Black Earth Institue: Social Distancing
Date: June 4, 2020
In dreams I walk through crowds, brushing arms, knocking elbows. Skin to skin: hands are bare. Crocuses congregate in beds, along sidewalks. Unlatching city gates,
News & Reviews
News:
Poets.org: Aerial, Wild Pine
Date: June 4, 2020
A flare of russet,green fronds, surpriseof flush againstthe bare grey cypressin winter woods. Cardinal wild pine,quill-leaf airplantor dog-drink-water.Spikes of bright bloom–exotic plumage.
Arts At MIT: A Writer’s Voyage: Mia Heavener, MIT Course 1, 2000
Date: June 4, 2020
“Be stubborn and ultimately believe in your writing,” advises first-time novelist Mia Heavener ’00, “especially if you are having crappy writing days.” On April 13, Heavener visited Wyn Kelley’s literature […]
Lithub: Writing Place in a Time of Crisis
Date: June 4, 2020
Tess Taylor’s new poetry collection Rift Zone is published this month. She shares five books about writing place in a time of crisis.
Datebook: How Bay Area authors stay creative amid the coronavirus pandemic
Date: June 4, 2020
Poet Tess Taylor questioned what it means to be creative, when every day feels like a radical reinvention of life. “These days, helping myself and my family steer a way around sadness, […]
NY Times: We’re Doing What We Can to Keep Truckers on the Road
Date: June 4, 2020
LINCOLN, Neb. — My mother was born into a flu-stricken household at the height of the pandemic of 1918. Within minutes she was swaddled in a homemade quilt and placed […]
PSA: Francisco Aragón “1985”
Date: June 4, 2020
1985 Long and black, the streaksof gray, aflutter in the lightwind as she prepares to tell her story at the Federal Building:reaching into a tattered sackshe pulls out a doll […]
Chapter 16: The Skin of Meaning excerpt
Date: June 4, 2020
The Skin of Meaning He was late to the party and without directions,though his invitation was secure, and his instinctskeenly honed to an acceptable edge, and as we arewaiting to […]
Daily Poetry: Ascension
Date: June 4, 2020
Ascension Didi Jackson The blue jays lay claimto the raspberry busharriving in groups of four or five:one holds a rubied berry in its beakand feeds it up in the white […]
Lithub: ‘Almost Animal’ A Poem by Didi Jackson
Date: June 4, 2020
after Käthe Kollwitz I heard they no longer sew eyelids of the dead shut.At the morgue, I busied myself countingthe lacerations on my husband’s neck and wrists.I wore sunglasses and […]
Reviews:
Heavy Feather Review Praises Vi Khi Nào & Lily Hoàng’s TIMBER & LUA
Date: June 25, 2026
I appreciate it when a book in some way replicates something I’ve experienced in real life in a way that no other book has, and this one replicates my experiences […]
Zara Rabb Reviews COLD FIRE by David Mason
Date: June 23, 2026
Cold Fire often draws skillfully on imagery from the various places Mason knows through his travels, and in the best poems, he writes from a deep comprehension of both our 21st century […]
Khanh Ha’s AFTERLIFE OF A THREADBARE JESTER Named in List Of Top Historical Fiction Picks
Date: June 23, 2026
“The Afterlife of a Threadbare Jester is definitely the most interesting.”
Library Journal Reviews WALKING WHEEL by Molly Fisk
Date: June 17, 2026
“With a narrative that immediately draws in readers, these poems are lovely, the story, irresistible.”
Australian Book Review Heralds David Mason’s COLD FIRE
Date: June 15, 2026
“Migration, travel, and home – geographic and metaphoric – are common subjects in this collection. ‘Listen well’, the speaker in “The Monuments’ urges, as he describes a violinist busking in […]
California Review of Books Praises TALKING TO THE WOLF by Rebecca Chace
Date: June 15, 2026
“Chace makes each woman complex in her urgency, in good part because of the strength of the writing that penetrates to their core.”
Jacobin Reviews Luke Goebel’s KILL DICK
Date: June 11, 2026
“Like a good actor, Kill Dick hits its marks, stays true to the script, controls its eyeline to avoid spiking the camera. Is it real? You look up from the page to […]
Institute of American Indian Arts praises William Archila’s CANÍCULA/DOG DAYS
Date: June 9, 2026
In this bilingual collection, much wisdom emerges from the struggle of living through a civil war and then migrating from El Salvador to Los Angeles. […]The history and knowledge that […]
Rebecca Chace’s TALKING TO THE WOLF reviewed by a few more words!
Date: June 2, 2026
In Rebecca Chace’s new novel, Talking to the Wolf (Red Hen Press; 208 pages), three friends in their mid-50s—Val, Sasha, and Lauren—prepare for their thirty-fifth high school reunion while mourning […]
Amy Pence’s YELLOW Lauded by Midwest Book Review
Date: June 2, 2026
“Amy Pence’s ability to weave poetic overtones of observation and dialogue into Z’s story permeates her life with a richness of language and realization uncommon in LGBTQ+ stories.”