Category: Recommended

"Solace" is the opening poem of Seth Brady Tucker's new collection, The Cruelty Virtues released by 3: A Taos Press. This is Tucker's third poetry collection. In "Solace," a father observes his children riding skateboards on a half pipe while the speaker views from above behind glass: A man parks ... Read More

"Baseball" is the opening story of Kathy Joyce's debut collection, 3, out now from Ristretto Books, the book arm of Epiphany literary journal. Originally published in Evergreen Review, "Baseball" recounts the narrator's journey into Yankee fandom and bananas with a deliciously goth schtick: ... Read More

Ruyan Meng's debut novel, The Morgue Keeper, opens with Qing Yuan tending to the corpse of a mother recently delivered.... by Ruyan Meng ... Read More

The gnat situation in the church was getting out of hand. It was Miss Winkle’s fault, she had brought the gnats and this was unforgivable, not in the eyes of God but those of Father Andrew ... Read More

In Epiphany No. 35: Recognition's issue, editor in chief Sara Lippmann gathers a brilliant collection of stories and poems. In her first Letter from the Editor, Lippmann writes: "Recognize yourself in 'Metamorphisis,' Edidiong Uzoma Essien's eviscerating subversion of the Kafkian trope which takes on sex work, fantasy, revenge, class, and ... Read More

North Country by Matt Bondurant released from Blackstone Publishing in November 2025. The literary thriller opens with "Two children of the North Country, up before dawn," a sort of preamble detailing a traumatic moment in the main character's childhood: Their spoons clinked in unison as they ate cereal in the ... Read More

LaToya Watkins' collection Holler Child released from Tiny Reparations Books in 2023 and was a finalist for the National Book Award. I first read Watkins' short story "Cutting Horse" and this is where I fell in love with her storytelling. I first heard her read at the 2025 Longleaf Writer's ... Read More

"Orderly" is the first poem in Charlotte Pence's poetry collection Code, out from Black Lawrence Press. The collection released in 2022. I had the honor of hearing Pence read this summer at the Longleaf Writer's Conference and get a signed copy at the local bookstore, Sundog Books. I find myself ... Read More

Enjoying Michael Martone's Table Talk & Second Thoughts (2025), a delightful memoir in flashes released from Cornerstone Press. The opening piece, "Trains: Tuscaloosa, 2010," recounts a moment that Martone shared with Adrienne Rich two years before her death: "She asked about the train trestle she'd seen crossing the Black Warrior ... Read More

Very excited that Khadijah Queen will be a 2025 Visiting Writer at Longleaf Writers Conference this year. I am reading her poetry collection, Anodyne (Tin House Books, 2020). "In the event of an apocalypse, be ready to die," the opening poem in the collection, proves  prescient for today's reader: "But do also ... Read More

I had the honor of being in Andre Dubus III's fiction workshop at  Aspen Words. Great group of writers led by Dubus, a dynamic and compassionate workshop leader. He will be featured at the Longleaf Writers Conference on the Gulf ... Read More

Had the pleasure of meeting Seth Brady Tucker and a few of the Longleaf group at the Longleaf Writers Conference booth at AWP this year. One of the best parts of AWP is discovering and rediscovering communities and books. Right now, I'm enjoying "Beautiful Boys in Brodie Helmets," the first ... Read More

I had the pleasure of hearing John Madera read from his debut flash fiction collection, Nervosities at the KGB Bar in NYC a few weeks ago. Enjoying "Some Varieties of Being and other Non Sequiturs," the first story in the collection of innovative, word-bending flash fiction released by Anti-Oedipus Press ... Read More

Enjoying "Eros and Sorrow" in Patrycja Humienik's poetry collection, We Contain Landscapes (Tin House): "I'm crying after sex. Kettle's going off / and off—the arrows in that / sound could puncture even steel. / I pour slowly, opening a curtain / in the back of mind...." ... Read More

Enjoying the first chapter, "Gotchernose," in Don't Go Crazy Without Me (Red Hen Press) by Deborah A. Lott: "'Gotchernose,' he'd say. Then he'd sweep his hand back across my face and reveal his empty palm to suggest no harm done! and put my nose back on. Roy's trick said that even the most dire ... Read More

