If you look around this site, you’ll find a collection of my recent and archived works, as well as a few links to some other websites. Hang out, check some pages, and see if there’s anything you like. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think of what you find or what you might like to see.
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The image above was taken in the desert of Namibia. The country boasts some incredible wildlife, but it also has an abundance of stunning vistas.
Cool Places
Black Rhino Reserve, Damaraland, Namibia
The tracker climbs in beside me on the safari vehicle and rests the stock of his rifle on the floorboard. He’s young. Too young, I think, to be carrying such a firearm. As I stare at the business end of the rifle, our guide—Loud—comments that if we see poachers, “then something needs to be done.” In other African countries we’ve travelled to, we’ve heard rumours that poachers are shot on sight. I assume that’s what Loud means, and I’m a little shocked at the revelation. I came to this reserve in Damaraland to see a Black Rhino. It never occurred to me that I might be in a firefight.
We are driving through a truly inhospitable landscape. There is no water, and the ground is covered with rust-coloured stones that vary in size from cantaloupes to watermelons. They make the drive a bone-shaking torment, and trekking on foot would be disastrous. The parched hills are sprinkled green with a single type of bush, and Loud informs us that not only is its milky sap deadly, but the smoke from its burning branches is also fatal. The Black Rhinoceros, however, thrives on it, so it’s a perfect habitat for the solitary beast we’ve travelled so far to see.
We have just entered a small valley, when one of the trackers calls out, and Loud stops our vehicle. I look down to the ground beside us and see where a patch of open sand has been flattened into a large, round print. It’s going in the opposite direction of us, but a rhino has recently passed this way.
Loud turns our vehicle around—much easier said than done in such a rocky landscape. The trackers now walk on the road beside us, alternately surveying the surrounding hills and then studying the ground. In a very short time, one of them calls out and points ahead. It’s a long ways away, but on the large, sloping hillside before us, we can make out the unmistakable profile of a rhinoceros. It’s reddish-grey, probably due to light reflected from the surrounding rocks, and it blends into the hillside, but there’s no question that we looking at one of the few of these magnificent beasts still left in existence.
We drive a litter farther, then Loud parks the vehicle and informs us that we are going to travel the rest of the distance on foot. On the surface, this sounds somewhat suicidal; Black Rhinos are notoriously aggressive, and their charges are often fatal. They also have highly developed auditory and olfactory senses. We have been assured, however, that they have poor eyesight, so if we approach them downwind, keeping a safe distance between us, we will be safe.
We leave the vehicle and move in single file, inching closer and closer toward the rhino. No one talks above a whisper. At first, my gaze swings between our transportation and the animal on the hillside. The rocks make it difficult to walk, and I’m struck by the thought that if we have to flee a charge, we won’t be able to run, and not all of us will make it back to the vehicle in time.
Once I reconcile myself to our situation, I focus all my attention on the rhino. It might not be able to smell or see us, but we have made enough noise that it turns to stare in our direction. The air becomes suddenly charged. It knows something is out here. The question is: How curious will it become? Will it decide to move closer? Close enough to see us? My breathing quickens, and my heart thumps in my chest.
I look at Loud and the trackers, hoping for some assurance, and they all seem calm. Time stretches, and the rhino appears to lose interest and begins to wander the hillside. I tell myself it’s okay to calm down. Calm down? The animal I’m looking at grows to a weight of 2900 pounds, and it’s almost five feet at the shoulder. Standing out on that forbidding terrain, with such a monstrous creature close by, who could possibly calm down?
I get out my camera and begin to document the encounter. I miss the days of film when I could only spare to take one or two photos and then be pleasantly surprised when I developed the film. With digital, I’ll take fifty pictures and then get bored when I have to sort through them all. Still, it’s the experience that matters the most, so after capturing the rhino in my lens, I let the camera hang at my side and try to capture it in my memory.
