Author: Heavy Feather

“A visible light in the gathering darkness”: Peter Valente on Ennio Moltedo’s Poetry Collection Night

On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile during a coup d’état supported by the United States, overthrowing the democratically elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende. During Pinochet’s seventeen-year authoritarian military dictatorship, he persecuted leftists, socialists, and critics of his regime, which resulted in the executions and imprisonment of thousands of people, and…
They Can Take It Out, a poetry collection by Cheryl Clark Vermeulen, reviewed by Anna Zumbahlen

The first poem of They Can Take It Out presents a recognizable scene: Halloween, children in synthetics, the speaker babysitting, reading, observing. But inflecting the voice is the specter of illness, which disrupts the security of the holiday and whatever memories or familiar images might attend it. Cheryl Clark Vermeulen’s collection takes stock of things…
Side A Flash Fiction: “Husband-Safe” by Sophie Newman

Husband-Safe Carolina didn’t know when the pain began, but one day she bit into a cracker, and it arrived like a needle through her jaw. She avoided that side of her mouth for weeks in hopes that it might disappear on its own, but when it didn’t, she had no choice. At the dentist, the…
“Believe with Me”: An Interview with Zach VandeZande by Dana Diehl

When I learned Zach VandeZande had a new short story collection coming out, I jumped at the opportunity to read it early. I already knew I loved his work from encountering it in journals and in his first collection, Liminal Domestic. VandeZande’s stories are both melancholic and hopeful. He approaches his characters with tenderness, but also…
Side A Hybrid: “shroud trick” by Amelia K

Step 1. Start with a square sheet of paper with the white side facing up. Fold the paper in half horizontally. Crease it well and then unfold it.[1] Step 2. Fold the paper in half vertically. Crease it well and then unfold it.[2] Step 3. Fold the corner of the paper to the center. You’ll do this on…
“The One That Scares You Most”: Robert Crooke Reviews You Have Reached Your Destination by Louise Marburg

As implied in its title, Louise Marburg’s latest, award-winning collection features lives in transition. Each tale is a journey centered on a woman who appears at first to be secure in love, education, professional achievement, affluence, or all four. But we soon observe the intrusion of an unsettling personal experience or family issue previously held…
Birth of Eros, a novel by Debra Di Blasi, reviewed by Dave Fitzgerald

Size matters. I have yet to forget the first time I read those words, (and yes, in the exact context you’re thinking), back in the blissfully naïve early days of the internet, when the Nigerian Prince was literally the only scam we had to worry about, and chain e-mails were still kind of fun (kind…
Essay: “The Box” by Diana Whitney

The box was waiting on my porch when I came home from acupuncture. Cardboard, square, criss-crossed with blue tape, big enough to fit a toaster or a cat. A stranger had sent me a package in the mail. I do not know this man, although he’d written my name and address in sharpie and his…
A World Beyond Cardboard, a fiction chapbook by Jonathan Cardew, reviewed by Claire Polders

Jonathan Cardew’s collection of twelve tales is both an honest and an ironic dive into our humanity. In the marvelous title story, this ambiguity is obvious from the first sentence: “Mum died so dad took us on a holiday to France.” The family’s grief doesn’t stop life. On the contrary, the grief demands that they…