Sunlight Parted
Literary Fiction Novel (2025)

Salima Falls
Literary Fiction Novel (2017)

Sunlight Parted
Literary Fiction Novel (2015)

Distant Lands of Solitude
Poetry & Photography Collection (2006)

1000 Shades of Red is the first-person, emotional, and existential journey of a new freshman starting college at Indiana University. It follows him through four years exploring campus, self-discovery, poetic expression, absorption in music, friendships, shenanigans, temptation, and the intense moments of a young man experiencing love gained and love lost for the first time. All of this is set in the beautiful and magical nearly 2000-acre campus of Indiana University in Bloomington.
“Sunlight Parted is an amazing love story without being sappy or too saccharin, it draws the reader in with high emotional stakes and an incredibly interesting take on life and death. I found it so meaningful, I got teary at the end! Books don’t usually affect me so directly, but this packs a heck of an emotional punch. Bravo!”
– Cara Lockwood (USA Today best-selling author of 10 books, professional editor)
If you would like to have your quote on the website, please read Salima Falls and then send me a contact message with your information and the quote. I will choose the one I think fits the best for the book and website from all those received, and then post it on here. I will let you know.
– To Be Determined
“These photographs and verses are a welcoming chance and reminder to slow down and appreciate the small things that give meaning and purpose to life. Whether it is a drop of water collecting on a fallen leaf, or a couplet capturing the complexities of beauty, this book definitely gives us all something to enjoy and reflect on.”
– Karl Mayer (Book collector & avid reader)
Info & Details
Page Count | 434 Pages |
Word Count | 106,495 Words |
Chapters | 33 Chapters |
Publisher | Ingram Spark |
Story Synopsis
1000 Shades of Red is the first-person, emotional, and existential journey of a new freshman starting college at Indiana University. It follows him through four years exploring campus, self-discovery, poetic expression, absorption in music, friendships, shenanigans, temptation, and the intense moments of a young man experiencing love gained and love lost for the first time. All of this is set in the beautiful and magical nearly 2000-acre campus of Indiana University in Bloomington.
Writing Excerpt
Up ahead is Ballantine Hall. It was once the tallest academic building in the country, and still is the tallest building here on campus. Everyone has a class here at some point. It has eleven stories, a six foot metal globe in the atrium, and a notorious history of suicides throughout the years. Yes, I said suicides. Panicked students who couldn’t bear a looming failure. Worried teens stressed about an upcoming exam. Heartbroken young adults feeling love lost for the first time. Causes not nearly monumental enough for the deed and its inevitable effect. That’s where my class is today. Suicide Hall.
I look up at the top as I approach, to the ledge perched high above the trees overlooking the concrete steps and bicycle racks below. I imagine being one of those kids at the end of his or her wits, standing there looking down at the parking curb that’s about to go through their head at thirty miles an hour. All because of a piece of paper with questions typed on it, handed to them by a total stranger. Or because someone didn’t want to be with them anymore. Or who knows why. I honestly can’t comprehend it. I try to wrap my brain around the idea and make sense of it. What were they thinking? What were they feeling? How could they possibly justify jumping? Did they regret it during the two or three seconds they were suspended in the air before their bodies crashed messily in front of people? Did they spend that time thinking about their grades? About the test? About a girl? Or about the infinity they are leaping into? What was that final moment like? When their atoms became part of the earth and no longer a part of themselves. When the spaces between dissipated. Dreams and hopes exploded on impact. Books and music scattered on the pavement. Love and romance liquified. Sex and pain and memories drying in the sun. The past, present, and future in a thousand shades of red painting the sidewalk. Oozing from a former something. A current nothing. A memory. Surrounded by the screams of others. Maybe that should be our house mural. That would surely make people think. But their demise makes no sense to me. A test or a class or a grade is a blip on the radar. A dot on an infinite line. A commercial break. A meaningless, forgettable thing. A speck on the vast mural of life! It pales next to friendship! It dissolves next to Love!
Thinking about it all makes me lose my appetite for my next class. Statistical Probabilities. Probably, pun intended, my least favorite class ever. But I can’t do it today. I can’t sit through another commercial right now. So I walk back down the steps of Ballantine Hall, across the grassy area, and sit at the base of a tree outside of Woodburn Hall across the way. No one has ever jumped off of this one. It’s not tall enough. It would only add pain to pain.
Info & Details
Page Count | 320 Pages |
Word Count | 88,987 Words |
Chapters | 42 Chapters |
