Welcome to my author website! Here you will find devotionals, stories, and poems about the seemingly insignificant people and commonplace events of life that impact us in a profound way.

Some of these stories are set in 1960s and '70s Auburn, Illinois—my hometown. Others are more recent. They focus on "ordinary" people I have known and loved. They spotlight seemingly unremarkable moments that affected me for a lifetime.

Here you will find lighthearted accounts of raising sparrows, ice skating on a country creek, and outwitting farm cows. You will read about schoolteachers, gardeners, ladybugs, cats, and grandmothers. You will also find soul-wrenching stories about heartaches and deaths. Here, you will find hope within the beautiful simplicity of God's creation.

These stories seek to spotlight the universal within the commonplace, the larger plan within the daily, and the great among the humble. Their aim is to spread hope by sharing the powerful—yet often sublime—lessons of ordinary people and our extraordinary God.

I am happy to include a few pieces written by my mother, Florence Corlas. She, too, grew up in Auburn and understood the intrinsic worth of the land and the people she loved for 74 years.

Updated versions of many of these stories are now compiled in my book, Going Home: Stories of Small-Town Central Illinois, released in November, 2025. You can read more about Going Home and about my 2023 novel, Follow the Wind Home, on separate webpages on this site.

May these devotionals, stories, and poems open your eyes to God's presence in the world around you and give you renewed hope for your journey on this Earth.