• College Short Stories,  Short Stories

    Too Much

    My first publication and also my first time writing from a male point of view. I wrote this short story when I was in college for a Fiction Workshop. I made a lot of revisions based on feedback from my classmates, who thought it was confusing at first.  I submitted my final draft (my third) for consideration in New Mexico Highland University’s student edited Sendero Literary Journal my last semester in college, which was spring 2003.  Her jeans are on the floor where she left them, one leg inside out. The dark red curtains are closed because she changed here yesterday. It’s better that the sun can’t shine in today. I…

  • Artwork,  General Thoughts,  Novels (my writing updates)

    Caroline’s Lighthouse

      My first new project is the rewrite of a book-length story, Caroline’s Lighthouse,  which I first wrote in early 1997 when I was 15. By “wrote” I mean the first draft was written in pencil on notebook paper. It’s a teenage love story with tragedy and a ghost story happening in the background. I drew the illustration on the book cover  in 1998 when I was 16 or 17. I am now working on the final rounds of edits and plan to go the Indie publishing route. My goal is to have the book available in made-to-order trade paperback and Kindle editions by the end of 2016. -Brandi Easterling Collins

  • Artwork,  College Poetry,  Poetry

    There

    I wrote this for an Expanded Imagist Poetry assignment for my Creative Writing class my sophomore year in college. I turned in the pencil drawing  for a Drawing Studio class in 2000. “There” 8-30-00 On cold concrete steps long abandoned like the building behind, she told him her biggest fear, which he helped cease, and made her smile. She wondered how many had fallen in love there, with the rough, red bricks scraping their backs. He thought about how many in the past had sex there, (as they did) with the sharp, rusty guard rails in the way. He drew lines in the clay to make her think while they discussed his…