Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction Review: Emily Webber Reads Josh Denslow’s Sophomore Collection Magic Can’t Save Us

What surprised me most about reading Josh Denslow’s new short story collection, Magic Can’t Save Us: Eighteen Tales of Likely Failure, is that while I loved encountering all the magical creatures, the actual humans are the most compelling parts of these stories. Every story, laced with humor and sarcasm, calls out how easy it is…
New Poetry: “Inventory” by Em Townsend

The law of conservation states that energy in an isolated system will remain constant over time It is day 2 of post-graduate reality: alreadyyou are lonely Your hair is choppy around your forehead from where you trimmed it yourself in a moment of desperation, wanting to feel like you had control over something, wanting to…
Nonfiction Review: Asha Dore on Lidia Yuknavitch’s Memoir Reading the Waves

Like many of Lidia Yuknavitch’s readers, I was once her student. I met Yuknavitch first through The Chronology of Water, a book that gave me permission to abandon literary structure in a way that made memoir feel closer to telling the truth. When I found out she’d be heading the nonfiction program at Eastern Oregon…
Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “The Pit” by Sarp Sozdinler

People come to Cannon Hill for two reasons: to die quietly or to watch the gators. The gator pit is behind the Shell station. There’s a faded lawn chair wedged in the fence and a warped “NO TRESPASSING” sign that everyone ignores. It’s not an attraction in the official sense. The town doesn’t list it…
“Being Alive Is Just One Way of Being Alive”: Grant Gerald Miller on Alan Michael Parker’s New Story Collection Bingo, Bango, Boingo

I left Memphis for Olympia, Washington, on the Amtrak with $200 tucked inside a copy of The Journal of Albion Moonlight. I had never heard of Kenneth Patchen. The bold, abstract cover designed by the groundbreaking New Directions designer Alvin Lustig caught my eye. But it was the title that truly captivated me: The Journal…
Poetry Review: Thoughts on Uche Nduka’s Bainbridge Island Notebook by Peter Valente

Uche Nduka explores the nature of eros and the political in terms of our present world. Desire that points to any utopic vision of an alternate world is often compromised by cultural and ideological factors. Pleasure is often tainted by class, power plays, and gender wars. We are a product of our time and perhaps…
Flavor Town USA Poetry: “Oranges” by Laurel Benjamin

A woman has taken a man into the kitchen, shows him the panstripped of its black coat—Taken years to form, she says, and grabs the unscented orange cleanser, like pickingthe tree, a globe ready to burst. She dreams the past, gurney ride down a hallway, and under the gas she’s breast-stroking in the pool with…
Side A Poem: “The Next Time I Talk to My Friends” by Peter Leight

The Next Time I Talk to My Friends I’m not leaving anything outNot putting anything awayThat I haven’t taken outAs part of the same projectWhen it’s dark insideWe’re sitting down together and turning on the lights quickly like William JamesIn order to see what the darkness looks likeThere are times when we lookAt the same…
Book Review: Anthony Borruso Reads Chris Campanioni’s Hybrid Text north by north/west

Despite its directional title, Chris Campanioni’s hybrid text north by north/west: (an attention to frequency) is a virtuosic linguistic collage that, more often than not, indulges in indirection and subversion. Taking inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock, who was known for his narrative deception and generic subterfuge (even going so far as to kill off his leading…