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“The Summer Games” — Oregon Humanities

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Mary Akers — Ashland Creek Press

Patrick Hicks — Ashland Creek Press

Charlotte Malerich — Ashland Creek Press

Jean Ryan — Ashland Creek Press

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Between the Spark and the End (YA contemporary novel)

Seventeen-year-old Lily survives by turning uncertainty into stories she can control, but when grief shatters those stories, she must choose between forcing reality to fit her narratives and learning to see the world clearly enough to choose how she responds.

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Horror Vacui (prose poem)

Horror vacui is Latin for “the fear of empty space.” From living with type 1 diabetes and childhood trauma, silence forces me to sit with the sense that something essential is missing within me, and I reach for noise as distraction.

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Synesthesia, Equanimity, and Bestowal (poetry suite)

Three pieces that explore conformity, equilibrium, and sacrifice, as experienced through a child conforming to a foreign reality, a patient with Bipolar Disorder seeking balance, and a father shaped by devoted self-giving to his son.