My work begins in the space between worlds — the distance between soldier and civilian, Indigenous and American, myth and memory. I write to make those thresholds visible. As a Choctaw/Chickasaw veteran, I carry stories shaped by service, displacement, and survivance, and I use the stage to translate those experiences into forms that invite audiences to listen differently. Theatre, for me, is ceremony: a place where language restores what history has tried to fracture.

Across my plays, poems, and performance work, I return to the same questions. How do we carry the weight of our ancestors while forging a future our children deserve. How do veterans speak in a world that often prefers their silence. How does Indigenous storytelling evolve inside contemporary forms without losing its roots. My writing blends research, lived experience, and cultural memory, drawing on years of dramaturgy, teaching, and community-based creative work.

Receiving the John Cauble Award affirmed something I have long believed: that stories grounded in specificity — tribal, veteran, familial — resonate far beyond their origins. I create work that honors those who came before me and clears a path for those still finding their voice. My art is an act of stewardship, a way of ensuring that the stories of my people, my communities, and my fellow veterans are not only preserved but heard with clarity, dignity, and fire.