“Are We Ready to Read Cris Mazza Yet?”: Marianna Nash Reviews Cris Mazza’s CHARLATAN: NEW AND SELECTED STORIES

Many of the women Cris Mazza writes are unpleasant. That’s as it should be: Many people are unpleasant, and women … More

Chelsea Martin’s MICKEY

The epigraph for Chelsea Martin’s novella Mickey is a lyric from the song “3 AM” by Matchbox 20: “It’s all … More

Aaron Gilbreath’s Everything We Don’t Know is a collection of essays about growing up, coming to consciousness, and taking responsibility … More

In Stephen Dixon’s intricate story cycle Late Stories, author and retired university teacher Phil Seidel exists alone in the Baltimore … More

Juventud is Spanish for “youth,” which is what is at stake for Mercedes Martinez, the fifteen-year-old in Vanessa Blakelee’s earnest … More

I’m sitting down in Rosie’s reading Tom Williams’ novel Don’t Start Me Talkin’, thinking about the title song and how, … More

“Love isn’t everything,” proclaims the back cover of Cyn Vargas’ debut collection—and, indeed, love is often in short supply. On … More

Just know that when you enter a staring contest with Halle Butler’s first novel Jillian, you will not win. You … More

To step into the world of one of Michael Czyzniejewski’s stories is to abandon, either voluntarily or by force, all … More

The stories in Lauren Becker’s collection, brief as many of them are, operate through suggestion; they are marvels of suggestion. … More

I don’t read a lot of essay collections and I’m way pickier about the essays I read. I’ll pretty much … More

I love lists. I make them for any number of reasons. They help me organize my thoughts or review events, … More

Anthologies, to me, often run into the same problems that short-story collections tend to fall into: monotony. When stories are … More