Writing

A riches-to-rags dramedy that explores the fallout from a DNA test surprise.

Joe Magnusson, the son of a famous public intellectual, is in the prime of a successful university career built on the prestige of his family name, when DNA testing shows he is not his father’s biological son. Going through five stages of grief, Joe gets stuck in denial. He’s too ashamed to confide in his beloved wife, who hails from a prominent Boston family, afraid she’ll think less of him. Soon a nasty new half-sister comes knocking. The more half-siblings he meets, the more he feels like an impostor. Can Joe cope with his crumbling self-identity while secretly juggling a second, dysfunctional family?

THE RISE AND FALL OF JOE MAG explores themes of family, parentage, and belonging.

This exists as an unpublished manuscript of several of my stories published in literary journals. It was shortlisted by Fork Apple Press in their 2025 competition for short story collections called “The Slice Short Story Contest.”