Author: Heavy Feather

Chrono Trigger, nonfiction by Michael P. Williams, reviewed by Jeremy Behreandt

My hat goes off to Michael P. Williams immediately, for it is nothing but ambitious to write on Chrono Trigger. For one thousand readers, one thousand Hamlets; for one thousand players, one thousand Cronos. Released by Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) on the Super Nintendo in 1995, the videogame is considered one of the best JRPGs. Essays…
The Holy Ghost People, a dramatic lyric by Joshua Young, reviewed by Merridawn Duckler

Plays are like frogs. They start life in a form that scarcely seems to resemble the final product. What whirls to life on a dynamic stage is usually begun flat on the page. And, as far as writing goes, written plays don’t get much respect. The Guardian’s theater critic Lyn Gardner thinks it’s the “brazenly…
Contributors’ Corner: Chelsea Laine Wells

Welcome to our new interview series, “Contributors’ Corner,” where we open the floor each week to one of our contributors to the journal. This week, we hear from Chelsea Laine Wells, whose story “We Sink Like Ships” appears in HFR 3.3. Chelsea Laine Wells is a graduate of the Columbia College of Chicago fiction department whose work…
Danny M. Hoey, Jr. on Box Cutters, a fiction chapbook by Samuel Snoek-Brown

In his debut chapbook, Samuel Snoek-Brown takes readers through the lives of characters who struggle with what it means to live in and make sense of a world that seems to be slipping from the very fingers by which they try to grasp it. In language that is poetic, evocative, and lean, Snoek-Brown has managed…
Whittling a New Face in the Dark, poetry by DJ Dolack, reviewed by Jordan Sanderson

“People quot(e) / when their empathy is down,” observes the speaker of “What They Want Me to Tell You.” Never resorting to “quotes” or platitudes, Whittling a New Face in the Dark exhibits a brutal empathy. The speakers of these poems stand just inside the thresholds of dark rooms and address us in measured statements…
Contributors’ Corner: Guy Benjamin Brookshire

Welcome to our new interview series, “Contributors’ Corner,” where we open the floor each week to one of our contributors to the journal. This week, we hear from Guy Benjamin Brookshire, whose three collages with accompanying captions appear in HFR 3.3. Guy Benjamin Brookshire was born in Searcy, Arkansas, in 1977, got covered in fire ants in 1980,…
Dear Lil Wayne, epistolary poems by Lauren Ireland, reviewed by Daniel M. Shapiro

Although the epistolary poem has been around since the Roman Empire, it has taken a new turn with the advent of social media. Nowadays, the subjects of letters are much easier to reach; poets don’t need to be as hypothetical in communication. If we like Kevin Bacon’s performance in last night’s episode of The Following,…
Deep Ellum, a novel by Brandon Hobson, reviewed by Coleen Muir

Deep Ellum, by Brandon Hobson, follows our twenty-something-year-old narrator, Gideon, through the streets of Deep Ellum, a gloomy district in Dallas, Texas, which he has returned to after his mother’s suicide attempt. During his return, he must grapple with his sister, Meg’s, drug use and her mysterious and possibly abusive relationship with a man named…
Contributors’ Corner: Joe Sacksteder

Welcome to our new interview series, “Contributors’ Corner,” where we open the floor each week to one of our contributors to the journal. This week, we hear from Joe Sacksteder, whose story/screenplay hybrid “Game in the Sand” appears in HFR 3.3. Joe Sacksteder teaches creative writing at Eastern Michigan University and the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility. Later…