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Short Story Wins 2nd Place in Writing Competition
JULY 2021
"Hole in a Cactus Fence", a short story about a woman discovering a connection with her strange young neighbor, wins second place in the Escondido Writers Group 3rd Annual Writing Competition.
[excerpt]
The morning that Calvin hacked a hole through the cactus fence and stood in her yard looking from pig pen to silver minivan to Maddie sitting on her porch with a “Boss Hog” coffee mug in hand, she had not a word to say. Paddles with gashes and chop marks lay around his scuffed sneakers, and the hatchet in his hand hung slack as he took in his neighbor’s very interesting yard. There were chickens, dogs, a pig, a goat, and a cat that slipped out of the outbuilding to see what caused the scent of freshly cut nopales to drift upon the air. Calvin stood still as his mind worked out the next exciting impulse to follow.
Guest Writer for Motherhood Made Me
MARCH 2019
Jess writes about the value, and struggle, of remaining present in parenting over at Motherhood Made Me. Check it out HERE.
[excerpt]
It is so noisy, this blender. Two of my kids match the volume with their own shrieks until it stops. This hurts my ears, and sometimes I wear headphones to buffer the sound. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up as the adoptive mother of four kids. I am so sensitive; it is so hard; I am never enough.
Published "Grace and Healing: Our Story of Open Adoption"
October 2012
Jess writes about her family's open adoptions and the multiple ways that grace is experienced in PLNU's Viewpoint magazine. Read it HERE.
[excerpt]
As I continue to share our story, you will hear me speak very highly of open adoption, but this does not mean it is easy. Human beings are messy. Unplanned pregnancies are messy. Some birth parents have strained relationships with those to whom they should be closest. Sometimes mental illness, substance abuse, adultery, or conflicting cultural expectations are in the background. At the very least, a birth mother is wrestling with the enormous decision to part with her child, in addition to her struggle with whatever situation it is that prevents her from parenting.
But here is the truth undergirding all of the messiness: great things, beautiful things, things that take the fractured shards of lives and cement them back together so that redemption dances off their thousand facets—these things are never easy. Goodness me, though, how incredibly worthy they are of our humble participation.