I write novels, essays, and poems, and I take pictures. Born, raised, and living in the Chicago area.

Most days start with a walk. I take a camera into the preserves and the ravines near Lake Michigan, see what catches my eye, and snap the image. Pretty soon I'm lost in the cadence of walking and looking, and then a line or a fragment comes from the ether. I've learned to follow. The line might be part of a novel I'm working on. It might be short and unto itself. Either way, this routine is the one dependable thing that awakens my muse and sets me writing for the day.

I spent several years on a novel and I'm at work on another. That's the long work and most of the work. What I share here is the shorter kind; personal essays, poems, and prose paired with a photograph, released when it's ready.

My interest in writing and photography began in high school. I studied writers and writing as an undergrad, but not photography. For a time I thought I was headed to film school. Film school didn't happen. I kept taking pictures anyway. There's a story within most images and, for my writing, there's an image framing most scenes.

Picture taking, especially on the trails or in the woods, complements writing. The attention to smallness. The cycles of living things. Aside from Chicago's beautiful but troubled urban landscape, Illinois is more mundane. Or, more accurately put, flat. But like my favorite stories, there is beauty in the mundane. Especially when viewed through the right lens, or captured with the right words.