Brittle Strength is two or three heavy revisions away from being something that goes out into the world to find its way. It’s also the reason why this site exists – it’s the story that revived my lifelong dream of being a writer, which had been on life support for several years. Even if it never gets published, it’ll always have a special place in my heart.

I was driving home from work on a stormy spring night, “Pardon Me, Ginger” by The Pine Box Boys was barely audible over the rain and my windshield wipers, and an idea struck hard and fast. I ran inside, told my husband that I Had To Do Something, and sat down at my computer and furiously typed in a trancelike state for two hours straight. When it was over, I found myself staring at a 3,000-word-long scene involving a foul-mouthed soldier, a bewildered demon, a number of Jäger shots, and what I found to be a fairly thorough illustration of the phrase “enthusiastic consent.”

If we’re being honest, I always imagined myself as a highbrow creator of Important Literature who’d be widely discussed in the pages of literary journals and the hallowed halls of academia. But that night I decided that if the narrative lurking in my heart turned out to be a smutty tale about demonic backwoods shenanigans, then by the power of Grayskull, I would write the shit out of it. So I did. And here we are.

Here’s the official-ish pitch:

 When a disillusioned veteran stumbles into a drunken encounter with a demon, she is caught up in a crumbling bargain between Hell and the final descendant of a clan of Ozark witches and must confront an increasingly powerful backwoods cult to prevent an ancient evil from destroying her hometown.

If that sounds like fun to you, the first 1,000 words are available right this very second in Grindstone Literary Services’ 2017 Anthology!

What’s that, anonymous blog reader? You just so happen to be a literary agent so interested in a backwoods phantasmagoria that hinges on unsustainable timber practices in late nineteenth century Arkansas that you’d even work with a manuscript that’s not exactly finished? Well, get with me.

[Here’s hoping I remember to edit out that joke before I start submitting this thing.]