“A Requiem for a Girl,” is a 170 page essay collection of creative nonfiction essays surrounding my personal experience with CSA and institutional betrayal within music education. It breaks open the complex sinister world of abusers, and the psychological toll that they have on both the child and adult mind.

At the same time, it is also a requiem for two girls whose lost childhoods will hopefully be honored and not forgotten.

“Placing the Pieces of Silence” is an 150 page historical nonfiction manuscript that I began writing as my MFA thesis.

How does a German-American wind up in Napoleon’s barracks in France fighting against his own people during World War I?

What happens when a patriarchal curse of death silences a family’s heritage and empowers one Great Granddaughter to investigate why?

Throughout the story, readers follow the narrator’s quest to find answers to her family’s secrets, paralleling Emil’s life through his (presently unpublished) war diaries.