Published/Forthcoming
R.K.B. writes fiction that moves through liminal spaces, unearthed memory, emotional realism, and poetic surrealism. These stories often follow marginalized protagonists negotiating visibility, tenderness, agency, and survival in environments that both wound and shelter: homes, woods, fields, churches, bars, and other thresholds where the real begins to loosen.
Church, 2025
"Church" moves through the aftermath of intimacy forged too early, within a sanctuary meant to keep secrets buried. Told in the cadence of confession and shaped by a gothic pastoral sensibility, the story bends time until past and present are inseparable. Memory hangs thick in the air of Church—a world where silence hums, dust rises, and the ache of waiting never quite ends. Church was published in Trace Fossils Review Summer 2025 edition.
Fantastic, 2025
In "Fantastic," a mother's desperate attempt to reconnect with her daughter through a cherished Barbie doll unravels into a haunting confrontation with loss and grief. Amid the crowded aisles of a store on Christmas Eve, the mother's frantic pursuit takes a surreal and devastating turn. This story poignantly captures the blurred lines between memory, hope, and the painful reality of irreversible loss, demonstrating how a single word, 'fantastic,' can embody both profound joy and heart-wrenching sorrow. Fantastic was published with Alternating Current Press’s The Coil in August of 2025.
Crooked, 2026
“Crooked” unfolds like a palimpsest—past, present, and memory folded into each other with cinematic pacing and chiaroscuro atmosphere. It follows Uriel, a young Black boy carrying the visible and invisible scars of his childhood, as he seeks refuge in a home that is not quite his, among people who might yet become family. Through material decay, fragile affection, and generational silence, the story explores resilience amid suffering, tenderness amid ruin, and how crooked, improvised forms of love can still be enough to sustain. Crooked will be published in The Good Life Review’s Spring 2026 Edition.
Camelia in the Field, 2026
In “Camelia in the Field,” a mother and daughter emerge from a car crash into a landscape both scorched and strange. As Camelia navigates the wreckage, physical and emotional, she encounters a wounded man, her own fragmenting memory, and the elusive figure of her daughter. Set in a haze of smoke, sirens, and surreal stillness, the story captures the disorienting aftermath of trauma and the fragile hope that flickers in its wake. With lyrical precision, it explores the interstice between the real and the mythic, where memory, loss, and maternal instinct converge beneath a sky that doesn’t answer back. Camelia in the Field was published in Necessary Fiction in February of 2026.
In Circulation/Unpublished
The Lapis
In “The Lapis,” Dante enters a strange, myth-lit bar where God dances in the corner, Darkness keeps close company, and wanting can be found only by those willing to be consumed cleanly enough. Caught between Shane, whose possessiveness has slowly blurred the line between intimacy and ownership, and the uncanny figures who move through the bar’s blue-black light, Dante searches for a desire that might finally belong to him. Lush, surreal, and intimate, “The Lapis” explores queer agency, coercive attachment, and the first fragile movement toward selfhood.
A Drink in Burbank
The Petina
TBD
TBD
The Witness
The Krait
TBD
TBD