Author: Heavy Feather

Noreen Hernandez on Tina May Hall’s debut novel The Snow Collectors from Dzanc Books

Tina May Hall has created a work of storytelling art in The Snow Collectors by weaving the genres of gothic mystery/ romance, the atmosphere of a lyrical poem, and a warning of apocalyptic environmental collapse. The first chapter is divided into chunks that describe Henna’s, the main character’s, background. These sections move abruptly between her…
“Ten Songs, the Sound of Ambient Noise, and the Clanking of Chains”: A Playlist by Andrew Rihn

My book Revelation: An Apocalypse in Fifty-Eight Fights has the honor of being the first book released through Press 53’s new Immersion Poetry Series. The series aims to highlight writing that immerses its readers in the unfamiliar, providing entrance to subcultures, niches, and other unconventional spaces. The series editor, Christopher Forrest, likens the Series to…
Cassandra Luca Reviews Jonathan Blum’s short story collection The Usual Uncertainties: “A richly detailed, mixed (and eyebrow-furrowing) bag”

Jonathan Blum’s short story collection, The Usual Uncertainties, is cohesive in that each story showcases his uncanny observations; a brief paragraph sketch of one character is enough to reveal their essence. Blum can do this for houses too: “The mossy gables, the exalted peeling cornices and pale shingled walls, the quiet inclining street near the…
“The Academic Agenda,” a satirical story by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

How much did you learn in school? There are hours when the subjectivity of days and nights overwhelms you. To the point that your mind runs smack dab against the Scylla and the Charybdis of the past. The past? And what the hell is it? And when the hell was it? You might sit up…
Haunted Passages Fiction by Alexa T. Dodd: “His or Yours”

When you come home from work, the living room is littered with a grease-tattooed pizza box and dented cans of beer from your husband’s favorite local brewery. You find him in the bedroom, on his laptop, playing a game. Lasers and explosions emanate, muffled, from the tiny speakers. A hundred seams knit the center of…
The Miracles, the third poetry collection by Amy Lemmon, reviewed by Leonard A. Temme

Amy Lemmon’s new book of poems, The Miracles, dedicated to her two children—her two miracles—tells the story of a smart, accomplished woman struggling with grief and loss in today’s urbane world. The book is in five sections: Prelude, Fugue, Riff – A, Riff – B, and Coda, terms that imply that music is important to…
You Might Forget the Sky Was Ever Blue, short stories by Michael Chin, reviewed by Emily Webber

The characters in Michael Chin’s debut short story collection, You Might Forget the Sky Was Ever Blue, are figuring out how to be in the world with others and themselves. Many of these characters’ lives are full of trauma and turmoil and the best they hope for is easier times in the future. Chin’s stories…
Alice Hall: “O SONG BOX,” a visual poem hybrid for Bad Survivalist

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Alice Hall is a poet and educator currently pursuing her PhD in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Before Buffalo, she taught poetry and writing in Portland, Oregon, where she earned her MFA. Her poems are published or forthcoming from Cleaver Magazine, Prelude, Dream…
Lauren Ireland: Two Poem Rituals for Haunted Passages

Ritual for Becoming Unborn Become a secretthat turns itself inside outbecome the remotest part of yourselfbecome a snake that becomes a dark boatslicing through black brackish waterrich mud, crackling dying thingsquiet dead things.The moon cuts the water andthat’s where you fit your bodyinto the groove of cold light.The water closes around you.The water reflects nothing.Think…