WRITER & EDITOR
Writer
I’ve done a lot of writing. From fiction to literary essays to journalism to academic articles to commercial content, I’ve composed it and seen it published. And while I tend to focus on creative texts, that breadth of experience means I’m capable of working comfortably and well across styles and for a variety of audiences.
Editor
When I am entrusted with another writer’s work, I take my role as their editor very seriously. As I see it, editing is a relationship rather than merely technical assistance. It requires coming alongside someone else trying to make sense of their ideas and helping them grow more confident in the clarity and quality of their work. Over the past 20 years of editing and teaching writing, I have done this hundreds of times. Whether that work is a memoir or short story or vision statement or website content, my task is to help ensure that a writer’s audience encounters their words in a way that creates the response and relationship they desire.
In Print
Creative Writing in the Digital Age explores the vast array of opportunities that technology provides the creative writing teacher, ranging from effective online workshop models to methods that blur the boundaries of genre.
Rooted in classroom experience, Creative Writing Innovations takes teaching beyond the traditional workshop model to explore topics such as multi-media genres, collaborative writing and field-based work, as well as issues of identity.
From the moment where one's race is realized to the first heart break because of something more than unrequited feelings, Black Was Not A Label explores what life is like within the "veil," a concept coined by W.E.B. DuBois, and the "double consciousness," for author Kathryn H. Ross. Edited by Michael D. Clark.
Bringing creative writing theory and the classroom practice of secondary educators, Imaginative Teaching through Creative Writing: A Guide for Secondary Classrooms opens a conversation about the rich possibilities for creative writing in the standards-based secondary classroom.
Publications
My work as a writer straddles the inception of the literary world’s transition into the digital age, meaning some of my work is online and some is only in print. Here is a non-exhaustive list of my pieces with links where possible.
Online
F i c t i o n
“What Used to Feel Like Impact.” | Brilliant Flash Fiction
“The Best Thing” | Bull & Cross
“Crossover” | Angel City Review
“Propellers” | Paper Tape
E s s a y s
“Eulogies for those Who Haven’t Left” | The Other Journal: Health Care
“Precautionary Tales” | Punctuate Magazine
“One Perfect Episode: The Fresh Prince of Bel Air – Mistaken Identity” | Drunk Monkeys
“One Perfect Episode: Psych – Lock, Stock, Some Smoking Barrels and Burton Guster’s Goblets of Fire” | Drunk Monkeys
“One Perfect Episode: ChiPs – Roller Disco 1 & 2” | Drunk Monkeys
“Never Leaving L.A” Re:Place Project
Print Only
F i c t i o n
The Opposite of Noteworthy” | The Windhover Magazine
“Beneath Its Weight” | Coach’s Midnight Diner
“Forty” | Fast Forward: The Mix Tape
“Paddling Out” | Relief
E s s a y s
“Signal to Noise Ratio” | The Jabberwock Review. Vol. 24, Issue 2
“The Only Person I Know from Indiana” | Hoosier Lit
“Open Questions” | The Spirit of Adoption. Cascade Books
“Saving Grace” | Pleiades
“Synoptic Gospels” | Relief
A c a d e m i c
“Shakespeare’s Dogfish: A Case for Building Creative Writing from the Outside” | Thinking Creative Writing. Routledge.
“Nonsensical Sense: Impressions as connections in creative nonfiction” | Creative Writing Innovations. Bloomsbury Academic.
“But What Can I Do with a Writing Degree?”: Using Technology to Leverage More Use from the Fiction Course” | Creative Writing in the Digital Age. Bloomsbury Academic.
“What Time Was I Supposed to Remember That?: Memory, Constraint, and Creative Writing Pedagogy” | Dispatches from the Classroom. Bloomsbury Academic.
“I once described Clark as the ‘midwife who helped bring my baby into the world’ - my baby being my manuscript. Every step of the way on my publishing journey, Clark was with me. He was honest and respectful, direct yet patient, and full of ideas that not only elevated my work but demanded more from me as a writer. He’s a fierce editor who regards his clients as friends he genuinely wants to see succeed, and with his help, you’ll do just that and more. My book wouldn’t be what it is today without him and I can never thank him enough. ”
— Kathryn H. Ross, author of Black Was Not A Label