Taffeta Chime

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 My first novel Stoodie looks at education in the future, at a time when children download information directly from a TUTOR machine and regularly test to ensure the lessons are sticking. Kids who can't learn this way are pitifully called "stoodies" and must go to Traditional School, where they sit for hours a day reading, writing, and thinking on their own for years on end. 14-year-old Amai has noticed her TUTOR scores are rapidly decreasing, and she is scared her childhood will be over if she has to attend Traditional School. What will happen when she discovers imagination, creativity, and the worlds that open with all the knowledge she gains? How will she feel about being a stoodie? The Last, my second novel, is a post-apocalyptic story that follows Jo and her father Jean Paul, an oceanographer, who is gone for long periods at a time working on his mysterious "project" that he promises she will know about soon. But when unexpected nuclear war happens, Jo escapes to the ocean and stumbles across the project on her own: an underwater city called Marpadre, a human habitat in case of catastrophe. That catastrophe has struck, and now Jo, the last from the surface to survive, learns not just how to survive but how to thrive in such an environment. She learns the value of friendship, faith, and love as she moves through monumental and not-so-monumental moments in her growing up 

Taffeta Chime received a BA in English and Creative Writing (2011) and an MA in English and Foreign Language (2015) both from MTSU. She especially enjoys writing fiction and poetry, with two self-published novels (Stoodie, 2007, and The Last, 2011) and several short stories and poems published across a myriad of literary journals (including Poetry Substack, The Renew Network, and Leaping Clear). She also works on plays and nonfiction and is currently working as a freelance writer and editor. She lives in Murfreesboro with her husband Shane, daughters Beili and Ailin, and two cats