My first published story, “A Girl is Turning Ten,” was a finalist in the annual Black Warrior Review fiction contest and is out in Black Warrior Review 35.2.

The girl stops her kayak and waits. She looks at that spot ahead of her, and the dark form comes up again. It looks like a submerged rock, at first, but then she sees a pair of wet, bulbous eyes over broad nostrils. This is what an alligator looks like, she thinks, and she is afraid. The alligator stares at her. Its eyes and nose look angry. The girl stares back. The alligator slowly ducks its head underwater. Don’t move, she tells herself. That, it seems, is the important thing. Don’t move.