Author: Heavy Feather

Nonfiction Review: Alex Gurtis Reads Mike Nagel’s Post-Capitalist Americana Memoir Culdesac

Mike Nagel made waves in indie lit circles in 2022 when he published his popular debut Duplex with Autofocus Books, a book about alcoholism, the pandemic, and life within the walls of his Texas duplex complete with photographs. Two years later, his follow-up, Culdesac, promises more of the same: dark humor, witty takes, photographs of…
Poetry Review: Lauren Scharhag Reads Scott Ferry & Daniel McGinn’s Call-and-Response Fill Me with Birds

In some ways, Scott Ferry & Daniel McGinn’s Fill Me with Birds sneaks up on you. Ferry’s poems are usually brief, less than a page, with spare lines that eschew such trifles as capitalization and punctuation. McGinn’s work can be longer, but his straightforward, matter-of-fact style lulls you into a false sense of security. Make…
“A Sliver of Mirror”: Memory and Imagination in Sejal Shah’s Fiction Collection How to Make Your Mother Cry

I met Sejal Shah in 2016 when I moved to Rochester, New York, to become the executive director of a literary arts organization. Shah was a beloved teacher there. We quickly developed a friendship and we exchanged numerous phone calls and emails on any number of topics, though usually about books and literature. In many ways, Shah’s story…
Chapbook Review: olga mikolaivna Reads Aditi Kini’s Notes, Jokes, and Queries Oriental Cyborg

Aditi Kini’s debut chapbook and winner of the 2021 Essay Press Chapbook Prize, Oriental Cyborg, is material but also imaginary—as in, image based, as in, an invention. As in, an invention with material repercussions. Under cyborg operatics the body is an invention for labor and to toll away: specifically a body coded in, and of,…
Fiction Review: Josh Massey Reads Daniel Beauregard’s Anti-Novel Lord of Chaos

The title Lord of Chaos sounds like an entry from the metal canon, and then Daniel Beauregard’s online persona, which you can get glimpses of on X, does hint at a kind of metal aesthetic—perhaps that’s the scene in the author’s current home of Buenos Aires? The city sounds like a South American literature mecca,…
Fiction Review: Matt Martinson Reads M.J. Nicholls’ Collection Violent Solutions to Popular Problems

Remember learning about the so-called death of the author, that brief moment where, in the world of literature, authorial biography—to say nothing of intent—did not matter in the least? If I’m being honest, I sometimes find myself missing the playfulness of the postmodern old guard, which feels as if it has been entirely replaced with…
Paul Ilechko: Three Poems for Bad Survivalist

Truck Stop The sky was a grid of varying colorsnone of which were visible to the naked eyebut the man vaping in the cab of an F-150knew instinctively that he was parkedbelow a quadrant of the darkest magentathe handle clicked as a door swung openand a body hauled itselfinto the passenger seattattoos glowing fluorescent under…
“the witness moves the wind through herself”: Michael Collins Reads Joy Manesiotis’ Poetry Collection Revoke

Beginning Revoke, the third collection from Joy Manesiotis, we quickly realize that this book’s making is an integral, considered part of our experience. Two veil-like pages demarcate our entry and exit from the space of lyric ritual into which we are invited. Within, several poems are set in white letters on black pages, seemingly in…
“A Novel for a New America”: Nicole Yurcaba Reads Daniel Lefferts’ Novel Ways and Means

In 2016, Alistair McCabe’s dreams of a fantasy banking job have fizzled. His paramours, an older gay couple named Mark and Elijah, are facing a breakup due to financial and emotional fizzles. America—rife with Donald Trump’s fiery, and at many times nonsensical, rantings—teeters toward a breaking point. Meanwhile, Alistair finds himself running for his life…