Author: Heavy Feather

“What Has Four Legs and Loves You?”: Will Kaufman Reviews George Singleton’s Stray Decorum

A man with more education than he initially seems to have, who has flirted with academia and/or the arts. A woman who is wrong for him, and probably at least a little crazy. A stranger or near-stranger, maybe a little bit of a con-man, and most certainly a liar. A dog that is ultimately more…
“Assembling in the Margins”: The Moon & Other Inventions by Kristina Marie Darling, reviewed by Daniel J. Cecil

Joseph Cornell was an American sculptor and a maker of assemblage, a recluse, and according to several biographical sources, rarely left his home in Flushing, New York. During his long career he constructed dozens of ornate boxes that related small narratives between the spaces of reason. According to the Oxford Dictionary,an assemblage is a collection…
Review: edward j rathke on Black God, a novel by Ben Spivey

Flowing in the Gossamer Fold was my introduction to Ben Spivey and it has that rare quality of growing in me even long after I read it. It was an interesting book, hypnotically surreal and powerful, but missing something. I enjoyed it greatly but it seemed to fall short of the heights it hinted at,…
Sky Saw, a new novel by Blake Butler, reviewed by Sheldon Lee Sompton

In Blake Butler’s lyrically imagined new novel, Sky Saw, due out in December from Tyrant Books, you’ll find the his name spelled Blk Btlr on the cover and on each page. Yes. It’s like that. I toyed with the idea of writing this review without vowels. But I was concerned some might have a problem…
Book Review by Thom James: On Slow Slidings, a novel by M. Kitchell

I’ve seen M. Kitchell’s name before, but I’ve never read any of his work until his was in a project that I was also featured in; though it was a series of photographs, so technically I still hadn’t read any of his work until I read Slow Slidings. Truthfully, I felt awful for not having read his…
Review: Louise Henrich on This Isn’t Who We Are, a fiction chapbook by Barry Graham

“And so it begins, like this, waiting too long for a lazy train out of West Toledo.” Forget that this review is published in November. It is truly October. The beautiful grime of This Isn’t Who We Are will get under your nails and other places you cannot easily access. When I was young, my friend’s…
“Who is ‘You?’ – Identification and Importance of the Addressee in Poetry,” a craft essay by Jillian M. Phillips

The poet’s choice of point of view is just as important as the imagery, diction, or meter. By choosing a speaking direction for their poem, they choose the way the poem will be read. Choosing first person often means that the reader will read the speaker, “I”, as the poet; this can limit their interpretation,…
Review: Nathan Floom on Other Kinds, short stories by Dylan Nice

The way seasons transition, so too do Dylan Nice’s stories in Other Kinds. Nice’s stories inhabit that sort of isolation very few people understand outside of the Midwest, a place of all seasons. Born in and of the Midwest, Nice’s stories and characters push toward the necessity and immediacy of moments, moments that arguably articulate…
“There’s a Difference between Quirky and QUIRKY, and We Get a Lot of the Latter, Especially”: An Interview with Aaron Burch by Nathan Floom

Aaron Burch teaches writing at the University of Michigan, edits Hobart, and has had stories appear in New York Tyrant, PANK, Barrelhouse, Another Chicago Magazine, and Unsaid. He is the author of How to Take Yourself Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew (PANK, 2010) and How to Predict the Weather (Keyhole Press, 2010). HFR: What is “indie lit,” and who…