Author: Heavy Feather

Our Pool Party Bus Forever Days, short stories by David James Keaton, reviewed by Jason Teal

Never mind that his introduction of best car chase cinema (“Gasoline Dreams”) is worth the price of admission, David James Keaton is a bizarrely prolific writer who gets slept on beyond our genre congregation, and this is the world’s biggest shame. I’m here to expose the wrongdoings of we vapid readers, and to provide recognition…
Essay: “If you really wanted to hear the news, you would take a walk through the city” by Tameca L Coleman

If you really wanted to hear the news, you would take a walk through the city I’ve taken a pause on my walk, distracted with all the things I’m carrying: my messenger bag, which keeps slipping off of my right shoulder, two bags of things from Target I didn’t really mean to buy, and a…
“A Flag Unfit to Fly,” poetry by Tim Kahl

A Flag Unfit to Fly The flag stayed up way too long and no oneknew how to properly retire it. It had beenraised too quickly. The young men in cargo pantshad not seen the skit about flag etiquette.They faced the flag and held their breath,sensing a vague feeling within themselvesit should not hang in the…
Two Poems by Nina Knueven

I Knew I Was O Positive When the subcutaneous purple balloonslocked up, guardingmy perforated veins. Universalresponsibility doesn’t articulate from head to toe,but from the thoracic cavity itself—flushing and swooshingin hostile torrents. Needles glint and bags are gratifiedwith new feed—teethy eyesmoving like meat grinders.Visceral tissues pump & pumpto catch up—inflating, deflating,& I’m turned on, thinking of…
Killing Poppy, a novel by William Perk, reviewed by Paul Dee Fecteau

When we tell stories about addiction, two well-worn narratives hold sway. In one, addicts personify failure, debasing themselves in the face of the glory of the American Dream. In the other, they embody nobility, struggling against a darkness not of their own making. In Killing Poppy, published in September by Apocalypse Party, William Perk savages…
Zuri Etoshia Anderson Reviews On the Bitch, a summer flash novella by Matt Potter

What does it mean to have a stable marriage or romantic relationship? What does it mean to be a parent? What is it like to be a citizen in a foreign country? Matt Potter addresses these themes and more with his summer novella On the Bitch. Hugh, a middle-aged English teacher to immigrants, and his…
“The Devil in the Details”: History and Myth in Lee Klein’s JRZDVLZ, a review by Jesi Buell

“Whoever languishes in thoughtful reenactmentof the past falls prey to cruel beasts.” —Lee Klein In his latest novel, Lee Klein introduces the Jersey Devil (JeRZey DeViLZ) as a sympathetic beast living across hundreds of years in the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey. The novel blends archival fact with longstanding myths, which serves to both amplify…
“Cults, Monsters, and Strange Rites” for Haunted Passages: On The Void and the Cosmic by Sean Oscar

Previously, I discussed a film described by some as ‘Lovecraftian’. I rejected this designation, observing that ‘for a text to be truly Lovecraftian, it requires more than cults and monsters and strange religious practices—it requires existential dread’. Here, I shall discuss a film that does meet this designation, and I shall explain why. But, further…
Three Poems by Matthew Broaddus

It’s Good to Be Ashurnaspiral II The dunes part. Enter oasis. I emerge from the desert on my immaculate Bactrian, sipping an adult beverage from one of those neon crazy straws and tipping my hat to no one in particular. My pride of lions, cast in copper radiance by the god Ninagal, tails me and…