’s direc­tors Justin Tussing and Robin Talbot were so wel­com­ing and friend­ly on our Zoom call that Stonecoast imme­di­ate­ly shot to the top of my list. When I even­tu­al­ly attend­ed my first res­i­den­cy, every­one was so kind and wel­com­ing there as well, and I’ve been very happy with my choice!

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

This is more of a number of small mem­o­ries, but I’ve really enjoyed being able to focus on my char­ac­ters. My writing unfor­tu­nate­ly had to take a bit of a back­seat in the past few years as I got my under­grad degree in visual art, even though it’s the nar­ra­tive that drives my illus­tra­tions. My char­ac­ters make me so happy, and I’ve had so many won­der­ful little moments during my time at Stonecoast jamming to music and day­dream­ing about them.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

I hope to even­tu­al­ly write, illus­trate, and design the layout for a novel that is both nar­ra­tive­ly engag­ing and visu­al­ly beautiful.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

I’m not sure I would choose any­thing, because if I’d written it, it wouldn’t be the same, would it? I remem­ber in a figure drawing class being amazed at how, despite us all sketch­ing the exact same model, everyone’s draw­ings came out so unique to their own style. That’s one of my favorite things about art—even the exact same piece, created by two dif­fer­ent people, would still turn out dif­fer­ent­ly depend­ing on who created it.