She was a golden girl, and he fell in love each summer, a boyish crush undisturbed by consummation. One night, they danced closely to Venus by Frankie Avalon. He felt her warmth and wanted to kiss her, but fear restrained him.

In life, we turn some corners and not others.

Michael is a graduate of Portland’s 2011 Attic Atheneum, a one-year alternative to a MFA program. His published fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Blue Lake Review, The MacGuffin, PANK, Prick of the Spindle, Prime Number, and other on-line and print journals and anthologies. His series collectively called “Mississippi Freedom Summer in Eight Vignettes” was published in the “Best of the Net 2011” by Sundress Publications.