Author: Heavy Feather

Bad Survivalist: Three Poems by Ryan Clinesmith

Apocalypse I ——An apocalypse is an enzyme of separation, salt turned sugar, apples oxidizing, blue death, survival as the catalyst to enjoying sunsets, closing your eyes in a Mecca-crowd, a 42nd-St-New-Year’s-Eve crowd, closing your eyes only after looking around to see you are the crowd—— or it’s the time, a block before we got back…
The Year of the Horses, a memoir by Courtney Maum, reviewed by Shannon Wolf

For Courtney Maum, The Year of the Horses followed a period of intense internal struggle. A crisis of identity as her daughter turned two brought on a bout of depression and insomnia so significant, it caused her life—and marriage—to stall. She found herself at a crossroads and needed to take the right path—and being a…
“Bounty,” a Bad Survivalist Flash Fiction by Michele Finn Johnson

Marian’s halfway through her beginner Peloton class when she hears her husband, Luke, scream—What the hell? She slows her pedaling, listens for his lazy follow-up—Have you seen my socks? Did you drink all of the almond milk?—anything that means Marian doesn’t have to try and unclip herself from this mechanical beast. Snails? Are those snails? …
“The Mystery of Growing Up”: Robert Crooke Reviews When Me and God Were Little by Mads Nygaard

In this complex and personal novel, dedicated to his father, Mads Nygaard spins a web of mysteries around family secrets, religious obsession, and psychic unrest in a bleakly rugged Danish setting. It is Nordic fairy tale, social history, and Danish-Lutheran parable in equal parts. And a wondrous narrative featuring innocently cynical observations by a seven-year-old…
Music Is Over!, a novella by Ben Arzate, reviewed by Carl Fuerst

In 2013, I visited my brother in NYC, where he’d moved to pursue a career as a chef. I was a lifelong Midwesterner, and I imagined that the New York City subways wouldn’t be much different than the Red Line in Chicago. But this was fundamentally different. Before the pandemic began, nearly 5.5 million people…
“Palmerland: BNA’s Ellis Island,” a short comic from The Future by Angus Woodward

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Angus Woodward was raised by southerners in the Midwest and moved to Louisiana half a lifetime ago. His books of fiction are Down at the End of the River, Americanisation, and Oily. His comics have appeared recently in Hobart, Slag Glass City, Shenandoah, Split Rock Review, and elsewhere. “Palmerland: BNA’s…
Bad Survivalist Short Story: “In the Afterlife Your Landlord Is a Witch” by Maggie Nye

She does not wear a pointed hat around the property, except in winter. And the hat is not so dramatically pointed as to be ridiculous. The underside of the brim is lined with white rabbit fur. It looks warm and stylish. Your landwitch also keeps a huge hound-sized rabbit for a pet. There are many…
Haunted Passages: “The Lamp,” a flash fiction by Scott Daughtridge DeMer

Echo’s kids asked what secrets the lamp told. She didn’t answer, just stared at the bulb, lit to full brightness. She didn’t blink. Her husband asked what was wrong, asked if she planned to go back to work. Her friends came and tried to pull her away, but she shrugged them off and stayed in…
“Sometimes You Wanna Go Where Nobody Knows Anybody’s Name”: Dustin Holland on Steve Aylett’s Hyperthick #1

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Picking up a piece of Steve Aylett’s work for the first time is always a confounding experience. His prose and his comics are often inscrutable blends of genres and mediums that wear their influences proudly on their sleeves while being unlike anything else you’ve ever encountered. The…