Author: Heavy Feather

New Poetry by Matthew Johnson: “My Front Yard in Summer”

The Moon felt like a tingly blur on my skin, And as it gradually slid down my shoulder through my forearm,I tried to smack at it like it was a marsh mosquito, Or an arcade game of whack-a-mole. We soft tossed Wiffle balls when the sun went down,And the whistle of the breeze passing through the hollow,…
“A Trek through Working-Class Pennsylvania”: Nicole Yurcaba Reads Scott Dimovitz’s Novel The Joy Divisions

In Scott Dimovitz’s novel The Joy Divisions, Allentown, Pennsylvania, is not merely a geographic location or the novel’s setting. Yes, it is a place, but in Dimovitz’s book, Allentown is a living breathing entity, a character with a life and experiences entirely its own. The Joy Divisions draws on Allentown’s rich history as Pennsylvania’s third…
Original Side A Short Story: “The Hagiography of Agatka” by Zosia Koptiuch

The Hagiography of Agatka I really did think you were a saint. In the Polaroid I took of you, you stand in someone else’s room, holding someone else’s newborn. White dress dotted with tiny blue flowers. Nothing but boxes in the background. Reaching out, the baby’s hand lazily touches your cheek. You look down at…
Haunted Passages Flash Fiction: “Goatee” by Sarp Sozdinler

Your uncle is breastfeeding one of his goats in the yard, and you’re standing by his side, wondering what the right collective noun for baby goats would be. You remember goatee was the word your father used for that big hairy abomination on his face, his lips framed like a shelf placed on top of…
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,…