Start Here
New to the work? This is a short path through it — one good place to begin, the rest of the books, and where to go after the first chapter. There is no wrong first book, only a gentler one.
Begin with a novel
Give Them Unquiet Dreams is the Kirkus-starred novel and a Kirkus Best Book of 2019 — a story of 1970s Irish Catholic Boston and Achill Island. If you read one book first, begin here.
Molly Bonamici is the “Angel of Death” novel — the deadpan comedy that grew out of a single year of overwhelming loss.
A Prayer for Home is the novella where Molly Bonamici first speaks — a teenage Molly narrates the story of the widow next door and the storefront psychic.
Or start shorter
Assumptions and Other Stories is the short-story collection. “Assumptions,” the story that opens it, is the one the essays on this site return to most.
The poems
Crossings: Selected Poems is the poetry collection, published by Silver Current Press in 2026 — family, water, thresholds, and the light that comes in sideways. A full reading sampler lives on the collection page.
After the first book, go deeper
Essays — the criticism-and-craft essays, from close readings of single passages to full studies of the novels.
From the Work — a recurring series of short close readings: one strong passage per entry, then the craft and the belief doing the work underneath.
Recurring Images — the motifs that keep returning: thresholds, hands, water, light, fire.
Kindred Writers — the affinities readers notice, offered as observations rather than claims.