Author: Heavy Feather

An Excerpt of Laura Catherine Brown’s Comic Novel Made by Mary

Made by Mary is a black comedy using magic realism to blow up myths about women, mothers, daughters and motherhood. Unable to conceive and, because of her husband Joel’s youthful conviction for marijuana dealing, unable to adopt conventionally, Ann and Joel pinned their hope on Jessica, an unwed pregnant girl who offers them her baby.…
Essay: “Dinner with Trump and the Art of (Im)potent Rage” by Janet Mercel

My niece brought her boyfriend back east last summer to meet all of us. He was sweet and placid and quiet enough that I wasn’t sure he was paying attention until he’d had enough cocktails to loosen his lips. Later in the evening he told me how intimidated he’d been to be presented to the…
Fiction: “My Father’s Great Recession” by Alex Kudera

Fierce rains pour from black clouds, and when at last we meet in the parking lot, I see an obese and aged semblance of Dad. He wears a blonde mustache, but his receding topsoil is corn-silk white. Beige slacks and a light blue sweater do little to mask his immense roundness. Three hundred pounds or…
Three Poems by Anne Champion

How Capitalism Breathes Through a gas mask/ in a uniform/ hurling tear gas/ with a chokehold/ elbow cocked like a gun/ deep inhale/ holding its breath/ ducking for cover during a mass shooting/ the aroma of factory chimneys smells like money/ through a gas mask/ does blood smell like power/ drop the noose/ drop the…
“Dear Dana Loesch,” an interactive poem by Rachael Shay Button

Dear Dana Loesch, Todaywhile you tweet,Parklandstudentsreturn:retrieve backpackscell phones,windbreakers,water bottles,chapstick,math books.Returnto classroomswhere they satsilentin supply closetseyes adjustingto darkears tunedto the soundof breathof shots. Dear Dana Loesch, You kept your kids away from public school homeschooled opposed testing standards wroteMamalougesabout raising your babies unrushed. Your children got to start slow lessons on the living room rug lunch…
Fiction: “Abortion Clinic, 2021” by Beth Fiset

We wait in rows along the walls until one of our names is called and we reshuffle. We wait seated in chair clusters. We wait huddled over one another to sleep for hours on end because we can’t help ourselves, though, we want to be awake when they call so we are not skipped over…
Tenderling, a poetry collection by Emily Corwin, reviewed by Dameion Wagner

Before flipping through and selecting a single poem in Emily Corwin’s new Tenderling, readers are struck by the text’s cover, an array of sharply mottled, kaleidoscopic, but no less formed and fantastical images. Sarah Shields’ illustrations contrasted over a faux beige linen background are marked by deep, bright reds and touches of blacks in flowers…
“Momentum of Connections”: Erin Flanagan Interviews Augustus Rose

Augustus Rose’s first novel, The Readymade Thief, is a fervent mix of art, deceit, puzzles, subterfuge, coincidence, and meaning, all hung on the fast-paced structure of a thriller. Set in an underground world of deserted aquariums, abandoned buildings, and vacant homes, Lee must decode literal and figurative maps to stay one step ahead of a…
“Flightpath to Eternity”: William Lessard Reviews Pamela Ryder’s Novel in Stories Paradise Field

Pamela Ryder uses the instruments of fiction to dismantle received notions of grief and aging. With the death of her father as her noetic object, she picks up where popular end-of-life philosophers like Atul Gwande and Paul Kalanithi leave off. The result is a book whose humor, imaginative élan, and relentless attention to detail fuse…