Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction Review: Dave Fitzgerald Reads Jess Hagemann’s Documentarian Novel Mother-Eating

Back when I was growing up—a good, Christian boy in the suburban South—there were pretty much three cults that everyone knew by place or name: Waco, Jonestown, and Heaven’s Gate. That was the list. Sure, our parents would decry large-scale organizations like Scientology and Mormonism as cults, but (fair or not) that was largely denigratory,…
New Poem for Side A: “Migraciones: A Triptych” by Yvette Saenz

Migraciones: A Triptych Triptych I: ApologeticBandidos There is somethinginnocent about theapologetic bandido,that over-told story ofmachismo.It’s the desire to returnpeople to earlier forms,to nudge him gently with abroom into the pastBoy fooling his motherdiscovers she’d never lovehimthe way she lovedAmerica:without a mask. His mother is America. Allof it.How funny that this truthcan never be proven?Proof is…
Bad Survivalist Fiction: “Body Snatching in the 21st Century” by Mathew Serback

Show some goddamned patience. No one—not even a body snatcher—gets rich overnight. When no one attends the funeral, you might as well leave them to the worms. Anyone worth something draws a crowd—unless the will’s already been read and possessions divided up. The gold teeth aren’t worth it. You might find a silver ring or…
Haunted Passages Poetry: “I Ask Mom to Tell Me about Life Back on the Rancho” by Jose Hernandez Diaz

She tells me they had a hen house.I ask if only hens lived in the hen house?No, roosters and chicks, too, she says.She proceeds to patiently describe That sometimes coyotes would sneakInto the hen house, moving rocks, with their noses,Blocking doors to the hen houses. Sometimes, she says,Brazen banditos would rob the hen houses of eggs,…
Poetry Review: Zachary Kinsella Reads Flower Conroy’s Bestiary Zoodikers

In their fourth full-length collection, Zoodikers: A Bestiary, the former NEA and MacDowell fellow Flower Conroy dissects tangents of strangeness that perform diversions from the hegemonic toward a new order that is perverse, that is humble, that is shocking. The enigmatic pulse of Zoodikers (the term a 17th-century exclamation defined as “God’s hooks”) spotlights a…
Fiction Review: Anu Kandikuppa Reads Mike Powell’s Novel New Paltz, New Paltz

The cover of New Paltz, New Paltz by Mike Powell sets expectations: yellow and purple—color-wheel opposites; cheery and gloomy; a tear suspended on a cheek; a song—or maybe a cry—erupting from an open mouth. The novel covers a period in the life of the narrator, Ben, when he’s fallen in love with a girl from…
Side A List Poem by Tracy Royce: “Things That Remain Suspended (Handsfree) When Wedged Beneath My Breast”

Things That Remain Suspended (Handsfree) When Wedged Beneath My Breast Mini-interview with Tracy Royce HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)? TR: I took a class on innovative poetic forms with Charles Jensen, and it blew my mind. We read and wrote centos, erasures, hermit crabs,…
New Fiction for Side A: “The Dog’s Absent Bark” by Sean Thomas Dougherty

The Dog’s Absent Bark The neighbor’s dog across the highway and the tree line barks on and off all day. She is a big dog. Some kind of Shepherd mixed with something else, out on a chain, there in the cold. But no, it isn’t that story. They bring her in when they get home…
Two Original Poems: Sarah Fawn Montgomery

This Autistic Puts on Her Mask Because the world wantsa woman smiling louder than her voice, scripts rehearsedbecause the only answer to How are you? is Finewhich is a lie like making eye contact with the centerof someone’s forehead, manufacturing smalltalk and big gestures about the world and weather,whether or not you actually care, autistic…