Author: Heavy Feather

Mona at Sea, a novel by Elizabeth Gonzalez James, reviewed by Maria Judnick

“I’m unemployed, I’ve never had a boyfriend, I live with my parents in the most boring town on the planet, and I hate myself” are the words Millennial narrator Mona Mireles recites to herself each night as she tries to sleep. Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ debut novel Mona at Sea offers a look into the wickedly…
“A Restless Sensibility”: Marcus Pactor Talks to John Domini, Author of The Archaeology of a Good Ragù

John Domini’s latest book, The Archeology of a Good Ragù: Discovering Naples, My Father, and Myself, marks his first venture into memoir. As in so much of his work, Domini’s writing here busts through the thin shell of its genre. The book expectably documents a critical period of his life—a period in which he rebuilds…
Steve Gergely: “VanLife,” a flash fiction for Bad Survivalist

For the past two weeks I’ve been living out of my van. It’s not a lifestyle for everyone, but at this juncture of my life, it was the best move for me. I mean, I’m twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three, so I can’t be living with my parents anymore. With one kid in preschool and…
Three Poems by Estelle Bajou

Some of Us Are Born Some of us give birth to ourselvesOn the edge of the reservoirWhere you can hear the ice meltI was looking at the mountain behind your faceThinking of you crunching through miles of quiet trees,Thinking of the world without me, forWho has not sat terrified before the heart’s curtainSaying don’t you…
Four Poems for Haunted Passages: Violet Mitchell

You Buried Me Right Where I Belong baby i watch you watch me destroy myself baby i am staticending gray starting gray i watch you watch me sleep w eyes closed we sleep in dead leaves | i decay along w my precision there are tangles in my armpit hair sweaty coupling w my bluish…
“the sun I can afford”: Zachary Kinsella on Protest and Compromise in that’s what you get by Sheila Maldonado

that’s what you get, Sheila Maldonado’s second full-length collection, offers rich, emotional weight with a kind of ease that is both precise and involved. Maldonado describes injustice, anger, and conflict in a style unwilling to dwell or become obsessively attached to what she cannot control. Through largely unpunctuated verse, that’s what you get advises us…
“Matthew Burnside Crafts Stories from a Wiki”: Michael Maiello Investigates the novel Wiki of Infinite Sorrows

Wiki is an acronym for “What I Know Is,” and wikis have sprung up all over the internet, covering everything from the breadth of the encyclopedia to the universes occupied by science fiction, fantasy, and comic book narratives. Over decades, we’ve grown accustomed to using and trusting wikis and to accepting that stories crafted from…
Flash Fiction for Haunted Passages: “Preserved From Decay and Endued with Immortality” by Andy Spain

We buried Uncle Charles way out back, beyond the orchard, a good two acres from the property line. We picked his bones clean and criss-crossed them end over end in a log cabin of sorts, like building a campfire. The leftover scraps of flesh and sinewy bits we burned in the center, praying that his…
Two Poems from The Future: Oak Morse

DaBaby, the 49th President Lime Lamborghinis for college grads Diamond grillz for senior citizens Extra! Extra! Read all about it A Nigga in da House, No Cap Strippers hanging from the chandelier Pool with ocean water from Bahamas Slogan: Make jokes. No stress. Love. Live Life. Breaking…