Author: Heavy Feather
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Peter Valente: Notes on the Influence of the Work of William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin on Certain Contemporary Writers
old armor because words are built into you – in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not realize the word armor you carry; for example, when you read this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right following the words that you have been accustomed to. Now try breakup up part of…
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Side A Fiction: “Before All That” by Lauren Woods
Before All That In the end, she sells me for only a hundred dollars. “Women in this market usually go for larger karats,” the woman at the pawn shop with the nails filed down to pink nubs tells her without blinking. She doesn’t stop to think it over, doesn’t caress my head a last time…
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Haunted Passages: “The Tunnels,” a short story by Jordan Dilley
They say the tunnels were built between two wars, but no one knows for sure. To know for sure someone would have to spend time going over their construction, testing the age of the plaster, but no one spends more time there than they must. The tunnels are for hiding things, not for exploring. Everyone…
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You Never Get It Back, short stories by Cara Blue Adams, reviewed by Vincent James Perrone
Often, short stories are a gesture, a head nod, a breath, a whole lot of symbolism beneath every action and conversation. They’re the shadows that make up the moments of life. For another kind of writer, the short story is a microcosm. It’s a portal that opens up, sucks you in, spins you around, and…
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Inheritances of Hunger, a debut chapbook by Stella Lei, reviewed by Daisuke Shen
Secrets serve as our guides to navigate the world of Stella Lei’s first chapbook, Inheritances of Hunger. But secrets are only granted once one has proven themselves to be worthy of Lei’s trust—do we know how to hold her narrators’ hurt, to engage with it as if our own? Masochism and sacrifice form the foundations…
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Haunted Passages: “A Guide to the Land of the Mist,” a hermit crab short story by Casey Reiland
*Ed.’s Note: click on images to view larger sizes. Casey Reiland’s work has appeared in trampset, On the Seawall, The Puritan, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, DC, and you can find her on Twitter @CaseyReiland. Image: scifinow.co.uk
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Terminal Park, a novel by Gary J. Shipley, reviewed by Dave Fitzgerald
How do you write about the meaning behind a book whose core subject is essentially the end of meaning? How do you encapsulate a book that struggles to contain itself? That churns, and roils, and seeps off of every page until its typeface is practically crawling up your arms and invading your orifices like the…
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John-Michael Bloomquist: Three Father Nescio Poems from The Future
Father Nescio and the Ark of the Future The lift was a mile-long throat up to the scorched surface of the Earth. The phlegm-yellow sky hacked thunder and spat lightning around the Ark— a shimmering peanut of mercury larger than the New York skyline sitting in the vaporized seabed— a coral graveyard bleached like an albino…
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Shannon Wolf on Refuse to be Done, a craft book by Matt Bell
In perhaps the craft book to end all other craft books, Matt Bell implores us to take ownership of our writing, to stop and take a second, third, hundredth look, and above all, to Refuse to Be Done—at least until we’re actually genuinely done with a manuscript and ready to kick it from the nest.…
Heavy Feather Review 