Cai Emmons on fear, drugs, and her fatal diagnosis
Date: September 14, 2022
It suddenly occurred to me: I had taken a risk, invited an experience I was scared of, and I’d survived it. I could—and would—take such a risk again. And it […]
Date: September 14, 2022
It suddenly occurred to me: I had taken a risk, invited an experience I was scared of, and I’d survived it. I could—and would—take such a risk again. And it […]
Date: September 14, 2022
I imagine most people, like me, receive a fatal diagnosis with surprise. We all know intellectually that we will die, but no one really feels death as a certainty. We […]
Date: September 12, 2022
First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, nonfiction, essay writers, and poets, highlighting the voices of writers as they discuss their work, […]
Date: September 12, 2022
“The question looms large: How does one assert oneself as a person, a woman, without a speaking voice, without sound waves commandeering attention?”
Date: September 12, 2022
Steamboat Bill, Jr.,aka Buster Keaton, 1928 It’s good to see him young again,back from the booze, divorces, talkies,bit parts, and that sponging relative,age. He’s home again, in the cyclonescene, headed into […]
Date: September 12, 2022
My Instagram feed is currently riddled with mushroom advertisements. A mushroom beverage exceeds coffee for focus and health benefits! Mushroom face serums provide youthful, plump-celled, and small-pored complexions! Another mushroom […]
Date: September 8, 2022
Marybeth Holleman’s first book of poetry, “tender gravity,” came out this month, and we’re excited to host an in person reading on Sept. 8 so she can share it with you. We […]
Date: September 8, 2022
Marybeth Holleman didn’t start out to be a poet, but she found her voice through the medium and is now celebrating her first collection of works called “tender gravity.” I […]
Date: September 8, 2022
Charles Harper Webb is a Professor of English at California State University, former psychotherapist, poet, and author. His recent book, Ursula Lake, is a dark and thrilling story about a […]
Date: September 7, 2022
At eight years old I began writing poetry. I loved the sounds of words, and I loved stringing them together, often nonsensically. I liked the solitude of writing, the secrecy, […]
Date: February 3, 2026
This week’s Thirst Quencher doesn’t tiptoe, it kicks the door in. Kill Dick by Luke Goebel is dark, unsettling, and unexpectedly funny, driven by characters and ideas that refuse to […]
Date: February 3, 2026
Abi Pollokoff’s debut poetry collection night myths • • before the body, released this year from Red Hen Press with much advanced praise, is so deft in execution, so consistent […]
Date: February 3, 2026
The daughter of a pharmaceutical executive gets ensnared in criminal mischief in this ambitious blend of social satire and sunshine noir from Goebel (Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours). […]
Date: January 27, 2026
Helen Benedict’s THE SOLDIER’S HOUSE (2026) completes her Iraq war trilogy, that began with SAND QUEEN (2011) and was followed by WOLF SEASON (2017). But the new book is actually […]
Date: January 27, 2026
“…Shot through with the sort of pseudo-profundity endemic to youthful privilege, Susie’s rambling, terminally jaundiced narrative paints a darkly surreal Lynch- and Kubrick-inspired portrait of LA.”
Date: January 21, 2026
Luke B. Goebel’s winking satirical novel Kill Dick parodies contemporary literary and cultural forms. Set against sun-bleached Los Angeles—a place marked by wealth, addiction, and apathy—the book accumulates exaggerations of […]
Date: January 20, 2026
How does one build an identity? It’s an ongoing venture of discerning and refining, discarding narratives as much as creating them. For a poet, especially one who writes autobiographically, that […]
Date: December 17, 2025
…In his latest collection Stories from the Edge of the Sea, Andrew Lam delivers work far beyond that narrow definition of the form. The settings are complex. Even a five-page […]
Date: December 17, 2025
…Dr. Adela Najarro’s fifth book of poetry, Variations in Blue, is bright blue, black and blue, with dark reaching light. This bicultural-bilingual author “stands on the edge of volcanoes” to […]
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 […]