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:
The Hudred Fathom Curve in The Midwest Book Review
Date: October 3, 2011
In August 2011 The Midwest Book Review's Wisconsin Bookwatch wrote about John Barr's book of poems. "The Hundred Fathom Curve is John Barr's exploration of Americana from the perspectives of […]
Sasha West’s review of Cold Angel of Mercy
Date: October 3, 2011
Poet Sasha West examines the language of Amy Randolph in Randolph's book Cold Angel of Mercy. "Randolph's crisp, searing voice is evident in her facility with image." —Sasha West
The Hudson Review looks at Ship of Fool
Date: October 3, 2011
In the sixty-fourth volume of The Hudson Review, Peter Makuck praises William Trowbridge's book, Ship of Fool. "William Trowbridge's Ship of Fool had me laughing out loud . . . […]
Fred Chapel reviews The Owning Stone
Date: September 30, 2011
“My favorite poems here include the title poem about a talisman stone that emblemizes the omnipresence of past time, ‘Something Old,’ ‘Someone’s Father,’ the bitterly ironic ‘Fish to Fry,’ ‘Trucks […]
Stephen Dobyns
Date: August 2, 2011
At first glance Jim Tilleys In Confidence seems to consist of calm, graceful poems of upper middle class domesticity, but turkey vultures wait in the yard and many stories have […]
The Midwest Book Reviews’ take on Among the Goddesses
Date: August 2, 2011
"Driven and powerful writing in play format, Among the Goddesses is an excellent read and a first pick for literary fiction and poetry collections." The full review can be seen
Alicia Ostriker, author of No Heaven and The Book of Seventy reviews Among the Goddesses
Date: August 1, 2011
Among the Goddesses is a bold experiment. Magical, mystical, musical, it charts a woman's journey that reverses the journey of Odysseus. What is it to be aided by goddesses, if […]
From Publishers Weekly
Date: August 1, 2011
In yet another variation of a vampire love story, Eidus (The War of the Rosens) introduces Lilith Zeremba, a college freshman who has declared herself, over and over, to be […]
Booklist loves The Last Jewish Virgin
Date: July 31, 2011
Fiction is subject to viruses, and the vampire bug strikes the unlikeliest writers. Witty and incisive Eidus (The War of the Rosens, 2007) has always drawn our attention to the […]
Claudia Emerson reviews In Confidence
Date: July 31, 2011
In Jim Tilley's In Confidence, we see the internal and external workings of the world through a mature poets multifaceted lens. Crafting his poems with formal care, Tilley always aims […]