Author: Heavy Feather

Aaron Seward on Colin Dodds’ Novel Watershed

A question of paternity. A mysterious billionaire of profound depravity. A part-time call girl whose mythic beauty is up for grabs. A washed up artist breeding snakes to make ends meet. A near-future America bloated with big government and digital media, teetering on the brink of its own tackiness, about as prestigious as a fart.…
Excerpt: My Shadow Book by Maawaam (Edited by Jordan A. Rothacker)

Editor’s Preface: In the summer of 2011 I discovered Maawaam’s being in a box. The form his being took in that box was in journals, scraps of paper, scribbled on leaves, photographs, and drawings. The journals were the most significant abundance of being. For the last six years I have studied his being in the…
“a city grrl lured”: Jesse-Rice Evans on Kam Hilliard’s Perceived Distance from Impact

It’s safe to say that the most revelatory work in contemporary poetry is at the hands of Black queers & femmes: Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Angel Nafis, Jamila Woods, Jayson P. Smith, and bright among these, Kamden Hilliard. Kam edits Jellyfish and Big Lucks, two poetic institutions working hard to make room for marginalized writers. Having…
Essay: “Seattle Women’s March, 2017” by Amberly Baker

We are perched at the top of a hill, waiting, feet already starting to ache against the pavement. In front of us is a traffic light barrier we are not yet allowed to pass. My hands shake as I move in a small circle, careful to keep to myself, careful not to bump into anyone…
Essay: “Allyship” by Will Waller

Will Waller is a queer disabled experimental speculative author from the Finger Lakes Wine Region of New York whose writing focuses on memory, music, and the weather. After two years spent in San Francisco as the Managing Editor of Eleven Eleven, he moved to St. Louis to tune pianos and write. His experimental genre novelette,…
A Collage & Two Poems by Joe Balaz

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Immigration Killjoy Mechanical Sparrows All da mechanical sparrows stay broken chirp, chirp, choking to da oncoming corrosion as da shiny birdhouse up on da hill deteriorates into wun pile of small chips. Sing, song, singing along wit da copper doves on da telephone wires and…
Fiction Review: Giano Cromley Reads The Glamshack by Paul Cohen

I fear the praise I want to give Paul Cohen’s debut novel The Glamshack might end up hurting its sales. To say The Glamshack is unlike any novel I’ve read in a long time is not the kind of compliment that causes a book to shoot up bestseller lists. To say it challenges the reader at every turn, as it follows…
“Charting the Depths of Absurdity”: Miranda Schmidt on Reading Annie Hartnett’s Rabbit Cake

The very nature of death is absurd. The notion that a person can cease to exist, here in one moment and gone in the next, creates a strong sense of dissonance that, especially in those first minutes of grieving, makes the world feel surreal. Directly after my mom died, I couldn’t find my way out…
Five Poems by Geoff Anderson

Excerpts: Letters from Thomas Jefferson to Barnum & Bailey [W]e have the wolf by the ear and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose.—Thomas Jefferson January 3, 1776 A ringmaster’s best audience is a crowdof peers; who better to understandthe plight of standing outside a cageall the while knowing the bars holdback…