Publisher | Ingram Spark |
Story Synopsis
After witnessing a tragedy that sends his life spiraling into darkness, Winston becomes obsessed with finding the man responsible for it all. On the one-year anniversary of that fateful day, in the midst of an anger-fueled search, he stumbles upon a quaint and surreal little town outside the city, called Salima Falls. This town becomes the setting for his slow climb out of despair and his attempt to escape the past that burdens him. However, when the truth about the day that changed his life a year earlier is finally revealed to him, his entire reality is forced into question. Will he be able to forgive? Will he finally find a light to break through the darkness of his heart? Will he know what is real? Will he believe in the things that the universe has shown him?
Writing Excerpt
Winston stared ahead and felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He didn’t need to see the path to know it was there. He idled forward and eased the car off the road, through the tee and into the grass. When his bumper was only fifteen feet or so from the corn, he slowed to a stop and held his foot on the brake. He stared ahead of him at the wall of green and listened to Carter’s words replaying over and over in his head. “The universe will get you where you are supposed to be… You just have to believe…”
He felt the engine rumble as he held his foot on the brake and revved it up. The sound reverberated in his ears and the sun gleamed in his eye. You just have to believe… He closed his eyes and pictured Emma, sitting on her porch waiting for him. “I believe.” He didn’t know if she hated him or missed him, or even thought of him. He didn’t know if he could find her again, but he didn’t care. “I believe.” He had to try. He had to go to Salima Falls. “I believe.” He had to look into those eyes again…
He opened his eyes and stared one more time at the corn in front of him.
“I believe,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and slammed his foot on the gas.
Info & Details
Page Count | 197 Pages |
Word Count | 61,385 Words |
Chapters | 21 Chapters |
Publisher | Ingram Spark |
Story Synopsis
Seth wakes up alone on a dark and supernatural beach. With no clothing and no memory of how he arrived, he looks around to find the beach deserted except for an ominous looking beach house. Unable to escape, and fighting his fears, he enters in search of answers.
Inside, he is mysteriously swept on an unknown, yet wonderful, glimpse of his future, where he meets and falls in Love with a girl named Sovannah.
As more and more glimpses of Sovannah unravel, Seth ventures further and further into his future, only to wake again and again in front of the ever-changing beach house.
Struggling to grasp the meaning of this strange new world, and fighting his increasing anger and lack of answers, Seth is desperate to learn the meaning of his situation and the life with Sovannah that is perpetually pulled away from him by some unseen force… before he runs out of time.
Writing Excerpt
He stood there, staring at the beach house in total silence, motionless, lost in the horrible idea that maybe this wasn’t a dream at all. That this was his reality, a reality he could never wake up from. Fittingly, the words to one of his favorite poems that he ever wrote crossed his mind. “Maybe I have walked these very shores before, but never as it now had seemed. And maybe life and death are simply doors, among the many hallways I have dreamed.”
His eyes were focused on the beach house. He took a step towards it but stopped. I… I can’t go in… He was torn between desire and fear. He knew what going back inside could mean. Another wonderful, yet fleeting glimpse of a life with Sovannah. Another day in the perfect Eden of her existence. Another dip in the sublime sea of their life together.
But it could also mean something else. Another pain-filled departure. Another torturous, yet futile struggle to hold onto the dream. Another startling and defeating return to this desolate place. Another undetermined period of time that would be lost to him forever. A gaping hole in his mind. A forgotten piece of himself.
Info & Details
Page Count | 136 Pages |
Sections | 11 Sections |
ISBN-13 | 9781425963767 |
Publisher | Authorhouse |
Publication Date | 11/28/06 |
Sample Poems
To see a sampling of the photos, please go to the photography page.
I Wish I wish I had control I wish I had the valor I wish I had the wisdom 1/6/05 |
Of Dreams Be this light the light of dreams Be this day the day of dreams Be this night the night of dreams Be this girl the girl of dreams 1/31/05 |
Delusions Of Death I found myself upon the sacred sands No marks were left by all who trod before And only when we perish do we find And maybe time was crafted so ideal And maybe I have walked these very shores 3/01/03 |
Sample Quotes
“And now my greatest fear is to forget Or even worse, to never even know The wonders that are waiting for me yet The places that my heart has yet to go” |
“To leave it all for all untold Or stay behind and make believe That every dream I ever dreamt Was never meant to be achieved” |
“Staying ever close, no distant star Has loneliness enough or distance far To keep your presence hid, or memory From dwelling inside everything I see” |