Personal Effects is the story of a couple on the move –repeatedly changing country in search of work, exiled and migratory, homeless yet rooted through their sense of family; of consistency in their relationship. Beyond that the story explores what we lose and what we gain, throughout any ordinary life. It explores the shifting and cyclical perceptions of time passing, and it examines, in a deep, poetic way, the way we make meaning out of our lives.
A review of Writing Wild by Tina Welling
Tina Welling wrote Writing Wild: Forming a Creative Partnership with Nature, to share an insight she had while hiking near her home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a location which attracts visitors from all over because of its magnificent scenery and wildlife. While walking, she experienced “the interconnectedness between the earth’s creative energy and [her] own personal creative energy.” Since then, Welling takes “spirit walks” in nature to replenish her resources and let the earth’s energy provide insights and answers.
Grace, Strength, Joy, and Blessedness: Beautiful Life by Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves is a gracefully mature singer, with beauty of sound, intelligence, pride, range, and taste. The song selection on her recording Beautiful Life is good and its production quality pristine. It is a very pleasing collection. Dianne Reeves brings depth, individuality, and warmth to everything she sings. “Dreams” and “Waiting in Vain” are two unique, late twentieth-century popular music standards, the first rock (Stevie Nicks) and the second reggae (Bob Marley), and here presented as jazz ballads with elegance and sensitivity.
An interview with Steven Manchester
The author of Pressed Pennies talks about his new book, how he came to be a writer, what motivated him to write Pressed Pennies, his title, his next book, and lots more.
A review of Split by Cathy Linh Che
Split by Cathy Linh Che is an honest piece of literature. There is no need for Che to prove her talent as a poet. The poems in Split do this and more. Che uses the pen as a mirror. What she sees—including significant events that impact her personal and familial life—she puts on paper in ways that approach mastery of the art of poetry.
An interview with Stephanie Crosby
The author of The Last Virgin Alive talks about herself, her new novel, how she started writing, her inspiration, her newest work, and more.
Geography of Mind: Dawn Upshaw and Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks
A quiet, tender description of nature, of quiet growth, is found in “Perfectly, Still This Solstice Morning,” one of the poems by Ted Kooser that has been set to music by Maria Schneider and sung by Dawn Upshaw on Winter Morning Walks: the collection of songs is the kind of music that can easily become a part of one’s life, for both its sound and its thoughts, as it captures existence, movement in nature and world, illness, and recovery.
A review of The End of the World by Maria Takolander
As the title implies, Maria Takolander’s The End of the World makes no pretence at sweetness or ease. While there is certainly a tenderness in the poems of childbirth and domesticity that open the collection, but despite the maternal softness that draws the reader in from the start of many of these poems, the collection has an underlying ferocity which takes the reader below the superficial, into the heart of meaning as revealed by the intensity of each moment it encounters.
A review of Mosaic of Disarray by Nick de Grunwald
Nick de Grunwald, the British television producer and driving force behind Mosaic of Disarray, deserves to be a big name in music. The thirteen songs are a well-balanced mix of darkness, poignancy, cheerfulness and folksiness. The songs range from the funky bleakness of “Channel D” through ballads and rock songs to the nightmarish unearthliness of “The Other”.
A review of In the Chameleon’s Shadow by Mark Hummel
Conversations are convincing, dialogue is used to enhance and move the narrative forward. Characters are well fleshed. Settings are authentic. The reader is drawn into the narrative slowly at first, but completely, and is held fast in the grip right to the last paragraph. The tale is well plotted, the ending is not predictable or formulaic, but is satisfying as well as a bit bittersweet.