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Publications & Awards
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Lazuli Literary Press
The Speech of Flowers and Voiceless Things is a novel of absurdist political satire. In this work of literary fiction, a mistranslation in a single line of poetry instigates an escalating ripple of misconstrued text that threatens to culminate in a world war over five-pronged forks.
We follow the present lives and flashbacks of an ensemble cast of translators who comprise a secret philanthropic organization (the Association of Translation Liaisons of the Altruistic States) in the Sahara Desert. These precocious orphans, culled from every corner of the Earth, struggle with the inviolable dictates against artistic creation imposed by the monomaniacal philanthropist who is their founder. Illicit acts of art inevitably devolve into mistranslations, and this string of mistranslations in the village of ATLAS implicates the second locale of the narrative, Hacylon, which is ruled by a cartoonish, tyrannical dictator.
Amelia Carlisle, the copiously intelligent, firm-handed Secretary General of IBIS (International Bureau of Independent States), establishes the secret village of ATLAS in hopes of a more meaningful globalized network. Astor, orphaned at the age of seven after a factory fire in Egypt, is ATLAS’s first recruit; he is eighteen years old when the novel begins and is beset by a deeply ingrained savior complex and a rampant perfectionism. Natalia, once an amanuensis for a reclusive theoretical physicist in Poland, resents the ATLASian restrictions on her knowledge and ceaselessly plots her escape. Clarence, a world-renowned journalist who is second-in-command, is burdened by the guilt of his secret betrayal of ATLAS several years prior and its ramifications for ATLAS’s impending dissolution. Ezdehar, the hired counselor, is a haunted playwright who has been brought to ATLAS after a traumatic mental breakdown in Tanzania; she contends with her compulsion to flee and write her masterpiece.
The Speech of Flowers and Voiceless Things was published by Lazuli Literary Press in April 2016.
We follow the present lives and flashbacks of an ensemble cast of translators who comprise a secret philanthropic organization (the Association of Translation Liaisons of the Altruistic States) in the Sahara Desert. These precocious orphans, culled from every corner of the Earth, struggle with the inviolable dictates against artistic creation imposed by the monomaniacal philanthropist who is their founder. Illicit acts of art inevitably devolve into mistranslations, and this string of mistranslations in the village of ATLAS implicates the second locale of the narrative, Hacylon, which is ruled by a cartoonish, tyrannical dictator.
Amelia Carlisle, the copiously intelligent, firm-handed Secretary General of IBIS (International Bureau of Independent States), establishes the secret village of ATLAS in hopes of a more meaningful globalized network. Astor, orphaned at the age of seven after a factory fire in Egypt, is ATLAS’s first recruit; he is eighteen years old when the novel begins and is beset by a deeply ingrained savior complex and a rampant perfectionism. Natalia, once an amanuensis for a reclusive theoretical physicist in Poland, resents the ATLASian restrictions on her knowledge and ceaselessly plots her escape. Clarence, a world-renowned journalist who is second-in-command, is burdened by the guilt of his secret betrayal of ATLAS several years prior and its ramifications for ATLAS’s impending dissolution. Ezdehar, the hired counselor, is a haunted playwright who has been brought to ATLAS after a traumatic mental breakdown in Tanzania; she contends with her compulsion to flee and write her masterpiece.
The Speech of Flowers and Voiceless Things was published by Lazuli Literary Press in April 2016.
AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought
Short Story: Seasons on a Gravestone
Non-Fiction: Desuetude: Vocabulary, The New SAT & Algerian Post-Colonialism
Novel Excerpt: from The Speech of Flowers and Voiceless Things (Chapter 1 - Astor sees a sunrise)
Script: Two Mice in a Black Box & the Deconstruction of Language
Flash Fiction: Contagion and the Dinner Guest
Poetry: On Poetry and Prose
AZURE Original Series - Installment 1: Aurelia - A Ballet in Prose (Libretto)
AZURE Original Series - Installment 2: Aurelia - A Ballet in Prose (Act I)
AZURE Original Series - Installment 3: Aurelia - A Ballet in Prose (Act 2 - Part 1)
Novel Excerpt: from The Speech of Flowers and Voiceless Things (Chapter 8 - Zixin at Dinner)
Short Story: The Last Allusionist
Gemini Magazine
Honorable Mention: 2014 Short Story Contest
A Desert Prayer
A Desert Prayer
Hive
Narratives Section: May 2015
Mistranslation in Images
Mistranslation in Images
Film/TV - LuminouStudios & SB Talkies
The Word Trader: Lester Harrigan is a salesman of a most curious commodity - the word. Traumatized by an innate ability to 'see' into the tangle of words that make up our consciousness, he embarks on a lifelong quest to find one pivotal word that has been erased from all existence. (Short Film, 2013)
AWARDS
Short Screenplay: Corner Piece (2015)
Short Screenplay: The Word Trader (2013)
Television series (written concept pitch): Nullspace
Television series (video pitch): Nullspace
Television Series (pilot script): Nullspace
Critical Essay: Reading Moral Absoluteness in Melville's 'Pierre'
Short Story: A Desert Prayer
- Best Screenplay: California International Shorts Festival
- Best Short Screenplay: Los Angeles Movie Awards
- Finalist: Irvine International Film Festival
- Finalist: H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
- Finalist: Toronto International Film & Video Awards
Short Screenplay: The Word Trader (2013)
- Premiere: Cannes Film Festival - Court Metrage
- Official Selection: Manhattan Film Festival
- Official Selection: Big Apple Film Festival
- Official Selection: International Film Festival of Manhattan
Television series (written concept pitch): Nullspace
- Semi-finalist: NexTV (2015)
Television series (video pitch): Nullspace
- Semi-finalist: ATX Pitch Festival (2016)
- Quarter-finalist: NexTV (2016)
Television Series (pilot script): Nullspace
- Finalist: Los Angeles New Wave International Film Festival (2016)
Critical Essay: Reading Moral Absoluteness in Melville's 'Pierre'
- Honorable Mention: Robert M. Mayo Memorial Prize
Short Story: A Desert Prayer
- Honorable Mention: Gemini Magazine (2014)