I began this collection as a creative outlet, a return to the written word after years away from it. What I found when I came back was that writing was no longer a means of escape; it had become a means of expression. I have included this collection on this site because I have never been able to keep the two worlds — my scholarly and my creative life — fully apart. The same restlessness that carried me from central Texas to the beaches of Guam, from the flight line to the archive, lives somewhere in these works too. My research into colonialism, empire, race, and the people who resisted and endured all three began in a life spent moving through the world, watching it, and trying to make sense of it. These works are offered here not as footnotes to my academic work, but as the soil it grew from.