Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds
My short story collection won the 2023 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize and is forthcoming in 2025 from Dzanc. Learn more here.
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I am a fiction writer who likes maps, strange worlds, and magical creatures.
My collection of short stories, Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds, won the 2023 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize and is forthcoming in 2025. My publications include stories in Esquire.com, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, the Best New American Voices anthology, and the Best American Fantasy anthology, among others. I've also published poems in Indiana Review and Sonora Review.
I hold an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University and a PhD in English (fiction focus) from the University of Cincinnati. I've been in residence at the Yaddo Artist Colony, Breadloaf, Sewanee, and elsewhere. In 2021 I was a Creative Renewal Fellow of the Arts Council of Indianapolis, and I’ve received awards and fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the Charles Taft Center for the Humanities, along with many others. For many years, I was a tenure-track creative writing professor, at assistant and associate level, and I currently work as a senior copywriter and creative strategist for an e-commerce company co-founded by my wife.
I live with my family in Indianapolis, and I’m lucky enough to be married to the wondrous memoirist and illustrator Margaret Kimball.
