Author: Heavy Feather

Review & Interview: Kristina T. Saccone on Sue Mell’s Giving Care

“I need more pills.” My mom’s texts arrive throughout my day—during back-to-back work meetings, while I’m driving to pick up my seven-year old son from school, and at all hours. “I need more pills.” “Can you get me more meds. I’ve run out.” But she isn’t out of pills; my mom has dementia. The texts…
“The Lilac Trash Enjamber”: A Review of Johannes Göransson’s Summer by PJ Lombardo

South Bend, Indiana, is a magnet for floral-horror. Summer there is so bright and blue it feels like a threat: poison grass, lively weeds, green fingers stabbing up the cracks on the westside pavement. Men wander in public and shout and wave their arms. Foxes dart. Gusts of real life. In the post-industrial midwest, terroristic…
Review: Jacob M. Appel on Tyler C. Gore’s My Life of Crime: Essays and Other Entertainments

Digression has been recognized as a distinct talent since at least the twilight of the Roman Republic when Cicero served up tangents in defense of Sestius. Sterne hailed digressions as “the sunshine” of literature; Bradbury praised them as “the soul of wit.” From Dante and Milton to Murakami and Nicholson Baker, the art of meandering…
“A visible light in the gathering darkness”: Peter Valente on Ennio Moltedo’s Poetry Collection Night

On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile during a coup d’état supported by the United States, overthrowing the democratically elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende. During Pinochet’s seventeen-year authoritarian military dictatorship, he persecuted leftists, socialists, and critics of his regime, which resulted in the executions and imprisonment of thousands of people, and…
They Can Take It Out, a poetry collection by Cheryl Clark Vermeulen, reviewed by Anna Zumbahlen

The first poem of They Can Take It Out presents a recognizable scene: Halloween, children in synthetics, the speaker babysitting, reading, observing. But inflecting the voice is the specter of illness, which disrupts the security of the holiday and whatever memories or familiar images might attend it. Cheryl Clark Vermeulen’s collection takes stock of things…
Side A Flash Fiction: “Husband-Safe” by Sophie Newman

Husband-Safe Carolina didn’t know when the pain began, but one day she bit into a cracker, and it arrived like a needle through her jaw. She avoided that side of her mouth for weeks in hopes that it might disappear on its own, but when it didn’t, she had no choice. At the dentist, the…
“Believe with Me”: An Interview with Zach VandeZande by Dana Diehl

When I learned Zach VandeZande had a new short story collection coming out, I jumped at the opportunity to read it early. I already knew I loved his work from encountering it in journals and in his first collection, Liminal Domestic. VandeZande’s stories are both melancholic and hopeful. He approaches his characters with tenderness, but also…
Side A Hybrid: “shroud trick” by Amelia K

Step 1. Start with a square sheet of paper with the white side facing up. Fold the paper in half horizontally. Crease it well and then unfold it.[1] Step 2. Fold the paper in half vertically. Crease it well and then unfold it.[2] Step 3. Fold the corner of the paper to the center. You’ll do this on…
“The One That Scares You Most”: Robert Crooke Reviews You Have Reached Your Destination by Louise Marburg

As implied in its title, Louise Marburg’s latest, award-winning collection features lives in transition. Each tale is a journey centered on a woman who appears at first to be secure in love, education, professional achievement, affluence, or all four. But we soon observe the intrusion of an unsettling personal experience or family issue previously held…