Author:

New giveaway!

We have a copy of Measure of Devotion by Nell Joslin to give away!

To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the end of June from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!

The Rhymes and Reasons of James Sale: A Review of DoorWay, Vol. 3 of the English Cantos

James Sale is not using “lazy rhyme;” he is deliberately, carefully stretching the boundaries of what is acceptable rhyming convention in English formal poetry. He uses his slant rhymes, half rhymes, near rhymes, assonant rhymes, consonant rhymes, light rhymes, and syllabic rhymes with abandon. With joy. With freedom. Lavishly. He is demonstrating that our language is a language that by default doesn’t always perfectly rhyme— but when you get close, it can be as beautiful, and powerful, and in many instances, more effective than a perfect rhyme can ever be.

An interview with Brian Jacobson

In this tongue-in-cheek interview, the author of Life Engineering and The Truth About the Moon and the Stars talks about his writing process, what he exclusively listens to, why he writes fiction, his ideal readers, what he does for fun, and more.

A review of The Bayrose Files by Diane Wald

Diane Wald crafts a richly atmospheric and emotionally layered narrative, exploring themes of identity, guilt, and redemption through Violet’s journey of painful self-discovery. Vividly capturing both the familial eccentricities of an artistic community and the complexities of human relationships, this tender, unflinching story follows Violet’s struggle for self-forgiveness, becoming a moving testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

A review of Everything Must Go by Dan Flore III

In the flash fiction of Dan Flore the conflict could go either way, and often, to his readers’ benefit, it does. Everything Must Go does indeed entertains, and often his protagonist’s pain is his reader’s pleasure. The poet and memoirist John Yamrus’s introduction gives readers a good perspective on Flore’s work.

A review of Habitats: Poems by Katharine Whitcomb

In Habitats, it is with an accessibility and elegance that Whitcomb transports readers onto the highway, staring back in the airplane, switchbacking on the trail and across the harbor ferry. Habitats opens the aperture, disclosing intriguing moments in a rich atmosphere of spaces crafted with wonderfully strange detail.

New giveaway!

We have a copy of WW III: New Poems by Jennifer Maiden to give away!

To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the end of May from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!

A review of Jenny, 52 by Susan Montag

Jenny, 52 is a kind of meta fiction about the nature of storytelling, fiction versus reality, in a manner reminiscent of Philip Roth (My Life as a Man, in particular, and all of the Nathan Zuckerman novels generally).  Jenny, 52 is made up of seventeen one- to three-page “chapters,” most of which are narrated in the voice of the writer Jenny.

A review of The Flowering Dark by Sue Lockwood

There is a lightness of touch here coupled with an assuredly quiet voice that has an expansive quality, equating the intellectual and the botanical, the flowering of ranunculus with human flowering, and the sensual nature of the earth with the rest of the universe.  The poems deftly change their perspective through space and time so that all times feel concurrent and all things seem equal, continually in the state of transformation and yet always available.