With the Black Rhino, holding it in my memory strikes me as a terrible necessity. Will such animals still be around if I want to come back in the future? Black Rhinos are critically endangered, and it is estimated that only 6,500 of them remain on this planet Earth. That seems like a large number, but it’s spread over the entire continent of Africa. Will this be a success story or just another tragic tale of extinction? Their numbers are increasing, so the future looks hopeful. Apart from loss of habitat, the most serious threat they face is poaching. I think again: Should poachers be shot on sight? Balanced against the survival of a species, I have to admit that I wouldn’t argue against it.
Loud waits a long time before signalling that we should return to the safari vehicle. I turn to leave, but then steal one last moment to simply stand and stare, trying to absorb it all. With the sweeping landscape, the elementary colours, and that strange creature in its skin of armour, it is all too much to take in. I take a deep breath and decide that I need to be satisfied for the moment; this is one of those encounters where it’s impossible to get enough. It’s better to touch it lightly and move on. More adventure awaits.
Publishing News: June 1, 2025
Ever since studying linguistics in university, I’ve been acutely aware of the limitations of language, and as a writer, the inadequacy of the medium is something I struggle with almost daily. I think this difficulty becomes most evident when a writer attempts to describe water. Imagine standing in a pool (preferably in the Caribbean with a margarita in hand—double-fisted, if you would like) and looking at the play of the sun on the rippling water surface. Every time I do this, I shake my head at the impossibility of capturing that image in words. (Now, the more margaritas I drink, the easier the task seems, but then I just fall asleep.)
Well, Four Tulips, an online journal that features poetry, has published two poems of mine that represent my attempt at capturing the impossibility of water in words.
For anyone interested, the following link will take you to “Morning in the Bay,” and at the bottom of that page, there is an arrow that will take you to “The Liquid Canvas.” I hope you enjoy them.
https://www.fourtulips.com/archives/morning-in-the-bay
Publishing News: March 5, 2025
The Saint Katherine Review has published another poem of mine. This one is titled “Vancouver Night” and was written on Vancouver Island while looking east toward the mainland. The night was overcast and gloomy, and that mood definitely found its way the poem. I hope you enjoy the imagery.
Publishing News: March 5, 2025
While visiting some friends on Gambier Island, located off the western shore of British Columbia, I spent time on a perch overlooking West Bay. The play of water, earth, and sky evoked a number of poems, and one of them, “Water and Sky,” has been published on a beautiful online literary journal called the Saint Katherine Review. Here is the link: https://www.stkatherinereview.com/blog.
Cool Places
Actum Tunichil Mukal—Cave of the Stone Sepulcher, Belize
This is one of the coolest places my wife and I have ever gone to. It’s a cave in the Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve of Belize, and you can only go there with a guide. It’s located about an hour’s drive from San Ignacio, and once you reach the edge of the reserve, it’s another hour on foot into the jungle.
To get to the cave, we had to swim across a small river that flowed from its entrance. Once inside, the only light we had came from our headlamps. Sometimes we scrambled over slippery rock. Sometimes we were forced into the river, neck deep in freezing water, and had to cling to the cave wall, pulling ourselves deeper and deeper into the mountain.
In time, we came to a waterfall and climbed up its cascading face to slip through a rock opening at its top. Past that, there were passages where we needed to crawl, but these opened up to spacious caverns where our torches barely illuminated the distant walls and ceiling. Stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and pillow rocks hung everywhere. Pale under our weak headlamps, these formations erupted into colour when our guide shone his powerful torch on them.
We scrambled and hiked for another hour until we reached a place where we had to crawl up a large boulder and onto an overhanging ledge. Once back on level ground, we were told to remove our shoes—the rest of the way was to be done in stocking feet. This dry chamber, as it was called, once had ceremonial significance to the Maya and was littered with ceramic pots that had rested there for a thousand years of darkness.
The cave is called a sepulcher for a reason—it contains human remains. Archeologists have identified these remains as sacrificial in nature. Similar to the pottery, most are calcium encrusted. In total, we saw five individuals, ranging from fourteen to thirty-nine years old. The final victim we visited was the Crystal Maiden.
We reached her place of internment after forty minutes of walking through the dry chambers. It was a surreal, magnificent, and macabre experience. Against the far wall of the last chamber we entered, we ascended an aluminum ladder that reached up to the small cave. The Crystal Maiden rested on the floor of this cave, only five feet from where we stood. Limbs stretched wide, she faced in our direction. A short distance from her there was another skeleton, this one of a child.
