Author: Heavy Feather

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…
Two Poems by Vincent Poturica

The Unknowable A small German boy splashes inpuddles of radioactive measuredcalmness. The puddles are not,in fact, radioactive or measured. But these adjectives seem the mostappropriate signifiers in depicting thespecies of calmness the German boyfeels while splashing after waking too early from a troubled dreamstarring clowns without eyes or mouthsbut only brilliant red noses much largerthan…
“A Catalogue of Things That Follows from Looking”: William Lessard Interviews Julia Madsen

Julia Madsen is a writer who thinks like a filmmaker, a filmmaker who thinks like a writer, and an artist who thrives on intertextual uncertainty. With the publication of The Boneyard, The Birth Manual, A Burial: Investigations into the Heartland (Trembling Pillow Press, 2018), the first-time author joins Anne Boyer, Michael Martone, Ander Monson, and…
“Lovers’ Lane,” original short fiction for Haunted Passages by Michael Cole

Lovers’ Lane was a lake, an ancient crater, faintly heart-shaped, about a mile outside of town. On any Friday night, it was guaranteed that the shore overlooking the water would be lined in Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles; they were candy apple red, dusty rose, Tiffany blue—all parked with just enough space between for privacy. Fireflies, hundreds…
“The Roadmap to Escape the Inferno”: Jason Teal Reviews Candice Wuehle’s Poetry Collection BOUND

Too often presses aspire to publishing on the basis of reaching an audience and having an impact on letters—and everyone tries to sell books the same way—all while passing the claim that subverting our expectations and experiences comes second, or postmortem, to artmaking. Too often this quality of art goes unremarked on more deeply than…