The Swamp
Date: June 4, 2020
It is Fourth of July weekend, and until a few days earlier, we had forgotten that for coastal towns this is prime time for tourism. Despite the busy sidewalks and […]
News & Reviews
News:
C-Ville: Taking covers: Your social distancing reading list
Date: June 4, 2020
With the cancellation of the Virginia Festival of the Book, and recommendations to practice social distancing, there’s never been a better time to pick up some extra reading material. While […]
The Oregonian: Poems for the Pandemic
Date: June 4, 2020
Kim Stafford’s days have a rhythm, a routine. Oregon’s poet laureate wakes before dawn. He takes a long walk around his neighborhood. When he returns to his home in Southwest Portland, […]
KUER 90.1: To Be Alive — Is Power: Poetry For The Pandemic
Date: June 4, 2020
With all that’s going on right now, it may be more important than ever to remember to take a beat and appreciate something beautiful — even if that’s just a […]
Ms. Magazine: A Word Person Thinks About Bodies
Date: June 4, 2020
It was recently brought to my attention that my characters are obsessed with bodies—their own and everyone else’s.
CBC: Milton’s Paradise Lost: a survival guide for a fractured world
Date: June 4, 2020
Vietnamese-American writer Andrew Lam considers Paradise Lost “the first refugee story.” “When I learned about it, as someone who had lost his homeland, it resonated, naturally, because Vietnam was everything to my […]
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,
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.
Reviews:
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, […]
Don’t let your child get the “summer slide”: TREE SPIRITS by Louise Wannier Reviewed in She Scribes
Date: August 7, 2025
This is not a reading book, however, it does encourage children to use their imaginations and “think outside the box.” That skill will help them later in life with critical […]
CHAGOS ARCHIPELAGO by Tom Lutz Featured in Publishers Weekly
Date: August 5, 2025
Troubled lives intersect in the Indian Ocean with explosive results in Lutz’s tantalizing follow-up to Born Slippy. Frank Baltimore worked in construction until one of his employees started laundering money and […]
Kirkus Reviews THE RE IN REFUGE by Adrianne Kalfopoulou
Date: August 4, 2025
A poignant and profoundly relevant examination of society’s safe places. In this essay collection, Kalfopoulou explores the notion of refuge in all its varied facets. “Embedded in the word refugee […]