Category: Reviews & Criticism

An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, a poetry collection by Heidi Seaborn, Reviewed by Deborah Bacharach

An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, I could pick this book up for the title alone: funny and terrifying for the juxtaposition of insomniac and slumber, enticing for being set in a space where girls share their secrets, and thrilling for the chance to do so with the icon Marilyn Monroe. In Seaborn’s second…
“Print Is Not Dead”: Peter Valente on A Poetics of the Press: Interviews with Poets, Printers, & Publishers

A Poetics of the Press: Interviews with Poets, Printers, & Publishers contains sixteen interviews Kyle Schlesinger did with publishers from the United States, England, Germany, and Australia. Most of the interviews were conducted in person and later transcribed, while the rest were done using the computer. The first of these interviews was with Steve Clay,…
Ire Land (a Faery Tale), a mixed-genre fantasy by Elisabeth Sheffield, reviewed by Noreen Hernandez

Elisabeth Sheffield uses exquisite language and control over a palimpsest of mixed genres in Ire Land (a Faery Tale). She vacuum-seals a layered plot into a fantasy world of comfortable relationships within a morality-play type story that hints at, then rejects any expected outcome for the main character, Sandra Dorn. Sheffield builds a world where…
“A Storytelling Masterclass”: Gillian Perry on Nana Nkweti’s Walking on Cowrie Shells (Graywolf Press)

Nana Nkweti is unafraid. Unafraid to interlace myth and reality. Unafraid to embrace the polyphony of voices that tell her stories. Unafraid to breathe life into characters of differing ages, careers, and moral compasses. Nkweti’s debut collection, Walking on Cowrie Shells, captures the experiences of the fearless—water goddesses, teenage graphic novelists, Akata sisters, immigrants, all…
Andrew Farkas Reviews Adam Tipps Weinstein’s The Airship: Incantations (FC2)

In Thomas Pynchon’s V., some of the characters, Benny Profane in particular, engage in “yo-yoing,” an activity that involves going back and forth between two places for no real reason. A casual contest starts up wherein the competitors see who can yo-yo the farthest, normally won by those who fall asleep on the subway. In…
Outré, a “Hörnblowér” novel by D. Harlan Wilson, reviewed by Evan St. Jones

Intro. The world building in D. Harlan Wilson’s Outré slaps you in the face during its introduction and never shows mercy. Thrusted first upon us is a long cast list featuring fictional actors as well as figures recognizable historically and pop culturally. From there, we’re thrown down a rabbit hole into a dystopian landscape operated…
Mona at Sea, a novel by Elizabeth Gonzalez James, reviewed by Maria Judnick

“I’m unemployed, I’ve never had a boyfriend, I live with my parents in the most boring town on the planet, and I hate myself” are the words Millennial narrator Mona Mireles recites to herself each night as she tries to sleep. Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ debut novel Mona at Sea offers a look into the wickedly…
“the sun I can afford”: Zachary Kinsella on Protest and Compromise in that’s what you get by Sheila Maldonado

that’s what you get, Sheila Maldonado’s second full-length collection, offers rich, emotional weight with a kind of ease that is both precise and involved. Maldonado describes injustice, anger, and conflict in a style unwilling to dwell or become obsessively attached to what she cannot control. Through largely unpunctuated verse, that’s what you get advises us…
“Matthew Burnside Crafts Stories from a Wiki”: Michael Maiello Investigates the novel Wiki of Infinite Sorrows

Wiki is an acronym for “What I Know Is,” and wikis have sprung up all over the internet, covering everything from the breadth of the encyclopedia to the universes occupied by science fiction, fantasy, and comic book narratives. Over decades, we’ve grown accustomed to using and trusting wikis and to accepting that stories crafted from…