The Blackthorn Woods

Monoprint, watercolor, gouache, and collage on paper

This unpublished middle grade novel is currently in progress.

A fully illustrated literary middle-grade in the tradition of SNOW & ROSE and ELF DOG & OWL HEAD, THE BLACKTHORN WOODS asks whether it’s possible to grow older without growing ordinary.

Nine-year-old Frances is bursting with imagination and terrified of losing it; her older cousin Nell can feel hers already slipping away. Sent to spend the summer with their stern Aunt Esther, the cousins find themselves caught between two forces occupying the neighboring forest: Sylvia, an enigmatic recluse who offers an alluring vision of perpetual childhood, and something monstrous moving through the landscape, sapping color from the world as it threatens to grow them up – immediately and forever.