OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
Date
2015
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MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa
Abstract
Driving through small towns in upstate New York, I can’t help but notice the signs of local businesses—some new and colorful, others battered and hardly readable. What strikes me is the name of each store, shop, warehouse. Names like By George Food Specialties and Nadine’s Permanent Makeup. Most are provocative and invite the imagination—mine, at least—to wonder who owns the place, who works there, what their lives are like. Curiosity—I was born with it. The desire to peel back the layers of a person’s existence. But, as a fiction writer, I have evolved. I am no longer as interested in the real people, but would rather imagine them.
Occupational Hazards explores the possibilities of who these imagined characters, living in the upstate New York town of Burnt Hills, might be. My stories explore the difficulties of their lives set within occupations they have either chosen or fallen into. All in the background of an economically depressed upstate town made more complex by the Downstaters who sought a new place after 9/11.
Occupational Hazards explores the lives of characters engaged in the “occupation” of life. Some stories track the same character over time. Others reflect on a particular event at a particular time. All have a deep connection to Burnt Hills which is a character in its own right.
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