Scholarship and creative nonfiction have always been two sides of my writing life. One sends me into archives, old newspapers, letters, and literary mysteries. The other sends me into memory, experience, gardens, relationships, and the sometimes surprising business of living.
Here you’ll find both.
LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP
Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina
Luminare Press, 2025
A literary investigation into a remarkable series of pseudonymous essays published in the South-Carolina Gazette in 1753–1754. I identify their previously unknown author as Alexander Gordon and bring the complete series together for the first time in more than 270 years, with historical context, annotations, and critical commentary.
Green Mountain Stories
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman | Edited by Brent L. Kendrick
Onion River Press, 2023
Originally published as A Humble Romance and Other Stories in 1887, Freeman’s first collection of short fiction appears here under the title she originally intended for it, accompanied by my critical commentary on the collection and its Vermont origins.
The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
Scarecrow Press, 1985
My edition of Freeman’s collected correspondence, the foundation for scholarship on one of America’s important nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century writers. The Journal of Modern Literature called it “the most complete record to date of Freeman’s life as writer and woman.”
WORK IN PROGRESS
Dolly: Life and Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
More than forty years after The Infant Sphinx, I’ve returned to Freeman’s life and letters for a major two-volume project:
Volume I: The New England Years (1852–1901)
Volume II: The New Jersey Years (1902–1930)
The project draws on decades of research while incorporating discoveries, correspondence, archival materials, and biographical evidence unavailable when The Infant Sphinx appeared in 1985.
Stay tuned. Dolly and I still have work to do.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
In Bed and Up to No Good: Foolin’ Around by Choice.
Luminare Press, 2026
My fourth collection of creative nonfiction ranges across love and intimacy, aging and reinvention, gardens and grief, artificial intelligence, spirituality, resistance, and joy—all with the conviction that curiosity has no expiration date.
The Third Time’s the Charm: Still Foolin’ Around in Bed.
Luminare Press, 2025
Essays about finding meaning in life’s small—and sometimes decidedly not-so-small—moments, from Appalachian memories and family to gardening, grief, love, technology, and the continuing adventure of growing older without necessarily growing up.
More Wit and Wisdom: Another Year of Foolin’ Around in Bed.
Luminare Press, 2024
Fifty-two essays exploring grief and love, writing and technology, dating and aging, family and memory—and the humor, wonder, and occasional absurdity that turn up when we pay attention to our lives.
In Bed: My Year of Foolin’ Around
Luminare Press, 2023
The book that started the series: fifty-seven creative nonfiction essays, most written in bed before going to sleep, about everything from aging, love, education, and spirituality to sourdough, fruitcakes, pets, technology, and the pleasures of simply wondering.
The Wired Researcher 