"Thump-Thump" is a unique piece of short fiction, consisting elmost entirely of dialogue. In the conversation between the two unnamed characters, Ariel explores the themes of reality and truth, and the boundaries of language. The story appears in the Spring/Summer 2012 edition of SLICE Magazine, a respected literary publication based in Brooklyn, NY.

Currently featured in SLICE Magazine Issue #10

In 1986 Ariel’s father, John Faulkner, set out on a journey to the edge. In 35 days he flew the first recorded flight around the border of the continental United States of America, 9,363 miles, in his homebuilt airplane affectionately nicknamed ‘Lumpy.’ He documented his experience in a photographic essay entitled Edges of America, which opened at the Paul Mellon Arts Center in Wallingford, Connecticut later that year. Twenty-two years later Ariel penned a series of short stories and sketches inspired by a few of those photographs. This collection is the result of that exercise, exploring the boundaries of who we are as Americans.

Winner of the 2009 Ken Smith Meacham Fiction Award for “Whites Only Grocery”

“Shutter” is a deeply cerebral story about a troubled photographer and the three pivotal women in his life—his mother, his wife, and a blind woman he encounters one autumn afternoon. As Ariel describes, “I created an extreme character to narrate this piece. A man who was not supposed to live and therefore feels he is not worthy of his life or anyone’s love. He is caught in a struggle between the active and passive self, doubting all love he receives; and feeling numb to life that he seeks out his own fallibility to prove to himself that he is alive and human, even though he fears that vulnerability.”

Winner of the 2008 Catherine Wyatt-Fenty Memorial Prize

“Nurse Mindy,” as it is affectionately nicknamed, is set in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1970s. Oscillating between the narrator’s snapshots of childhood life on the Mississippi River and her story of the day her cousin saw the feet of Elvis, this piece of short fiction exemplifies Ariel’s ability as a teller of tales. Wry humor, close observation, and a whisper of something mystical come together in quiet southern harmony.

Winner of the 2007 Dan Hemingway Memorial Prize