I’ve had a passion for literary fiction ever since I was assigned to read William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” in the ninth grade. My fourteen-year-old self found that story transcendent in its use of language to convey truths of the human condition I couldn’t even imagine–but at the same time the story was very much grounded in the real world of cheese and dirt and manure-fouled boots.

Reading “Barn Burning” set me on the path of becoming a writer, and I’ve been on that path ever since. I write literary fiction, not because I think I can achieve the ineffable transcendence of a “Barn Burning” or an As I Lay Dying, but because I know it is possible.