Author: Heavy Feather

“Dangerously Close”: Alyssa Quinn on Nina Shope’s Novel Asylum

Some books refuse to leave you unscathed; they draw you in, grip you tight, and when you get out—if you get out—you will remain forever marked. Nina Shope’s Asylum is such a book. An innovative work of historical fiction, Asylum tells the story of Louise Augustine Gleizes, a young woman diagnosed with hysteria by the…
“Creating a Possible Self”: Natalie Wee’s Beast at Every Threshold Reviewed by E.B. Schnepp

Beast at Every Threshold is not a collection that invites us in gently, holding our hand while we explore the world, but it is one that rewards us for taking the time to find our way in. The collection is a challenging read, equal parts devasting and delighting, defying all attempts at categorization; Wee reinvents…
Lovebirds, a flash fiction chapbook by Hananah Zaheer, reviewed by Jordan Terry

How many ways can a heart break? Hananah Zaheer aims to find out in her debut short story collection Lovebirds, which explores the complications of “love” and the hardship and chaos that comes with the raw emotion. In the collection, Zaheer’s female characters’ responses act as catalysts for radical change and Zaheer manages to wring…
Red Is My Heart, a collaborative novel by Antoine Laurain & Le Sonneur, reviewed by Jordan Nunes

To publicly share the details of life post-breakup would be an embarrassment for most people, but Red Is My Heart does not explore disturbing details about the relationship or the breakup. Instead we are taken into the mind of a man as he meanders through the trivial, often delirious, times of his suffering. This is…
A Summoning by Nicole McCarthy Has Arrived! Now available 8.2.2022

“A Summoning is nothing short of a moving book.” —EcoTheo Review “Excavating memory and documenting trauma is what McCarthy does so sublimely as she layers thoughts with visuals, white space with noise, breaks with narrative flow. The effect is at once genius and unsettling, wherein the structure becomes part of the story; I loved the…
Short Story for Side A: “Dead Calm” by Jim Daniels

Dead Calm The clumsy enormous leaves of banana trees rattled in the sea breeze on their hotel balcony. “They look fake. Where are the bananas?” Rick asked. “Where are my sunglasses?” Their margaritas sat in absurdly large salted glasses sweating on a small plastic table, slowly warming like a shallow pond of scum. He squinted…
“Risking Chaos”: Marcus Pactor Chats with David Leo Rice, Author of The New House

David Leo Rice writes singularly weird fiction about the experiences of artists and drifters wandering hallucinatory landscapes. His latest novel, The New House, is a kunstlerroman focused on a child named Jakob, who trains to be an artist in a town of sentient dolls, blood clots who are sisters and lovers and advisors, and men…
Weeping in the Tropical Moonlight Because Nobody’s Told Her, a poetry book by Fox Henry Frazier, reviewed by Hillary Leftwich

each new world I’d built within you wrecked, each flower wilting & infectedYou’re being protected Fox Henry Frazier’s poetry collection, Weeping in the Tropical Moonlit Night Because Nobody’s Told Her, fulfills its title’s expectations with a dreamy, surreal quality I’ve been craving in the world of poetry to come into existence. With subtle waves of images…
The Future: “HolyLand, USA,” a short story by Ron Burch

We’re having trouble getting the Red Sea to part, and my boss is flipping out. It’s our highlight and finale. Written about across the country. Our most expensive exhibit, oh yeah. Through an expanse of dirt, our Pilgrims approach the ride, an outside body of water. The water’s resting on the surface, and it looks…