Star Spider
Writing
I have been writing for most of my life and have published two novels and many short stories. I have also written for marketing in both web and video formats. In the past few years I have been focused on non-fiction, academic writing, and game writing.
Julie Nolan is a pretty average girl with pretty average problems. She’s been in love with her best friend, Lorelei, ever since they met in grade three. Only Lorelei doesn’t know about it—she’s too busy trying to set Julie up with Henry, her ex, who Julie finds, in a word, vapid.
But life gets more complicated when Julie comes home to find her mother insisting that her heart is gone. Pretty soon it becomes clear: Julie’s mom believes that she has died.
How is Julie supposed to navigate her first year of high school now, while she’s making midnight trips to the graveyard to cover her mother with dirt, lay flowers and make up eulogies? And why is Henry the only person Julie feels comfortable turning to? If she wants to get through this, Julie’s going to have to find the strength she never knew she had, and learn how to listen to both her mom’s heart and her own.
Seventeen-year-old Penny is struggling to balance caring for Jude, her sister with mental health challenges, working part-time to help her mother with money issues and facing her final year of high school. She does not need any distractions. But then she meets Jack. The two of them click immediately. But as quickly as things heat up, they then cool down, and Penny isn’t sure why. Does she have room for her feelings for Jack alongside her worries that her sister is crashing into suicidal depression again?
Essays
Medium - Why we should care about AI sentience
Vice - Making friends is hard after you leave a cult
Awards
Academic
Bronze Award – Toronto Metropolitan University Philosophy Award – Schrödinger's Theory: Superposition and Realism
Fiction & Non-Fiction
Runner Up – Conville and Walsh Word of Mouth Prize – Past Tense (Novel)
3rd Place – Jenny Magazine Spec Fic Contest – Space
Short List – Room Magazine Writing Contest – Camels for Freedom
Semi-finalist – Raymond Carver Short Story Contest – We all have wings
Long List – CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize – Camels for Freedom
Honourable Mention – Friends of Merril Short Story Contest – The One in Green
Winner of 2013 Fringe Contest – Eden Mills Writer’s Festival – Willow
Canada Writes Bloodlines Contest – Lucky
CBC Prompt Contest – Stuck
CBC Pick of the Day – The song that changed my life
Short Stories
Grain Magazine Issue 44.3 – May 2017 – Gramma
Flash Fiction Online – July 2016 – Inside
Five 2 One Magazine – February 2016 – Warm Milk
Leopardskin & Limes – January 2016 – Willow
Found Press – October 2015 – Amako
Necessary Fiction – August 2015 – MUST SPEAK DOVE
Cease, Cows – August 2015 – Before the stars went out
Cheapjack Pulp – June 2015 – Bronwyn’s Aria
Open Pen Magazine – June 2015 – Middle Name
Writers Tribe Review – May 2015 – Thirteen Things
Ginosko Literary Journal – May 2015 – All I know
Red Fez – May 2015 – Mundane Revolution
Zeit-Haus Magazine – May 2015 – Tectonic Heart
The James Franco Review – April 2015 – Name it
The New Urge Anthology – March 2015 – Writing on the Wall
Apocrypha & Abstractions – January 2015 – Meat Breath
Maudlin House – January 2015 – Leadership Camp
A cappella Zoo (Issue # 13) – January 2015 – The World of her own making
Sein & Werden – December 2014 – Now we are ten
Empty Mirror – November 2014 – Shine
Flyleaf Journal – November 2014 – How can we ever be better?
Purple Pig Lit – November 2014 – Remembered in the soil
The Quilliad – October 2014 – The Same
Gone Lawn – October 2014 – Insomnia
Bitterzoet Magazine – October 2014 – The Giver
Apeiron Review – September 2014 – Of Gods and Curtains
Klipspringer Magazine – September 2014 – Honey & Rye
Close to the Bone, Near to the Knuckle – August 2014 – Muriel & Ryan
ExFic – May 2014 – Double Stuffed Oreo
Black Treacle – April 2014 – Hungry
Grim Corps – October 2013 – Dear Agnes
Interviews
Author Interview – Word on the Street
Charles Payseur – Review of ‘Green on the Inside’
Author Interview – Jenny Magazine
Contributor – Women in Clothes
CBC Magic 8 - Author Interview
Reviews
Nolan Liebert – Review of ‘Insomnia’ – 2014
Quill & Quire - Review of “Past Tense”
Power Librarian - Review of “Past Tense” – 2018
Radioactive Book Review - Review of “Past Tense” – 2018
Canlit for Little Canadians - Review of “Past Tense” – 2018
Books & Ladders - Instagram Review of “Past Tense” – 2018
Kirkus Starred Review - “Hey Jude” – 2020
CM Review - “Hey Jude” - 2020
Promotion
Chapters Indigo Instagram - Past Tense
CBC Canadian Teen Summer Reads - Past Tense
Globe and Mail Teen Books - Past Tense