Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction: “Driving Range” by John Scaggs

Like most of the men in the Wetherall family, Virgil had lost a finger or three over the years. The middle finger of his right hand had been taken by the timing belt of a 1973 Chevy Chevelle—had ripped it out at the root like an onion from the soil. On his left hand, he’d…
Two Poems by Conor Bracken

Running After Years My gait’s a mistake my feet keep making.Allow me to introduce myself: an unbridled trot.A hotel quietly on fire and the guestsasleep, dreaming of cleaner sheets.Of forgetting their phone chargersand overtipping the chambermaidsfor messes of deferred responsibility.My lungs inveigh their circuitry with air.What unhappiness propels the sunto punish everything with shadows?I once…
Poetry: “egg” by Tameca L Coleman

1 the desert demandsa new view when waiting is a death pop out the eyeturn the retinainside out turn out lungsmake the heart speak reverse the gut softenbone let followflesh innards wrapped blood and bone paste a shell in bright sun the exteriorblinds peck away the interior the protective eye has becomea…
Fish Boy, a poetry collection by John Gosslee, reviewed by Tammara Hoyt

“In the car he says, the important thing is that you’re okay.” Some fathers go beyond the call of duty to be there for their children, picking them up when they fall, setting them on their feet, hoping, believing in progress, even when those children are adults. Throughout Fish Boy, John Gosslee focuses on one…
Dameion Wagner reviews Emari DiGiorgio’s poetry collection Girl Torpedo

As luminaries Allison Joseph and Natasha Trethewey have already noted, DiGiorgio’s Girl Torpedo is a book that’s needed—needed to remind her readers that this struggle, this deep human yearning to be whole and to share, to recognize and to understand, and to call out is at no truce or ceasefire. Like the ever-present, heavily-armed battleship…
“Both the Substance and the Evidence,” a short story by Elise Burke

On the Sundays Harlow convinced me go to church, I never really listened to the sermon. But certain phrases stuck out. Maybe the pastor made sense of it all but I was caught up staring at Dot across the congregation as he held his jittery wife’s hand. Her legs bounced around nervously like God was…
Poetry: “Necessary Facilities Improvements” by Patrick Williams

Here’s the gougey bodega,the graying gym shoe power lines,sloping toward what televisiontells me is our drug corner. Out front I ghosted throughthe earliest blossoms of an uglyfistfight and didn’t look backuntil I knew it was over. Yards away a wet sweatshirtcloaked a cat’s corpse for mostof a winter, until they vanished:first the sweatshirt, then the…
How to Carry Scars, a debut novel by Dana Green, reviewed by Wendy J. Fox

Dana Green’s debut novel How to Carry Scars is both a manual for loss and a warning against unresolved grief. The women of this book are surrounded by accidents and longing, and Green’s tender approach towards her characters creates a story of empathy that cuts through the heartbreak and leaves readers wanting more. While Olivia’s…
Situ, a novel by Steven Seidenberg, reviewed by Micah Zevin

According to Merriam-Webster, in situ is defined as “in the natural or original position or place.” So it follows, in Steven Seidenberg’s Situ, that an unnamed entity is engaged in an intellectual and exploratory dialogue/discussion with itself, and its relationship to a bench. At times, Situ is a seriously philosophical text, in the vein of…