Author: Heavy Feather

“Forever Young. And Terrorized.”: Brandon M. Stickney Reads Aaron Jacobs’ Novel Time Will Break the World

In 1976, a busload of children was hijacked by masked, gun-toting men. The Chowchilla, California (near Sacramento), bus kidnapping and live burial remains one of the most bizarre, and under-reported crimes in American history—from the $5 million ransom the wealthy perpetrators never got to demand, to the daring, bus driver-led midnight escape from the underground…
Original Prose Poetry: “Kiddie Pool” by Brad Rose

People seem to like it when I lie to them. It gives them peace of mind, although I’m not sure whether this is due to my strategy or tactics—that’s for the experts to decide. After giving the matter my full attention, I’ve resolved to pull more rabbits out of my coonskin cap. Until then, I’d…
New Poem for Bad Survivalist: “Dishes” by Lane Devers

I am telling you this because I have nowhere else. In my teens, I don’t cry for years at a time. In one of the first home videos I find, we had just bought a new washing machine. I still don’t know how to swim, never learned properly. I try to cure the dry spell,…
The Future Has Poetry: “Begging to Be Marooned” by David Dodd Lee

The geese cross the highway—five silent film comedians—while snowfalls on their slate-gray backs. I’m in seclusion. My parents are ata remove, like dolls placed in doll-shaped holes, but when you openthe box there are only cardboard edges giving shape to nothing but air.The narrator signs a lease. He lives in a haze of monofilamentand insurance…
Fiction Review: Jess Bowers Reads As If She Had a Say by Jennifer Fliss

From miscarriage to monstrous pregnancy, the women in Jennifer Fliss’ second collection, As If She Had a Say, often find their bodies in odd situations beyond their control. One woman finds herself dissolving into a puddle of water, then discovers it’s happening to every woman in the neighborhood. Another, a woodworker by trade, keeps getting…
Abby Frucht Interviews David Winner on His New Novel, Master Lovers

While clearing out his great aunt’s midtown apartment after her death, author David Winner discovered artifacts of her storied existence: notes from opera stars, love letters, and artifacts from the Middle East of the 1930s. His Aunt Dorle had been a co-founder of Angel Records and a prominent figure in the mid-century classical music world.…
New Side A Hybrid: “Were” by Kathleen Rooney

Were Purest verb of wistful longing: I wish it were Friday. I wish you were here. Yesterday we were studying and we were studying yesterday. Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans in Germanic cultures, often used alliteratively as in “were and wife.” Therianthropy is a fancy name for shapeshifting. If you…
The Future Has Fiction: “Inside of a Dog, It’s Too Dark to Read” by David Ebenbach

1. Vulcan whimpered a little and then she let out a tentative yap. It was starting to get pretty warm in the lander. 2. There had been no good reason to send a dog to Venus, but that’s one of the interesting things about humans: we invented reasons in the first place, but, upon doing…
New Haunted Passages Flash Fiction: “First Night” by Sarah Daly

It was 1:00 a.m., the pizza was gone, the homework was not finished, and there was nothing on TV. Jay was staying at Cody’s that night. They were both in eighth grade and there were no adults present. In fact, it was Jay’s first time on his own. Jay’s mother had left him there, on…