Category: Reviews & Criticism

Fiction Review: Emily Hall Reads Kim Magowan & Michelle Ross’ Collection Don’t Take This the Wrong Way

In Kim Magowan & Michelle Ross’ short story collection Don’t Take This the Wrong Way characters teeter on the edge of an epiphany. But they stumble before they can access any greater understanding of their lives. Some stories feature parents who can’t connect to their children, refusing to see how their own behavior is alienating.…
“Inescapable Derivation”: Matt Martinson Reads Marguerite Young’s Angel in the Forest

Marguerite Young’s Angel in the Forest, the only work of nonfiction she would publish in her lifetime, was first published in 1945 by Scribners, re-released by Dalkey Archive in 1994, and was recently re-re-released as a Dalkey Archive Essential. Recently, Young’s Miss Macintosh, My Darling, has become a critical darling, a sort of lost classic.…
“INFERNO: Just Like Gold”: ES Sandberg on August Strindberg’s Autofictional Novel

A very wise person once posited that the historical provenance of Sweden’s sustainable mindset is attributed to the absence of substantial oil reserves. Wealth has never been on tap, so to speak, and as such the country implemented something more long-term, if not resilient by cultivating and expanding on renewable practices. Danes on the other…
Fiction Review: Arreshy Young Reads Joachim Glage’s Apocryphal Story Collection The Devil’s Library

There is an unraveling in the testamental helices of the AJPD which speaks: “A man is a scream, smothered by the avalanche.” And from that strand there breeds this gonadal fiqh: “the blood of those who submit to the squeeze—the breeders, the feeders, the readers corresponding to the serfs, the megalopolis and the monastery—evaporate communally.…
Poetry Review: Toni Hornes Sullivan Reads Liz Worth’s Collection Inside Every Dream, a Raging Sea

Liz Worth’s Inside Every Dream, a Raging Sea is a lovely book of poetry that’s sure to intrigue those who are interested in the natural world, the otherworldly, and the emotional realm. Across 80 plus pages, Worth writes us through an experiential landscape, hoping in and out of experiences, mixing them it with spiritualism and…
Poetry Review: Candice Louisa Daquin Reads Hilary King’s Collection Stitched on Me

I have heard it said, too often, that nobody wants to read about middle-aged-women. Political candidates in 2025 are still asking why women “past 50” are worried about abortion and why should they have an opinion on abortion because they can no longer get pregnant? Stitched on Me, by poet Hilary King, is a blistering…
Fiction Review: Ashley Honeysett Reads Stephen D. Gutierrez’s Novel Captain Chicano Draws a Line in the American Sand

Stephen D. Gutierrez—Steve—is trying to write a short story. He’ll get around to changing the characters’ names to disguise his real-life self and his real-life friends and loved ones. In brackets he notes [deal with name later]. He’s so excited by the prospect of writing his story that he sends his first drafts to Harper’s…
Fiction Review: Ria Dhull Reads Dan Tremaglio’s Lyric Noir The Only Wolf Is Time

Dan Tremaglio’s The Only Wolf Is Time is a novel told through fragments. These fragments initially seem like discrete objects, pulled in from all sorts of sources—some of these scraps are graffiti tags, some are photographs of sculpture, some are dictionary definitions or screenplay dialogue. There’s a little of everything. But the beauty of Tremaglio’s…
Poetry Review: Candice Louisa Daquin Reads Courtney LeBlanc’s New Collection Her Dark Everything

Deeply personal threads shine through this collection, concerning the deaths of LeBlanc’s father and best friend—yet these narratives are not linear, but always wrapped in further messages, not strictly elegiac, but more a passing through of notes, as we see in music. Sometimes we are unable to assess the poem’s stakes, but the structure brings…