A review of Lola Berry’s Beauty Food

Beauty Food makes a particularly good gift for a teen looking to make their own recipes for skincare and simple food like smoothies, veggie bowls, and bliss balls. The warm, upbeat presentation and emphasis on fun, high energy self-care is just right for younger readers who would likely have heard of Berry already, and Berry’s sensible approach to eating regularly is healthy and balanced.

An interview with Brian Paul Bach

Writer, artist, filmmaker and photographer Brian Paul Bach talks about his Forward to Glory series, his characters, favourite scenes, on the nature of film adaptations, provides a full list of who he would like to play Butterbugs in a movie adaptation, the best part of his writing journey, and more.

A review of Eye of the Moon by Ivan Obolensky

The story line travelled along at a comfortable trot, characters make their introductions and the chapters were just the perfect length to hold my interest, and before I knew it, a couple of hundred of pages had quickly passed by. Was this The Great Gatsby meets Alistair Crowley? Wrong again. Eye of the Moon is a classic gothic tale flawlessly composed with the author’s persona that is evident on every page.

An interview with Toni Stern

Toni Stern enjoyed a highly productive collaboration with the singer-songwriter Carole King. Stern wrote the lyrics for several of King’s songs, most notably “It’s Too Late” for the album Tapestry. Here, with affection and insight, she examines the breadth and boundaries of family, place, language, and self, and talks about her new poetry book About As Close as I Can. 

A review of Appalachian Fall by Jennifer Maiden

Anyone who thinks of poetry as a hermetic art form has not read Jennifer Maiden. A keen and articulate observer of current affairs and trends, Maiden’s work explores a political and sociological landscape through the lens of poetic vision. This analysis takes many forms, often in multi-genred pieces that transcend essay, fiction, biography and poetry. In spite of the mixed literary forms, there is a consistency in characters, themes, and in approaches across Maiden’s oeuvre that makes for an accumulative effect.

A review of I Don’t Want to Know Anyone Too Well by Norman Levine

Lives in these stories never turn out as expected, but they do have the accomplish, the finish, of a life that feels real; sometimes to the point of unbearable pain. Whether it be an old friend that the protagonist bumps into that he can’t connect with, or a father whom he wishes not to be similar to in anyway, for his lack of power, these characters resonate with the human flicker of reality; the chaos that lurks behind the ordinary lives of strangers.