Author: Heavy Feather

“Art Is Life and Life Is Art”: Peter Valente on Tell Me I’m an Artist, a new novel by Chelsea Martin

Chelsea Martin’s novel, Tell Me I’m an Artist, is a coming-of-age story about a young artist, Joelle Berry (Joey), living in San Francisco and studying at an unnamed Art School, as she confronts her own complex feels about what it means to create meaningful art while balancing the problems that she left behind in her…
Flavor Town USA Poetry: “13 Bean Chili (As Desired)” by Avery Gregurich

after Albert Goldbarth “… and the goof-off kidney and lima and chili beans like Shriners and Masons and lodge brotherseverywhere marching and cavorting … the lady in the next line over says it has turned into such abeautiful day because you can’t see the the chemtrails foronce. the day had started out slow, frozen, great…
New Side A Microfiction: “Opportunity Meets Preparation” by Andrea Marcusa

Opportunity Meets Preparation Why are you throwing out the Valium? They’re expired. I recovered the yellow pharmacy vial from the garbage. Inside, the pills look perfectly pink and round, only the bottle looks cloudy and aged. They are only four years old. You keep aspirin longer. That’s different. My husband likes to be accurate, knows…
“The Ritual,” a short story for Haunted Passages by Paul Rousseau

The sky was unflinching judgment, set ablaze. Holy shades of red and yellow in acrylic smears. Clouds scrambled to hide behind treetops where they could peek through branches and parted leaves. Night was close. The lights were about to dim. I was getting some final jumpers in at the elementary school playground just down the…
Brontosaurus Illustrated, a graphic novel by Leanne Grabel, reviewed by Cathy Smith

A violent kidnapping and rape at the age of nineteen created a Brontosaurus-sized trauma in Leanne Grabel’s life. In the accordingly-titled Brontosaurus Illustrated, she tells her tale in vivid words and drawings to explain how this trauma has lived with her for more than fifty years. Though slightly fictionalized, every single word of this book…
Poetry: Two Scores from The Future by Willa Carroll

Score for the Body as Last Frontier Poachers prize the rosette pelt | bones are gold | on the black market | I put on the body | of this snow leopard | my eyes behind hers | scanning terrain | We pant across borders | Russia Mongolia China Tibet | Plush paws | doing…
Flavor Town USA: Three Poems by Paul Siegell

SENDER. Kirwyn, some white space: A driver delivered our meal-kits on Saturday & I read your book to my wife last night while she fixed one for dinner. The transformation from raw to redaction. Only to transform again. There’s this pendulum we ride: When she works a 7a-to-7p at the hospital, I’m on eats. A…
Book Review: Francois Bereaud on Faith, a novel by Itoro Bassey

Nigeria is a vast country with a rich literary heritage. Award winning authors including Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie have influenced writers and readers across the globe. Now, with her debut novel Faith, the Nigerian-American writer Itoro Bassey announces herself as one of the next voices in this powerful tradition.…
A-Sides: Six Poems after Bill Evans by Mark Lamoureux

Re: Person I Knew for Chris McCreary Chasm crier cryall day long outsidethe jewelry store. Hand models with skullrings pluck heart stringsstretched taut by two poleswith drawn-on lightning bolts. Ears’ chic cry Mr.Knowalittlebit abouta thing called lovelornnostalgia for an old-school’s out for summer; get your whitechocolate skull crushed by Korybantesat low noon, beside the bladed gills…