Original Writing

Short Fiction:

Occupied (A Friend Story) (2023)

An airplane passenger encounters The Friend while flying to Rome.

The Nice Stay Motel (A Friend Story) (2023)

A traveler encounters a mysterious entity called “The Friend” at a remote motel.

Tennille (2022)

A lonely man is visited by a seemingly stray German Shepard.

Raining Tuesday (2020)

Two people chat with each other in the park in the rain.

The Ballad of Skull Larry (2018)

Retired sheriff Willy must confront an old foe to save the town of Nowhere.

Hades’ Favorite Pair of Socks (2018)

The God of the Underworld loses one of his favorite socks while doing laundry.

Poetry:

You can read a selection of my poems by clicking here. I have three collections for you to read: “Poems from Maine” is a selection of poems I wrote while in Maine for a week. “Poems from Europe” is a selection of twenty-two poems that I wrote while living in Europe for three months. “Four-Lined Poems” is a collection that I wrote in early 2023 of bizarre, off-kilter, automatic poems that are all written in the A-B-B-A rhyming structure.

Academic Essays:

Sonically Reimagining Charlie Chaplin’s “The Immigrant” (1917) (2020)

This is my master’s thesis for the University of Edinburgh. I composed an original score for Charlie Chaplin’s classic 1917 film “The Immigrant”. My essay walks through my creative process throughout the scoring of the film. With the following links you can view the film, see my sound log, view the referenced images and listen to the referenced audio files.

“Judging Well”: John Dryden’s The State of Innocence and Fall of Man (2018)

This is my English Honor’s Thesis for the University of Pennsylvania. I composed an original score for John Dryden’s incomplete 1674 semi-opera “The State of Innocence”, in addition to writing this large research paper, analyzing the history of Dryden’s adaptation of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. I also analyze the work itself, and delve into the history of Restoration Theatre in England.

Layers of Violence: Shakespeare's Othello and Julius Caesar (2016)

Examining the violence in Shakespeare London and connecting it with the violence in “Othello” and “Julius Caesar”. This was my final essay for Jemima Matthews’ “Shakespeare in London” course at King’s College during the Fall of 2016.

Illuminating the Time Machine: H.G. Wells and the Magic Lantern (2016)

I explore the connections that I see between the narrator’s storytelling in “The Time Machine” and magic lanterns shows. This was my final essay for Brian Murray’s “Fin de Siecle” course at King’s College London in Fall 2016.

The Spectacle of Education: Kindergarten at the 1876 Centennial Exposition (2018)

During my senior year at the University of Pennsylvania, I was a part of a Curatorial Seminar, taught by Andre Dombrowski, in partnership with the Arthur Ross Gallery. As a class, we curated an exhibition on World’s Fairs, which opened in the Spring of 2018. For the exhibit, we each wrote two essays for the published exhibition catalogue. This was one of my essays, in which I explored the history of kindergarten, and its presence at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

Repeated Trauma: Examining Three Manuscripts of Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Rear-Guard” (2018)

An indepth analysis into three differing manuscripts of Siegfried Sassoon’s World War I poem “The Rear-Guard”. I wrote this essay during Paul Saint-Amour’s “Modernism” course at the University of Pennsylvania during the Spring of 2018.

The Green Fairy Beckons (2014)

Analyzing the varied depiction of the drink absinthe in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. This was my final essay for Professor Andre Dombrowski’s “Impressionism” course at the University of Pennsylvania during the Fall of 2014.

In the Nude (2014)

An analysis of the photographic works of Eadweard Muybridge and the controversy surrounding them. This was written for my writing seminar during my freshman year “Einstein and Picasso” at the University of Pennsylvania.

Theatre Reviews

Blue Heart (Orange Tree Theatre. 2016)

While studying abroad at King’s College, I had the pleasure of being in a theatre course with esteemed theatre critic Michael Billington. During the course, we saw over a dozen different plays around London, and then wrote detailed reviews of them. This is my review for 1997 Caryl Churchill play “Blue Heart”, which was performed at the charming Orange Tree Theatre.

Blog Entries

My Composing Process (2020-Present)

Starting in May of 2020, I began to write detailed blog posts about my composing process for recently completed projects. These blog posts share my thought process as I crafted and executed scores. You can read about how I decided on certain instruments, or how I recorded speciifc sounds, or why a score sounds the way it does. One of my favorite blog entires in this series is my one detailing my creative process for my master’s thesis: composing an original score for Charlie Chaplin’s 1917 film “The Immigrant”. You can read that blog entry here:

Art in Film (2023-Present)

I recently started writing film essays about art that appears in the backgrounds of films. I identify the painting (sometimes this takes quite a lot of digging and zooming in) and then think about how that work connects to the characters and the narrative of the film. Up to this point, I have done essays on “The Apartment”, “A Room with a View” and “Notting Hill”. I’m currently working on “When Harry Met Sally”.

Penn in Kenya Blog Entires: Day 6-8 and Day 13 (2017)

In July 2017, I had the pleasure of being a part of the Penn in Kenya program. It was a summer abroad program, led by Cinema Studies professor and funded by the Penn Arts and Sciences “Making a Difference in Diverse Communities” grant. The abroad program included a week long class on the University of Pennsylvania campus, learning about the world refugee crisis, refugee camps in Kenya and specifically the Kakuma Refugee Camp in the northern part of the country. For the next 10 days, we were based in Kakuma, partnering with students in the FilmAid program at the refugee camp. We all collaborated to make informational films about a nearby new settlement called Kalobeyei. These two blog entries of mine were published on the Penn in Kenya website (which was used as a live blog throughout our experience). Day 6-8 encompassed our journey to Kakuma and our first day there. Day 13 included the later stage of editing for the documentary short films.

To visit the Penn in Kenya website click here. To visit the Penn FilmAid website click here. And here are the articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Penn Today about the program.

Barnes foundation Pop Up Talks

John Kane Pop Up Talk (August 2019)

Between April and August of 2019, I worked as an Art Team Associate at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Part of my job was to give two pop-up talks each day to guests in the galleries. I picked paintings and artists in the collection that interested me, and did extensive research on the works and on the artists themselves to be able to give in-depth and informed talks to the public. I gave talks on works by Edouard Vuillard, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine and others. One specific talk that I did was on the Scottish painter John Kane. You can hear the talk below, and also see the work in the collection at this link.