Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction for Bad Survivalist by Russell Brakefield: “A Temple and a Church and an Ashram”

Julian had a way of falling into shadow even in the dark. As the fire kindled, he shifted in his camp chair, avoiding the flame’s oblong spotlights. “Are you cold?” I zipped my own coat higher and tucked my hair inside my hat, one of the green beanies I’d knit when I was pregnant with…
Fiction from the Future: “How to Use This Instruction Manual” by Ron Burch

Remove the Instruction Manual from the container. Usually this is a box, mostly cardboard, with the item to be constructed also within. This may also include parts and tools. Do not throw anything away. It has all been enclosed to help finish the project. Separate the parts and identify with the Instruction Manual that they…
Side A Poem: “Levelland” by Kirk Keen

Levelland we impose stark beauty potluck of words to shut your mouth realign velocities our open mouths bless your heart pull up a chair here for your smart phone cotton hoe social media whatever let’s explode the sun everyday cash in on methodist hands warbling poetics of hearing nothing my first day i hold my…
Side A Graphic Essay: “Fire” by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Mini-interview with Jesse Lee Kercheval HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)? JLK: My very first writing teacher—and a wonderful one—was Janet Burroway, who many people know from her textbook Writing Fiction. We met again, after I had finished my first novel, The Museum of Happiness,…
Olivia Ivings & Shane Snyder Talk with Poet Erin Carlyle about Grief, Memory, and Poverty in the South

I’ve known Erin Carlyle for twelve years. We shared living spaces for ten of them—first as partners, then as spouses—and in that time we struggled together. Struggled to find a place to settle. A place of stability. A place we could call home. It was a depressingly mundane American story defined by movement, money, and…
New Translations by Kit Schluter: Three Poems by bruno darío

Great Expectations To encompass is to stroke the void, that subtle material.The heart fits into the physics of thingswhen we celebrate continuity between dimensions. Invasive imagery stalks my narration. Perception is an ally, and it lends structure;let’s try to unwrap experience and bring it sensitively out of focus,rendering it unclassifiable. Keep me company.You imagined it…
Poetry from the Future: Donna Stonecipher Translates New Work by Friederike Mayröcker, “14.6.14”

“Deinzendorf was a holy communion wafer that I placed every day on my sm. tongue, the bushes rustled in the morning breeze the branches of the cherry trees bloomed through the window the mulberry trees bled at my feet which were bare &c., the moon shone into the little room …….. was she going to…
Poetry Review: Candice Louisa Daquin Reads Hilary King’s Collection Stitched on Me

I have heard it said, too often, that nobody wants to read about middle-aged-women. Political candidates in 2025 are still asking why women “past 50” are worried about abortion and why should they have an opinion on abortion because they can no longer get pregnant? Stitched on Me, by poet Hilary King, is a blistering…
Fiction Review: Ashley Honeysett Reads Stephen D. Gutierrez’s Novel Captain Chicano Draws a Line in the American Sand

Stephen D. Gutierrez—Steve—is trying to write a short story. He’ll get around to changing the characters’ names to disguise his real-life self and his real-life friends and loved ones. In brackets he notes [deal with name later]. He’s so excited by the prospect of writing his story that he sends his first drafts to Harper’s…