MER Bookshelf – March 2026
Date: March 19, 2026
In this rich new collection, Molly Fisk braids together the ordinary tasks of love and work in 1875, a century we’ve almost forgotten but whose human concerns are universal and […]
News & Reviews
News:
Molly McCloy talks about her upcoming memoir, NINE GRUDGES, on KJZZ Phoenix!
Date: March 17, 2026
Tucson storyteller Molly McCloy loves telling stories about hard things. She’s done it on stage and in print. Her memoir, “Nine Grudges: The Spiteful Origins of the Happiest Dyke on […]
Maurya Simon interviewed by Sean Singer on his Substack, The Sharpener!
Date: March 17, 2026
Maurya Simon’s The Blue Bridge, her twelfth volume of poems, will appear in 2026 (Etruscan Press). Her earlier volume, The Wilderness: New and Selected Poems, received the 2019 Independent Booksellers […]
Amy Pence discusses her upcoming novel YELLOW in an interview with ArtsATL!
Date: March 12, 2026
During Hurricane Irma in 2017, a 90-foot oak tree split and fell into the middle of Amy Pence’s cottage in the old fishing village of Pine Lake, Georgia. A beam […]
Luke Goebel’s KILL DICK featured in Our Culture Magazine’s list of most anticipated books of spring 2026
Date: March 11, 2026
It’s finally warming up here in Washington, DC, and earlier this month was the first instance I was able to comfortably sit on our roof and read. With a coffee […]
April Ossmann interviewed on the Derate the Hate podcast!
Date: March 3, 2026
April Ossmann discusses poetry collection, WE with Derate the Hate podcast.
Amy Pence’s YELLOW listed on Bookstr!
Date: March 3, 2026
Yellow is a slow-bloom speculative novel and quietly cosmic. It’s a book about how long childhood wonders and wounds can linger, how the universe keeps whispering even when we stop […]
Molly McCloy interviewed on The ARTWIFE Podcast!
Date: March 3, 2026
Molly McCloy discusses her upcoming memoir, NINE GRUDGES: THE SPITEFUL ORIGINS OF THE HAPPIEST DYKE ON EARTH with Hannah Harlee.
Amy Pence’s YELLOW listed in Deep South Magazine!
Date: March 3, 2026
It’s 1973: summer of the Watergate hearings and Skylab’s launch into space when 12-year-old Z discovers an unclassified slime mold growing in her Louisiana backyard. Something compels her deep coherence […]
Luke Goebel’s KILL DICK listed in the New York Post!
Date: February 24, 2026
This satirical literary thriller has shades of Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. A 19-year-old NYU dropout returns home to Brentwood to laze about and enjoy popping prescription pills. But […]
Reviews:
Times Standard: Books and More: New novel set during Vietnam War
Date: June 3, 2020
A newly released novel, “Her Sister’s Tattoo” by Ellen Meeropol, was brought to my attention and it struck a soft spot I thought was long buried. Like so many of you, as […]
Adroit Journal: Father as God and Monster: A Review of Don’t Go Crazy Without Me by Deborah A. Lott
Date: June 3, 2020
Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. Consider the cover image for Deborah A. Lott’s memoir Don’t Go Crazy Without Me (Red Hen Press): a chubby adult male dressed in blue velvet […]
Rain Taxi: Subduction reviewed by Douglas Cole
Date: June 3, 2020
Subduction is most of all a story of displacement and dislocation: for Claudia, whose Latina heritage lies over a border and whose sense of family lies beyond the betrayal that […]
Empty Mirror: Hope Amidst Uncertainty: Subduction by Kristen Millares Young, reviewed by Jessica Gigot
Date: June 3, 2020
What happens when the world as you know it changes course? When your seemingly rock-solid life suddenly becomes thin and porous? Such is the case for Claudia, a Latinx anthropologist based […]
Library Journal reviews Subduction
Date: June 3, 2020
VERDICT Gorgeously, toughly written, this book dares to be open-ended yet leaves readers with a satisfying sense of how life really unfolds. Cultural clash matters here, but personal differences and […]
The Seattle Times: Storytelling in Neah Bay forms the fault line in brilliant debut ‘Subduction’ from Seattle’s Kristen Millares Young
Date: June 3, 2020
In the gray autumn of Seattle, Claudia, an anthropology professor, is on edge. Her marriage is over after she found out her husband and sister were having an affair. She’s […]
The Washington Post: In ‘Subduction,’ an anthropologist observing a remote fishing village becomes part of the story
Date: June 2, 2020
What was it the anthropologist said? Claudia wonders as she types up her notes. “Oh, yes. ‘An observer is under the bed. A participant observer is in it.’ She doubted […]
The Book Slut Reviews Body of Render: Poems by Felicia Zamora
Date: May 28, 2020
This moving collection of poetry by Felicia Zamora covers a range of topics from love, politics, identity, addiction, and the natural world. On one level, Body of Render explores a […]
The Paris Review: Staff Picks Subduction
Date: May 21, 2020
Kristen Millares Young’s debut novel Subduction takes as its subject a subtle clash of culture in the Pacific Northwest. The novel’s protagonist, Claudia, is an anthropologist fleeing the remains of her marriage […]
Midwest Book Review recommends Lifesaving for Beginners
Date: March 16, 2020
TBT! In a mid-April review, Midwest Book Review recommended Anne Edelstein’s memoir Lifesaving for Beginners. The recommendation reads, “It is no surprise that Lifesaving for Beginners is an deftly crafted, engagingly presented, intensely […]