Read Donna Hemans’ essay on Ploughshares!
Date: January 4, 2021
The operator-assisted collect call comes on a July morning in 1987. It’s still early, before 9 a.m., and except for the telephone ringing, the house is quiet, my younger sister […]
Date: January 4, 2021
The operator-assisted collect call comes on a July morning in 1987. It’s still early, before 9 a.m., and except for the telephone ringing, the house is quiet, my younger sister […]
Date: January 4, 2021
Each month, Beyond The Page: A WGBH Book Club features a notable author, who takes part in a live Q&A with a WGBH personality to discuss the intricacies of that month’s novel. […]
Date: January 4, 2021
In these disunited states, containing within them many sovereign nations, we are in what Biodun Jeyifo called “arrested decolonization.” And yet, as Mukoma Wa Ngugi wrote, “The work of decolonization […]
Date: January 4, 2021
RIFT ZONE BY TESS TAYLOR Taylor released two books this year: a Dorothea Lange documentary project, and this collection of original poems that mine personal, California, American history, and changes […]
Date: January 1, 2021
Pasadena, CA: Red Hen Press, 2020. First Edition. Softcover. “There are perfectly good explanations/ for the simultaneous risks we juggle./ There are shipyards of baubles/ and harbors that have dried up/ and martinis made up […]
Date: December 18, 2020
Enjoy a virtual conversation with widely traveled poet and performer, Keith Flynn, on December 18th at 7PM! We will be discussing his newest collection of poetry, The Skin of Meaning. Catch the […]
Date: December 16, 2020
An old post from 2019, featuring Elizabeth Bradfield’s TOWARD ANTARTICA. Though she writes in a completely different style than Oliver, Elizabeth Bradfield’s Toward Antarctica (Boreal Books, 2019) also belongs in the hands […]
Date: December 16, 2020
Generally, I don’t care about the new year. The clock ticking from December 31st to January 1st doesn’t mean much, other than time moving as it always does, bringing all […]
Date: December 14, 2020
S2 E14 – Tracy Daugherty “In our Season 2 finale (probably), we welcome our friend Tracy Daugherty, the author of many books of nonfiction and fiction, to discuss his recent […]
Date: December 14, 2020
My list of the best Latinx poetry published this year includes After Ruben (Red Hen Press), a stunning collection of poems by Francisco Aragon, inspired by another of Latin America’s greatest poets […]
Date: June 10, 2021
After a recent conversation with Kim Stafford, Oregon’s ninth poet laureate, an idea coalesced for me, that the great energy swap—the invisible exchange between sentient creatures that either fuels or depletes […]
Date: June 9, 2021
Set in Havana, Cuba, The Playwright’s House is an expansive yet intimate novel about a young lawyer Serguey and his family when their father Felipe, a notable theater director, is detained by […]
Date: June 9, 2021
Sadie Hoagland is the author of the novel, Strange Children. Hoagland is a fiction writer from Louisiana with a PhD from the University of Utah in fiction, as well as […]
Date: June 9, 2021
An emotionally intense and deftly crafted novel by an author with a genuine flair for originality and a particularly effective narrative storytelling style, “Strange Children” is an especially and unreservedly […]
Date: June 9, 2021
Martha Cooley’s title for her latest novel is a predicate. A main verb and direct object, to be precise, its three words at once call to mind the subject and more, at […]
Date: June 7, 2021
Though a newcomer to the genre, Bay Area author Cécile Barlier shows a mastery of the form with this visceral and eclectic debut. In stories that span from the harrowing […]
Date: May 25, 2021
In a 2019 interview at Lunch Ticket, Allison Joseph said the following about her emotionally abusive father: “Only after his death could I speak my own individual truths about him. In […]
Date: May 17, 2021
Hoagland’s lyrical but convoluted debut novel (after the collection American Grief in Four Stages) follows the children of Redfield, a polygamist cult living in a remote Southwest commune. After 16-year-old […]
Date: May 12, 2021
In “How It Can Happen,” one of the first poems in this fine new collection, the narrator imagines death as Shakespeare’s “other country.” She writes, “I go with you, / […]
Date: May 10, 2021
The stories and essays of Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit: Living in a Sentient World form a beautiful tapestry of communications across species and consciousness. From grateful dragonflies to fatherless strawberries to companionable […]