Author: Heavy Feather

“Cthulhu Doesn’t Hate You” for Haunted Passages: Sean Oscar’s Critical Analysis of Apostle, the 2018 Netflix orginal film directed by Gareth Evans

Apostle follows Thomas Richardson (Dan Stevens) on the hunt for his sister, Jennifer (Elen Rhys). He is told that she has joined a religious community living on a remote Welsh island. The community practice a form of goddess worship, led by the self-declared prophet Malcolm Howe (Michael Sheen). Thomas, a former preacher who lost his…
The Dogs of Detroit, Brad Felver’s debut short story collection, reviewed by Michael A. Ferro

If ever there was a more convincing short story collection of America’s disheartening penchant for anger, violence, and grief, especially among these desperate modern times, I haven’t come across it. With The Dogs of Detroit, Brad Felver announces himself as the twenty-first century Midwestern heir apparent of Cormac McCarthy—a writer unafraid to expose the flawed,…
Three Poems by Jeremy Behreandt

A Third Place The bell tower prescribed an auditory space that corresponded to a particular notion of territoriality, one obsessed with mutual acquaintance. The bell reinforced divisions between an inside and an outside, as one might infer from the pejorative use of terms such as l’esprit du clocher. —Alain Corbin, Village Bells as with the…
While You Were Gone, a novel by Sybil Baker, reviewed by Katharine Coldiron

While You Were Gone is a lovely read. It’s thoughtful, and deeply felt, and well-written, and structured with competence. It gently crosses a few genres: women’s fiction, Southern Gothic, literary homage, and what I indelicately think of as Dead/Dying Parent Lit. It balances between the three narrating consciousnesses of three sisters raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee,…
Two Erasures from As We Know by Amaranth Borsuk & Andy Fitch

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Amaranth Borsuk’s most recent book is Pomegranate Eater (Kore Press, 2016), a collection of poems. Previous books include Handiwork (Slope Editions, 2012), selected by Paul Hoover for the 2011 Slope Editions Poetry Prize; and Tonal Saw (The Song Cave, 2010), a chapbook-length erasure poem. Abra (1913 Press,…
“In Darkness,” a Haunted Passages horror memoir by Craig Wallwork, author of Gory Hole: A Horror Triple Bill

Horror has been with me from a very early age. I found several copies of The House of Hammer comics in my parent’s bedroom when I was around seven years old. I would sit in the bathroom reading titles such as Shandor: Demon Stalker and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, their paper scented with cigarette smoke…
“Monster Family Portraits” for Haunted Passages: 14 Ghost and Monster Movies that Inspired or Influenced Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales by Orrin Grey

My previous collection, Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts, was specifically and self-consciously assembled around an idea of tracing the history of horror cinema through short stories inspired by films from different eras. Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales has no such underlying modus, but movies are a huge part of my mental vocabulary, and monster…
“Life During Wartime”: Matthew Morgenstern on Matt Young’s Iraq War memoir Eat the Apple

In 1979’s “Life During Wartime” from the Talking Heads, David Byrne sings: The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,I’m getting used to it nowLived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto,I’ve lived all over this town Though New Wave doesn’t figure into Matt Young’s Eat the Apple, these detached, ostensibly all-encompassing lyrics characterize Young’s…
“Rooms Echo Louder without Anything Inside of Them”: Hillary Leftwich Talks to Steven Dunn

Steven Dunn’s second novel, water & power, is published by Tarpaulin Sky and available to order now. Shortlisted for Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, he is the author of Potted Meat (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2016), which was co-winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize and finalist for a Colorado Book Award. Dunn was…