by Jennifer Fandel | Nov 2, 2021 | Magazine Article
When we turn the earthin our yard for garden,the last tenant’s burials emerge as bones.Let us say some wordsfor every creature that breathed its last, for the rabbits, birds,and squirrels, for the dogand the stray cat that came for mice and rest,when the dog was...
by Paula Schulz | Nov 1, 2021 | Magazine Article
The red edge of morning, like a razor,slits the dark. No more excuses. TodayI will be sharpened. I will be moremyself as I would be. No espaliered intent—centered, leaning into each momentthe way a ladder leans toward the windowof a burning house; I claim the...
by David Southward | Nov 1, 2021 | Magazine Article
She starved herselfthinking about grace.How difficult it was to be nothingbut flesh: prickly, contrarious,pretending to get by on cigarettes and headaches.As a student, she witnessedthe heedless velocity of factories; of campaignspreparing to turn peopleinto things....
by Jill Stukenberg | Oct 28, 2021 | Magazine Article
Author Nickolas Butler’s Godspeed is a runaway heartstopper, a thriller by a writer with considerable literary chops. From the start of his latest novel, Butler sets the twin horses of ambition and morality galloping, pulling the reader in opposite directions. With...
by Frank Anderson | Oct 28, 2021 | Magazine Article
In her debut novel, The Comfort of Monsters, Willa C. Richards has doubled down on the systemic dysfunctionality of Milwaukee once alluded to by best-selling author Peter Straub. In his dark and experimental 1990 story, “A Short Guide to the City,” Straub provides a...
by Jennifer Fandel | Oct 28, 2021 | Magazine Article
Your dead father dogs youlike the white mutt that roams along the fishing holes and walksthe edge of gravel roads, sometimes at a trot, most times slow,but with purpose, muscle and sinew protecting old bones. The fatherin silence with pipe clenched between his teeth...
