Author: Heavy Feather

“Are We Ready to Read Cris Mazza Yet?”: Marianna Nash Reviews Cris Mazza’s Charlatan: New and Selected Stories

Many of the women Cris Mazza writes are unpleasant. That’s as it should be: Many people are unpleasant, and women are people. Mazza’s latest collection, Charlatan, showcases thirty years of work that explores, in nearly as many ways, what happens when you write women as people. More than two decades after she co-edited the Chick…
Playing with Dynamite, a memoir by Sharon Harrigan, reviewed by Robert Young

What hooks you about Sharon Harrigan’s potent memoir Playing with Dynamite is just how true the story is. The book is reminiscent of the quest narrative: a woman going on a journey into the forgotten, suppressed, and painful parts of her past to discover more about herself. Under the surface, the memoir marinates in the…
Fiction: An Excerpt from Visions by Troy James Weaver

That day, the first day, she didn’t believe me, and it would be another ten years before she finally would—and then only after she was dead. I knew she’d be in the kitchen. She was always in the kitchen. She was cooking grits in a small pot, and had the radio turned up, listening to…
Glory Days, a novel in stories by Melissa Fraterrigo, reviewed by Asha Talib

Melissa Fraterrigo weaves together an intricate tale of loss, failure, greed, cruelty, hurt and comfort in her work Glory Days. At the heart of her story is the land of Ingleside, Nebraska, and the experiences it encounters through the tales of six individuals. The most notable story, of Luann and her father Teensy after losing…
Flash Nonfiction: “Sportsball Commentary” by Ann Petroliunas

Pay attention, ref! The men in this basement have proven 1476 times that they possess the vocabulary to be outraged. The men in this basement scream obscenities at toy figurines on television screens sitting next to women who have other reasons for screaming. Our cries of outrage sound the same to this soccer game. The…
Poetry: “here, in my body” by Bianca Phipps

the process of getting an IUD wasin no waywhat I would call fun I can only describe it as reverse birth, except!with something very cold & metal & a fraction of the size of a human baby. (don’t let this be misleading.something the fraction of the size of a human babydoes not make it less…
“Dreamland Grandma Patch Notes Updates V 1.1,” a poem by Cori Bratby-Rudd

This update enhances the compatibility of Grandma with other programs. It will henceforth be renamed “Dreamland Grandma.” It is recommended for all users. Restart required. Based on user feedback, increased source material of queer texts/knowledge Decreased speech ability Decreased ability to comment on fashion choices Increased desire for generosity Deactivates critical capacities in regards to…
“Master of the Concise”: Jesi Buell Reviews J. Bradley’s flash fiction collection Neil and Other Stories

Neil and Other Stories is a prepossessing examination of a parent’s influence on the internal life of their child. At first, the reader approaches what seems to be disparate scenes, but as the stories progress, a singular interlinking story begins to form. Neil and Other Stories is a predominantly a collection of flash fiction pieces that culminates…
Kiss Kiss, a flash fiction collection by Paul Beckman, reviewed by Brad Rose

Whenever I read Paul Beckman’s flash fiction, I feel like I’m benefitting from a humorous, avuncular neighbor who is comfortably narrating what are, by turns, realistic and surrealistic tales that highlight both the humor and sadness inherent in the human predicament. The brief, seemingly effortless, stories in Beckman’s newest collection, Kiss Kiss, explore a range…