novel

Until the Words Come is a kaleidoscopic literary novel about translating ideas into words and all the challenges, celebrations, and dread along the way.

A librarian and aspiring writer abandons his latest project to rewrite itself so that he can focus on his newest obsession, Grandma with Flowers—a seemingly endless fragmented novel—with the hopes of finally completing a full-length work, unlike all of his other attempts which he discards as soon as he starts to struggle with the words and they stop coming. 

At the library, when not escaping into imaginary games of sinking through the floor or being trapped in mazes of his own design, the librarian fulfills his daily tasks of answering confusing (and at times, disorienting) reference questions, conducting storytimes with tear-filled eyes, and attending meetings with irritating icebreakers that make him doubt if his favorite animal really exists. 

As Grandma with Flowers continues to grow, so too does his excitement and deep anxiety about whether his work is heading to a conclusion or standstill as he reckons with the question: who is Grandma with Flowers and what would it take to fully tell her story?

Excerpts from until the words come:

• “Climb Inside” – The Journal
• “Little Bits of Paper” – The Los Angeles Review
• “Fever dream wedding procession” – 3:am Magazine
• “What Comes through” – hex literary
• “A Request to be Left” – Michigan Quarterly review, mixtape