My Writing

I’ve had a life-long interest in books and reading, and when I reached adulthood, I decided to try my hand at writing. It doesn’t come easily to me; most of the time, I would rather be writing code than prose. But there’s a satisfaction in creating a story or an essay that I don’t get with software development.

Here, you’ll find some links to pieces of writing that I’ve published. Enjoy!

The Strange Separation of Jacob and Rob

This is a book that I ghostwrote with a survivor of sexual trauma. The story follows his recovery and the impact that the event had on the rest of his life. I spent a lot of time interviewing and collaborating with my subject, and I greatly value the experience and his friendship. The book deals with difficult subject matter, but in the end, I believe it carries a message of hope.

For more information, please visit this site.

The only difference between Jacob and me is that he is Jacob and I am me.

The difference between us causes our stories to branch away from each other at the moment that the woman utters those words.

“I’m going to kill myself.”

Short Stories and Essays

Kale Chips

Shanghai Literary Review, Issue 1

All of these meanings blend together to make a perfume, and ⟨乖⟩ is like a magical pair of tweezers which, depending on the angle at which you pluck, extracts the essence of vanilla, or lavender, or rose.

Subtitles

chapbook by bird, buried press

The skyscrapers, the ships on the Huangpu, the Bund; they form a sepia-toned photograph, like what I’m seeing now already happened a long time ago, before my arrival in Shanghai, even before I was born.

The Storm

Spadina Literary Review, April 2017

Because by the time the lightning started, the blunt violence of the storm had already beaten from us all sense and reason, wiped us so that we were blank like a fresh sheet of paper. The storm wiped us, so that when the lightning came, it filled our empty spaces with wonder, and something like joy.

100% Original

The Danforth Review, Issue 35

I went into the job interview not knowing what to expect.

He asked me only two questions.

The first: “Do you have any experience in shopkeeping?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He asked his second question: “Can you keep a secret?”

Opening Night

Postscripts to Darkness, Volume 4

Our final act is unlike the others. There is no magic here. Only Nature itself.

Unknown and Unseen

On Spec Magazine, Summer 2013

We have mastered the construction of part number 6725D. Our fingers are so familiar with the motion that we can do it without thinking. It will eventually be combined with other components, made by the other teams, to form a whole. After it’s been fused with those pieces, 6725D—the part that we know so well—will be unknown and unseen.