Mary Odden’s Blog
Date: June 4, 2020
https://www.maryodden.com/neighborsblog
News & Reviews
News:
Lithub: Finding My Story in the Colonial Past of the Andaman Islands
Date: June 3, 2020
My new novel Glorious Boy began with a dream. On a tropical island during an emergency evacuation, a young girl was hiding in a dense rainforest with a small, mute white boy […]
Caroline Leavitt’s Blog Interview with Aimee Liu
Date: June 3, 2020
Aimee Liu talks about GLORIOUS BOY, the excruciating process of writing, creating a memorable silent character, her shapeshifter dad, and so much more.
Ms. Q&A: Authors Aimee Liu and Cai Emmons Talk Motherhood, Shame and Releasing Books Mid-Pandemic
Date: June 3, 2020
Some 30 years ago, an established nonfiction writer and a screenwriter decided to write their first novels. They met in a fiction writing class, and have been friends ever since, […]
NY Times: Percival Everett Has a Book or Three Coming Out
Date: June 3, 2020
Featured mentioning of Percival Everett’s Colonel Hap Thompson!
OutSmart: National Poetry Month 2020 Reading List
Date: June 3, 2020
Presented in five poetic sequences, the poems in Hold Me Tight by gay poet Jason Schneiderman focuses the reader’s attention on the subjects of anger, real and metaphorical wolves, the work of the late […]
Washington Independent Review of Books: An Interview with Donna Hemans
Date: June 3, 2020
At 15, Plum Valentine is banished from her Brooklyn home and sent back to Jamaica by parents nervous about the pernicious effects of the American lifestyle. Once there, her trust […]
Electric Lit: I Can Only Save My Grandparents’ Home by Preserving It in Fiction
Date: June 3, 2020
In the bedroom of Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer, there’s a mural depicting a well-dressed crowd at a cocktail party pasted to the wall. Spencer’s granddaughter, Shaun Spencer-Hester, points to […]
Amherst Bulletin: The price of protest: New novel looks at the consequences for two sisters caught up in the anti-war movement
Date: June 3, 2020
Family relations can be fraught in the best of times, even when people care deeply for one another. So what happens when you throw those family members into a situation […]
CrimeReads: Excerpt from Her Sister’s Tattoo
Date: June 3, 2020
It’s Detroit, 1968. Sisters Rosa and Esther march against the war in Vietnam with their best friend, Maggie. As they reached the rally site, double rows of blank-faced National Guard […]
Reviews:
Louise Wannier’s TREE SPIRITS AROUND THE WORLD reviewed in She Scribes
Date: November 4, 2025
This book encourages children to use their imagination. Throughout the book there are photos that encourage readers to really examine and appreciate. Just like cloud watching, you’ll eventually see something […]
TREE SPIRITS AROUND THE WORLD by Louise Wannier reviewed in Crafty Moms Share
Date: October 14, 2025
This book is so interesting. After meeting Tilly, Tilly travels around the world and shares trees from around the world. With each tree there is Tilly in a boat with […]
Booklist reviews TIMBER & LUA by Vi Khi Nào and Lily Hoàng
Date: October 8, 2025
Award-winning interdisciplinary writers Hoàng and Nào provocatively interrogate language,comprehension, and communication in a global world. Their collaborative result is a polyglotshowcase that combines English, Vietnamese, and a hybrid Vietlish to […]
BIND ME TIGHTER STILL by Lara Ehrlich reviewed in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Date: October 7, 2025
With nods to “The Little Mermaid,” Ehrlich’s lovely sophomore outing (after Animal Wife) again probes themes of womanhood and monstrosity. Ceto, a siren and hunter of men, yearns to break the […]
Midwest Book Review places Jade Shyback’s AQUEOUS on their September 2025 Bookshelf
Date: September 30, 2025
This is the debut novel written by author Jade Shyback. I believe this is the first book in the new young adult series. While the focus may be young adult, […]
A Review of Alison Hawthorne Deming: To Make the Broken Whole
Date: September 18, 2025
I finished Alison Hawthorne Deming’s latest poetry collection, Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower, and sat quietly absorbing it, stunned by its power. Deming is a writer whose work in […]
TIMBER & LUA by Vi Khi Nào and Lily Hoàng reviewed in Publishers Weekly
Date: September 16, 2025
Nào (The Six Tons of Water) and Hoàng (Underneath) join forces for a lyrical bilingual story collection. Each tale is presented three times, first in a combination of English and […]
“Nimbly probes the corporeal, familial, and flighted,” West Trade Review on M. Soledad Caballero’s FLIGHT PLAN
Date: September 9, 2025
M. Soledad Caballero’s Flight Plan spans geographies both physical and psychological—from cells to continents, from quotidian to unusual, from grounded to soaring. Intertwining seemingly dissimilar topical threads that include cancer, a […]
Review of Cai Emmons’s THE BELLS featured in Kirkus Reviews
Date: September 2, 2025
An immersive psychological portrait of one man’s battle with lifelong anger and guilt. A young man’s troubles follow him after he trades his spiritual calling for life as a teacher. […]
A Review of Lara Ehrlich’s BIND ME TIGHTER STILL featured in Booklist
Date: August 28, 2025
Ehrlich, the author of the story collection Animal Wife (2020) presents a short and disturbing novel. Ceto is the cruel taskmaster of the sirens, women who are the main attraction in Sirenland, […]