Fiction
Short Stories
Williams runs a "Winter Study" program, in which students take a three-week class during the month of January. These are usually sort of off the beaten path for college classes. In January 2003, my Winter Study was titled "Science Fiction Writing Workshop," conducted under the guidance of writer-in-residence Paul Park, which got me started seriously writing sci-fi shorts. I produced a little over a story a week, and I still like some of them. Here is a selection, as well as a few stories I've written since then.
Fictional Universes
I have always been interested in science fiction (and fantasy, but SF is really where my heart is). I'm influenced by just about any SF story I read - recent favorites include Peter F. Hamilton, Paul Anderson, and Garth Nix. I regularly engage in mental world-building exercises, and many of those get translated into doodles, sketches, maps...or more.
Oghura
The desert of Oghura is a parched land populated by reptilian nomads who draw power from their mystical Stream. The Oghurans are spiritual creatures who, through hard labors and devotion, have made their desert into the perfect habitat for their own kind. However, in a world also peopled by noble men and vengeful avian creatures, every Oghuran must also be a warrior - even those who feel they have nothing to fight for.
The Four Colonies
This is my most developed SF universe. Set in about 2500, after wars have ravaged Earth and the Inner Colonies of the Solar System, far-sighted nations banded together in a massive project to send arks to other stars. The Four Colonies settled around their new homes, carrying the seeds of humanity, but each has discovered their own unique source of strife.
The Cathedral Galaxy
This universe grew out of a map I drew - a galaxy with political divisions hundreds of light-years across. It may be the Milky Way, it may be a distant formation in the far future or far past - but its galaxy-spanning civilizations must come to terms with the source of the artifacts that allow them to pass through superluminal channels.