Short Stories & Academic Writing Samples
Bad Fantasy
For a monthly event at The VIA Agency called "Free Beer and Fiction", in which three people read fiction they have written based on a given theme, I gave a reading of my short story "Bad Fantasy", which parodies bad writing in the fantasy genre. Listen or download a copy to read below.
The Journal of Heinrich Zornseife
For another "Free Beer and Fiction" story event with the theme of "Davy Jones' Locker", I read a short story titled "The Journal of Heinrich Zornseife, which tells the story of a very German explorer and his very strange journey to find treasure at the edge of the known world. Listen below.
Wall of Thorns
This story was my final submission for a fiction writing class at Colby College. Based on the plague that struck Athens during the Peloponnesian War, I set out to make Wall of Thorns show the harsher realities of ancient urban society during times of stress.
Delusions & Grandeur: Nazi Propaganda During the Second World War
For my senior History seminar on Nazi Germany, I wrote my final paper on Nazi propaganda. As the Second World War progressed and the tide turned against Nazi Germany, propaganda tactics had to adapt and reconcile myths of German superiority with recent military losses. As the situation grew worse and the Allies began bombing Germany, promises of revenge through miraculous new weaponry were all that seemed to stabilize public order in the face of overwhelming air raids and military defeats. But before long, the German public began to lose hope as those promises went unkept. This paper attempts to demonstrate that Nazi propagandists were not omniscient in their strategy, often trading long term stability for short-term gains, and that the supposed power of the Nazi propaganda machine was dependent on military results.