Creative Work Lazy Gun: A Science Fiction Story Posted on February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 By Roo This was a short story and essay reflection that I wrote for a class called Data Narratives. 0 The uncertain darkness of the station was interrupted by advancing headlights. A screech accompanied them, seeming to reverberate from all around as the tram car pulled in. The landing was transformed: what… Read more
Creative Work The Tricycle Posted on December 17, 2024February 15, 2026 By Roo Even before he gave me the tricycle, I knew how things were going to go. To Rick, life had always been one big joke. For our first anniversary, he took me to his cabin on a lake several miles north of the city, where kids would bike to and fro… Read more
Creative Work The Thousand Lives of George Argyris Posted on April 26, 2024February 15, 2026 By Roo It was back in the time before the electric light, when people still walked on air, and the volcanoes spat water instead of fire, and the sparrows pecked at the frozen pigs’ carcasses which lay scattered about outside the entrance to the home of the Professor George Argyris, which stretched,… Read more
Essays A Strange Anointing: Religion in If Beale Street Could Talk Posted on March 30, 2024February 16, 2026 By Roo “He kissed my face…he uncovered my breasts and put his teeth and tongue there and his hands were all over my body…he called me by the thunder in my ear. I was in his hands: I was being changed.” –Tish, If Beale Street Could Talk In his 1974 novel, If… Read more
Book Chapters Oyster Island Chapter 1 Posted on May 1, 2023February 15, 2026 By Roo As I stepped out of the car I couldn’t hear or see anything in the dark night except the faint rustling of leaves high above and the light of my parents’ house up on the ridge. Behind the house to the west, I knew, was a steep dropoff, ending in… Read more
Essays Celestial Bodies and Plato’s Symposium Posted on April 24, 2023February 16, 2026 By Roo “My moon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever.” —James Joyce, Ulysses Jokha Alharthi’s 2010 book, Celestial Bodies, tells the story of three sisters and a host of other characters as they make their way through a cosmic sea of possibility, visualized by the titular “celestial bodies.” The sisters… Read more
Essays The Weakness of Love in Marie de France’s Deus Amanz Posted on April 17, 2023February 16, 2026 By Roo Deus Amanz lives in the same genre as Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It is also similar to Chevrefoil in the same collection. It is a story of lovers whose parents interfere with their love, and who end up dying together… Read more
Creative Work Time Posted on April 9, 2023February 15, 2026 By Roo Note: Written for a flash fiction assignment – the maximum word count was 500. In its time, the town of Mudgate, now lost to the ages, squatted unassumingly in a remote section of river-bottom country between two yet unnamed peaks covered with forests and meadows and frequented by butterflies and… Read more
Essays Vikings in Iberia: A Reevaluation Posted on April 8, 2023February 16, 2026 By Roo In September of 844, 229 or 230 in the Islamic calendar, the horizon from Lisbon was filled with dark red sails that blackened the horizon, and “filled the hearts of men with fear.” These were the Vikings, who had just made their first major assault on Iberia in Asturias. These… Read more
Revenge: Part 3 (Gainesburg, Mercia: Early February, 1014 A.D.) Posted on September 7, 2022February 15, 2026 By Roo The law speaker cleared his throat. “We now convene this Thing-Court to discuss the taxation of the city of Beodricsworth, the resting place of Saint Edmund the Martyr. By the laws of the realm, the kingdom may tax any town it wishes, within reason. We will now hear the grievances… Read more