Charles Jensen | Writer

I made a quick trip back to Phoenix to spend time with my family on Mother’s Day (some of you know my mom has been fighting an illness for the past few years, so these things have become more important) and had a fantastic time with everyone. While it makes me homesick to exist so fully in two different places, it’s part of the process for now.

Aside from the personal, the interesting part of the trip was that I spontaneously wrote a short story called “Rhinoplasty.” I conceived of, wrote, and finished 18 pages of prose over the weekend, writing most of it on the plane home and then finishing it up once I was back in my apartment.

Is it good? I don’t know. But it felt good to do something different, to work in a longer form, to tell a story (lyrically, to some degree) and inhabit characters in a different way. I have another story in progress about small-town zombies that I hope to get back to soon as well.