Research and Writing

For as long as I can remember, I have been a writer. I won a contest for making and writing a book about my cat, Boots, when I was in elementary school. I used to spend hours stretched out on my bed, writing stories longhand for my English classes. The teacher would say they had to be 1 page. I would write 10. Brevity has never been my gift, alas. In seventh grade, I had to get up in front of the class and read my short story to them. I was thrilled. I don’t think anyone else was impressed–mostly because the boys didn’t really care about the sorcerers and princesses.

Apparently genre fiction came to me young, as well.

In eleventh grade, my teacher was the one to read my story to the class. It took the whole class period. I don’t think they were impressed then, either, but then 19th century spies during the war with Napoleon aren’t the thing that gets most high school juniors going in Radcliff, Kentucky.

It never fazed me, though, and I have never put down the pen. From journaling, to novels, to short stories, to essays, to poetry, to plays, to laws and regulations, to screenplays, and now to blogging, I have explored most forms of writing and love them all. Well, maybe not the laws and regulations, but you get my drift.

Here on the writing pages, I have compiled a collection of my favorite pieces from my various areas of writing.  Of prime importance to me as a scholar are those essays written in my doctoral work – the MATX Projects. The other essays are older pieces to provide scope and evidence of growth, and these are loosely divided into legal and literary writing. The legal writing pieces are both an analysis of legal issues fans potentially wrangle with, and the literary section is further subdivided into criticism and literary non-fiction. I hope you will take the time to explore and to let me know what you enjoyed and any comments or questions you may have.