This creative project is a collection of five pieces of short fiction revolving around the life and times of one central character, a young man named Jared Yando. The perspective of each individual piece is centered at different points within approximately one calendar year, and chronicles the protagonist's life within that very transitional period. The focus holds mainly on Jared's relationships, from the latest one with his girlfriend Claudia to the oldest ones with his shattered but healing family. Throughout, these relationship partners take unexpected actions that result in unexpected consequences spanning both ends of the emotional spectrum. Jared finds himself repeatedly involved in that most human of predicaments as he is forced to sort out the actions of those close to him and determine what they have meant, and will mean, to the construction of his own character. / Department of English

A Veritable Press is a collection of six short stories, focusing on the troubled relationships of its characters, exhibited both internally and externally. While the characters in these stories experience the effects of their own decisions, they are generally more affected by forces outside their control, whether those are the choices of others, or the inexplicability of nature. Most characters seek redemption, though they are denied the means to deliver themselves as they move towards an end that seems inevitable. This feeling of inevitability represents the arbitrary and seemingly unsystematic nature of circumstance. Through the use of distinct voices, multiple narratives, and metafiction, each piece works to exhibit an entirely realistic portrait of its places and characters, endeavoring to force its reader to face what is most unpleasant and appalling, in order to understand it. / You and I -- Violet in blue, swimming -- Mole hunt -- We three make up a solitude -- Savages -- Other books. / Department of English

The Shadow Line is a collection of six short stories featuring characters whose lives take them near, and often across, the metaphorical Line that separates light from dark. Some of these characters indeed straddle that Line, living lives of apparent uprightness while harboring the seeds of inescapable menace. Some hover on the outside of some social structure and yearn to cross over, to leave the shadows of their lives outside for the apparent radiance within. And some live in worlds of brightness and comfort, only to find themselves confronting sudden moments of inexplicable terror. Told from various points of view, these stories invite the reader to listen to the characters — to explore the secrets they keep, the fears and doubts and dangers they face as they confront the darkness — and to inhabit with them, for a short time, the menacing world on either side of the Shadow Line. / A story to tell -- Grass grows greener -- Salvation -- Places -- The delivery -- The ivory tower. / Department of English