Shianna Whitner Dana Spiotta’s novel Innocents and Others captures an artist’s journey, the deterioration of friendship, and the misconduct of the lonely. The three main characters are all so different yet Spiotta weaves their stories together wonderfully. The…
Susanne Parker At the bottom of an abandoned well, in the center of a forest, two children struggle to survive. They are called Big and Small, and they are brothers. Iván Repila’s second novel, translated from Spanish by…
Paul Michael Garrison Howard Frank Mosher, through God’s Kingdom in particular, has drawn frequent comparisons to Mark Twain, and with this book’s rustic charm, strong sense of place, and episodic nature, it’s easy to see why. But in some…
Denise Duhamel I admit that I was drawn to the title of Andi Zeisler’s We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement because of my own poem “Bikini Kill…
Rae Gouirand Harriet Kelly had other plans for her middle son (Gene) – namely, the law. What else for a boy who dared to ride a tricycle missing handlebars down Mellon Street, come home with an…
Rae Gouirand The question is always what I want, not what is wanting— what end I will make of this walk which edge I will take for myself. Before one blue one gold I know…
Kevin Welch “Americans do disappear. All the time. They fall off the earth.” – Patterson Wells Cry Father is a complex novel dealing with loss and reconciliation. From the first scene we realize the world created by Benjamin…
Rae Gouirand Box as metaphor, bowl as metaphor, one can’t help but compare— —I look around my house at what it contains, which is mostly open things, cross the valley I live in to find the…
Lauren Heaney In his debut poetry collection, The Crossing, Jonathan Fink explores themes surrounding the human body and mind in relation to suffering, labor, and most prominently, the human condition. He begins with a poem entitled “The Crossing” and…
Julia Stone Peckerwood by Jedidiah Ayres is a dark, action-packed novel that reads like a fast-paced screenplay. Published in 2013, this “western noir” set in the gutters of morality is reminiscent of AMC’s “Breaking Bad”; except, instead of Walter…