Natural 20 is a novel that takes place between many worlds, most inside the head of Chester Gerber, the protagonist and central character. Chester Gerber has a difficult "real" world life. He graduated high school over a year ago and his best friend moved from Michigan to Baltimore to attend school. Chester himself isn't in college, has no job or girlfriend, and, since his father died, lives alone with his mother in a trailer in a dying Michigan town. To deal with this, Chester uses various means of escape—including playing Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and reading. At various times throughout, the novel follows Chester into these worlds and helps the reader understand Chester to a deeper degree by exploring the worlds he's creating. Eventually, the real world, filled with girl trouble, friendship strife, and someone close battling cancer, becomes too much, and Chester is forced to face it without escape.

Poems

Four short stories and the first quarter of a novel revolve around characters sick with want, sick of and from the worlds in which they live. They crave connection with other people, often through indirect methods, but can’t always manage the connections they make with other characters. Objects, comforting and static when people cannot be, take prominence as connection to the real world.

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MFA thesis

Ascension discusses multiple subjects concerning the art of the author, including death, religion, and painting.

The artist discusses her Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition, Stray, held at Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University, from April 4th to April 8th. The show exhibit consists largely of self-portraits derived from the artist’s dreams, in an array of media including mixed media on paper, oil on canvas, and wire frame sculpture, all completed in the Spring of 2011, with the exception of one sculpture. Ideas explored include the influence of dreams, representation of the self, masking, disguising, the loss of home, and the tendency of memory to fade. Influences discussed include the written work of Milan Kundera, as well as the painting of Marlene Dumas, the early printmaking of Paul Klee, and the work of John Currin.