MY WORK
Completed
THE HOUSE ON OLD WEST END
A McKinley Kids Adventure
Middle Grade, Adventure/Mystery
10 year-old Pia Winnie ("PeeWee") McCray had thought this summer would be like any other: climbing trees and playing ball with her 12 year-old brother, Bobby and his friends on McKinley Ave. But with the boys more interested in building a "No Girls Allowed" clubhouse, PeeWee is left to spend her days reading alone at the library. When she stumbles upon an old newspaper clipping about her reclusive neighbor, Old Man Hoogie, and the untimely deaths in his family, PeeWee finds herself immersed in a 20 year-old mystery surrounding the resident hermit, and unwittingly drags Bobby and his friends into it. PeeWee will stop at nothing to get answers, but there are some who would prefer the truth remain shrouded in the past...
In Progress
11 GOOD EGGS
Young Adult, Coming of Age
This summer I will take a trip back in time. I will travel to a foreign country. Where I will not speak the language or understand the customs of the people. There, I will confront the one I loved. I will traverse the country from the north to south by bus. I will meet people. People who knew her. I will learn secrets about her.
I will despise her for some of these things. I will make some of the same mistakes she made when she was here. With some of the same kinds of people. I will love. I will lose. I will be woken up in a bus on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at 4 am and find my luggage has gone missing along with the driver. With only her as my baggage, I will carry her through a lagoon where I will split my leg on a rock and wait for help.
I will cry for the first time since she died. I will cry for who she was. For who she became. For who I had started to become. This summer, I will travel with her. Now, and seventeen years ago. And when I leave, I will finally understand her.
Because of this, I will not become her.