We were told that she was an eighteen year old girl who had been brutally beaten (two of her vertebrae were crushed), then tossed to the back of the cave and left to die. The smaller victim may have been her child. Was this a sacrifice or a murder? It is a question that will never be answered. All we can be certain of is that she died in fear and pain.
Her skeleton has lain so long in the Stone Sepulcher that the bones have become encased in calcium, as though covered in hoar frost of crystal, and she sparkles in the torchlight. It is both beautiful and tragic.
A short time passed, and we took our leave, descending the ladder in silence. It was over an hour away, but the sunlight awaited us. It was not so for the Crystal Maiden. As our torchlight faded, the sound of our exit passed in a fading echo, and she was once more left to the darkness.
Publishing News: March 3, 2025
Another one of my favourite stories – “Minotaur” – has just been published in an anthology of short stories, poetry, and artwork. As you can see below, the anthology is called Litbop: Art and Literature in the Groove. This collection is full of some beautiful work. It’s available from Amazon.com in both ebook and paperback copies.
Publishing News: December 2, 2024
One of my favourite short stories, “A Paper Koan,” has just been published by an online and print journal called Whisk(e)y Tit. (Yes, Whiskey Tit.) I love this story (As I should, I suppose. It would be sad if I hated one of my own stories.), and it’s exciting to see it in print. I hope everyone enjoys it. I took the photograph that accompanies it in Angkor Wat, Camodia.
Here’s the link: https://whiskeytit.com/wt-journal-issue-11/
What I’m working on now: November 30, 2024
I’m just finished writing “The Killings,” and it tops out at seventeen pages. The idea for this story came to me at the same time as “Terminus,” but I wrote the rough for it while I was in Zimbabwe. It’s about a couple who travel to Southern Africa to go on safari, but while self-driving through the countryside, they encounter an experience beyond what they could have imagined.
I will classify this as fiction, but almost the entirely of this story is true, and the events I describe either happened to me directly, or they were described to me by someone who experienced them first-hand. Although the writing came to me easily—it mostly flowed from my pen—I found the story difficult to write. It forced me to consider aspects of our existence that were uncomfortable to deal with. (But, what should I have expected from a story with this title?)
What I’m working on now: November 20, 2024
I’ve just finished the rough copy of “Terminus,” a horror story set in Botswana. A thirty-something couple have been on safari and are now going to the Kalahari Desert to see a Meerkat colony and then spend the night on the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan. (This name is too much of a mouthful for a short story, so I just call it the Kalahari Salt Pan. Inaccurate, I know, but I envision a reader getting tongue-tied and being pulled out of the context of the story—never a good thing.) Anyway, enroute to their destination, they encounter several circumstances that hint at a world somehow out of joint, and finally they come face to face with…. Well, that I can’t say, can I? (Where would be the fun in that.)
This is an odd thing, but writing this horror story has been a lot of fun. I was in Namibia when I got the idea. We were driving across the desert, and as I watched the desiccated landscape stretch before us, something began to nag at the base of my spine. It took a little teasing to get it out, but “Terminus” spilled into my consciousness almost fully formed. I immediately pulled out my journal and began writing. This kind of story, where I’m more the recipient of the narrative rather than its creator, is a pleasure to create.
Another reason I’ve enjoyed writing this is because most of it is autobiographical. My wife and I did go on safari in Botswana, and we did visit the Meerkats and then spend the night sleeping on the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan. Now, of course, our story did not end with horror; rather, we capped off the adventure with a celebratory round of whiskey and Amarula.
Which we’re probably going to do when I finish this story and find someone who will publish it. Fingers are crossed.
