Author: Heavy Feather
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“The Alienation of the Long Distance Stalker”: Laura Paul Reviews Ali Raz’s Alien
Ali Raz’s newest book, Alien, is a novella about a hunter on the lookout for extraterrestrials in a city facing consistent destruction. For a quick read, it is not without its sharp risks and thrilling angles. In our time of heightened brutality, when friction is omnipresent, Alien hits the unlikely sweet spot of engaging enough…
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With Different Eyes, an illustrated prose collaboration by Paul Smart & Richard Kroehling
With Different Eyes is a heart-stabbing book collaboration by the writer Paul Smart and the artist Richard Kroehling. The subtitle calls it “A Covid Waltz in Words & Images,” which doesn’t tell you much about this remarkable little volume. The pages are slightly wider than they are tall, and the narrative unfolds in very brief…
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The Last Dinosaurs of Portland, a prose chapbook by James R. Gapinski, reviewed by Shyanne Hamrick
The Last Dinosaurs of Portland may immerse us in Portland, Oregon, but do not be fooled: the collection of ten short stories doesn’t linger there, not really. Instead, it is a surreal version of Portland comprised entirely of bridges—those “rusted footbridges that spiral out of your bedroom window and meander toward your ex’s neighborhood” and…
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“Leaver,” a poem by Audrey King
of glasseson airplanes; papersat home; socks at the baseof beds; of cell phonesupstairs; of voicemails: hi honey,where the hell are you; of planets and bodiesand families and wives. When it tookto your body, grabbed hold; anchored;plummeted; ultimately surrendered the morphineonto you, did you strike? I imaginea stunned crow; talons chainedclose on your chest. But I…
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Disembodied, a book-length fragmented fiction by Christina Tudor-Sideri, reviewed by S. D. Stewart
In his fragmentary work The Step Not Beyond (State University of New York Press, 1992; translated by Lycette Nelson), Maurice Blanchot describes writing as “not destined to leave traces, but to erase, by traces, all traces, to disappear in the fragmentary space of writing more definitely than one disappears in the tomb.” This concept of…
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Dave Fitzgerald on Interrogating the Abyss, collected works by Chris Kelso
What is the abyss? Several years back, I went hiking in the Catskills with my now-wife, my childhood best friend, and his then-girlfriend in search of some unmapped swimming hole cliffjumps we’d heard about. The first one we came to was quite high, and quite narrow—a slim, deep canyon enclosing a complexly tiered waterfall. There…
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Side A Poetry Collaboration: “dear denver,” by Terence Degnan & Denver Butson
Dear New York, For reasons unwilling to be revealed// My father is no longer with you// Grief as a tree has warned me// that I have my weapons misordered// birds come and go// willows dry// fall into the creek// Grief doesn’t follow any of these// James was killed by a falling machine// Falling grief, grief…
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On The Year of the Monster with Tara Stillions Whitehead: An Interview by Shannon Wolf
I sometimes wonder how one person can do so much. At any one time, when I speak to Tara Stillions Whitehead, she is in departmental meetings, corralling children, squeezing in writing time, and still somehow finds the time to be a friend to all in the literary community. It is unsurprising to me that Whitehead—someone…
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O, a poetry collection by Niki Tulk, reviewed by Tara Walker
When you read Niki Tulk’s O, you are enclosing yourself within a rich tapestry of glistening threads: motherhood, daughterhood, grief, falling, ruthless love and cruelty, the moon, the ocean, transformation and becoming and leaving and being born. A lesser writer might struggle to blend these elements. A book that contains phone calls with prosecutors, the…
Heavy Feather Review 