THE WATER ENGINEER
The Water Engineer is a memoir about water. In 1990-1991, I worked in Kenya as a Water Engineer for the Ministry of Water Development, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. While not a memoir of the Peace Corps itself, the book looks back after a quarter century of environmental engineering to trace how my understanding of water changed because of that seminal experience in the harsh conditions in a remote, semi-arid region of Kenya.
• Status – I workshopped a 3rd Draft of the book at the Breadloaf Environmental Writer’s Conference in 2019, where I received feedback that I should "ADD MORE SCIENCE, WE LIKE IT!". I am working on the 4th Draft of the book, which should be completed in Spring 2020.
THE ARCTIC PROPOSAL
A novel set at Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, coral atolls near the equator in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia. The novel is a thriller in the emerging climate fiction (cli-fi) genre, exploring whether technology can solve our largest environmental problem, and whether the ends ever justify the means.
Engineer Sam Skye tests geoengineering (climate control) technologies at a secret U.S. government facility. The tests are conducted to seek a "Plan B" to cool the planet if necessary, but they are classified and remote because the U.S. government doesn't want to alarm other nations or the public.
His employer, a large defense contractor, and Mission Director Rex Bourke, have convinced the government to implement The Arctic Proposal - a test over the Arctic to shoot rocket loads of nano-particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. Their argument is convincing: that we will see a reversal of Arctic warming and can take control of our fate.
When Sam discovers the test results have been faked out of corporate greed and Rex's love for his Marshallese wife, he realizes that the live test could instead cause the global climate system to spin out of control. In his quest to gather evidence, he must stay a step ahead of those who have already killed to keep the information secret.
LOOKING FOR THE PORTUGUESE RAINBOW
A nonfiction book about travels in Brazilian Amazonia. Through riverboat travels on the Amazon, Tapajos, and Arapiuns Rivers, I immersed in a wildly unique ecosystem and culture. The experiences with the colorful Brazilians and the expatriates I thought of as “the people who can’t live anywhere else” are the basis for the writing. Using the literary vehicle of an exterior journey of travel through a remarkable land of vast green defined by the rivers within, the work explores how different cultures and the people one meets while traveling create a simultaneous interior journey.