Publishing News – November 12, 2024
I’ve been on a bit of run lately. The NightWriter Review has just published my first travel article: “The Avalanche and the Whale.” As an avid traveller, I find myself constantly torn between the desire to simply live a moment or to capture that moment on film, and this article reflects on that struggle. The link below will take you to it.
https://thenightwriterreview.com/
Publishing News – November 5, 2024:
The Passionfruit Review, an online journal, has just published the first poem of mine to go into print. Written shortly after my mother died, “Love and Ashes” is a reflection on the transient nature of life and the everlasting nature of love. To read it, follow the link I’ve provided below and open issue Thirteen.
https://passionfruitreview.com/
Publishing News – October 31, 2024
Litbop: Art and Literature in the Groove, is an anthology published once a year both as a Kindle ebook and as a print-on-demand paperback. The publisher is Thrilling Tales, and they are going to include my short story “Minotaur” in their upcoming anthology. I will post a link to the issue with “Minotaur” when the next anthology is published.
Publishing News – October 26, 2024:
My first short story is now in print! This is thrilling news for me (probably not quite so exciting for everyone else). The piece is titled “Child in the Garden.” It’s a sci-fi story set twenty years after the events described in Lord of the Flies. You can find it in a beautiful online magazine called The Genre Society, just follow the link below and look in Issue 2. I’ll be forever in their debt for being the first to publish one of my stories.
https://www.thegenresociety.com/ourcollections
What I’m working on now:
Sometimes the ideas won’t stop coming. I have several stories in my head along with pages and pages of scratched notes. I was reading about the Book of Soyga manuscript, and the ideas spun about in my imagination until they coalesced into a horror story with the working title, “The Unholy Cipher.” So, that one’s in the works. While in Namibia, four other ideas came to me. For some reason, horror stories were on my mind, so two of the new works will be in that genre, and they will be set in Namibia. I’m going with the working titles: “The Godwana Glyphs,” and “Terminus.” We’ll see if those change. I’m also halfway through a travel non-fiction piece about Deadvlei, a site in the Namibian desert. Lastly, I’ve basically handwritten a fiction piece about a couple that stops in a local market in a small town in an as-of-let undecided country in southern Africa. Whew.
Publishing News – October 11, 2024
There is a beautiful online magazine out of Brussels called The Brussels Review, and they have let me know that they will be including my short story “Two Final Cups of Tea” in an upcoming issue. I couldn’t be more excited. You can check out their website at https://thebrusselsreview.com/, and, of course, I will post a link when the next issue is released.
Publishing News – October 3, 2024
I was travelling in Namibia when I received an email from a publishing company called Whiskey Tit. This company publishes novels, and it also has an online journal. They informed me that they would like to include my short story, “A Paper Koan” in the next issue of this journal. Again, thrilling news! I will post a link to the issue when it is out, but until then you should check out their website at https://whiskeytit.com/.
Publishing News – September 14, 2024
I just received word from The Genre Society, an online magazine featuring “out of this world fiction and poetry,” that they will be publishing my Sci-Fi story, “Child in the Garden.” This is thrilling news! The Genre Society is a beautiful magazine, and you should check it out at https://www.thegenresociety.com/. I will post a link to the specific issue when the story is published.
What I’m working on now:
Well, I’ve just finished the rough copy of A Waning Moon. It’s a novella now, so no quotation marks. It tops out at seventy pages, with a total of 27, 500 words. I’m pretty happy with it; although, getting a novella published is a challenge. The alternative is so present it as two separate short stories. Each works as an independent narrative, so I could try this approach, but it would be a shame to separate them as compliment each other as a single narrative. (Just for interest sake, I’ve presented one story, “The Wolf of Lunan Sa,” on my short story page.)
What I’m working on now:
I’ve got three projects on the go right now.
Most of my time is taken with a short story called “A Waning Moon,” and I’ve written a post about this on my short story page.
Second is a collection of poetry that I’m putting together. It’s interesting, and a little humbling, to go through a lifetime of poems and decide what needs to discarded, what is worth keeping but shouldn’t be shared, and what is good enough to publish. When I’ve done this, I’ll put together an table of contents with some samples of the poems.
Lastly, and the least enjoyable, is the on-going search for an agent or publisher. Blah. It’s the worst aspect of writing, but when you’ve spend months on a story, you owe yourself the time to find someone who’s will to take it on.