Enjoying "Alba Blanca" the first poem in Fred Arroyo's collection Alba and Other Songs released from Gunpowder Press: "My father hardly ever said a word to me. / He held his language, his family / his lovely garden so close to his rolled up sleeves, so tight / within his fists, that words, ... Read More

Enjoying Better to Cry Now: Shaping the Flow of a Gay Black Man, a memoir by Geoffrey Newman and out from River Grove Books: Act I: Striving (1956-1964) My French teacher at Calvin Coolidge Public High School in Washington, DC, made a troubling announcement on my first day of tenth grade. "Neither ... Read More

Enjoying White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton out from Lake Union Publishing: "...Once, she had seen some young men at the market staring at her sister like this—like she was something they wanted to own. While Bohbeh had blushed at the men's attention, Miyoung had thrust herself into their view. Born in ... Read More

Enjoying The Tutor, a novel by Marilee Albert, out from Rare Bird Books: "...I caress the smooth stone of the famous martyr burned at the stake for heresy five hundred years ago and muse on his sacrifice. Would anyone today give their life for a cause...?" ... Read More

Enjoying the first poem in My Heresies (Sarabande Books), a poetry collection by Alina Stefanescu: "I am eating raw violets / I am curious about the possessing / in the having been possessed...." I was delighted to receive her first signed copy at AWP 2025 in Los Angeles, California ... Read More

I'm enjoying the first chapter of Arroyo (Rare Bird Books), "The Birds of Pasadena," by Chip Jacobs: "Say what you will about his morning pep and cowlick, his galling diet and corny pride. No one ever rode Mrs. Grover Cleveland, the animal, quite like Nick Chance...." ... Read More

Forget It by Anastacia Renee Anastacia Renee is a wonderful queer Black woman poet from Seattle who I had the great pleasure of being briefly mentored by in high school. Her work focuses on experimental poetry that uses symbols such / as \ this __ (.) She uses these methods ... Read More

Milkman by Anna Burns I love a novel that expects you to immerse yourself fully into its world, especially when it's nothing like your own, as this one does.  I also love a novel with a voice so strong that it temporarily takes control of your thoughts like a virus ... Read More

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha Steph Cha is one of my favorite writers in Los Angeles, and her latest book, “Your House Will Pay,” is an exceptional read about the impact of the LA Riots generations after the fact. I think this is a classic in the Los ... Read More

Braiding Sweetgrasss by Robin Wall Kimmerer Never had I thanked a tomato plant when picking its fruit, but after reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, I say thank you and think about what I can give in return to the plant. As an educator dedicated to children experiencing nature, this ... Read More

Braiding Sweetgrasss by Robin Wall Kimmerer As an educator who is dedicated to young people learning in nature, I appreciate this indigenous author/scientist's passion about the natural world. Never had I thought of saying thank you to the tomato plant when I picked its fruit. Now I say it and ... Read More

As a River by Sion Dayson I have reviewed this book and interviewed author Sion Dayson for The Museum of Americana, and I've continued to recommend the book whenever asked, for its portrayal of conflicted characters and of a haunting rural South landscape. In my review, I say, "The novel’s bittersweet ... Read More

The Beginning of His Eventful and Excellent Career by Cameron MacKenzie This novel explores the pressures and conditions of both love and evil that spark an uprising against oppression.  We get the spark where the violence against one's family calls for a violent reaction, but the once the action is ... Read More

After James by Michael Helm This is one of the most ingeniously devised and constructed speculative novels I have had the pleasure to read. If you look to literature for curiosity, awe, and wonder - that dizzy vertigo that comes from pushing up against the limits of our world - ... Read More

Revenge of the Asian Woman by Dorothy Chan This collection is visceral, sexy, and bursting with flavor. There is an energy here that rarely finds its way into poetry. Readers who want to eat poems like cake should read this collection. (Diode Editions) Alexa Doran is the author of the ... Read More

Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 by Lucille Clifton Lucille Clifton is a big inspiration for my poetry. As a former professor at my alma mater, St. Mary's College of Maryland, I've heard a lot about Lucille Clifton these past four years, and for good reason. I admire ... Read More

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara I've had more compelling conversations about Hanya Yanagihara's amazing, frustrating, beautiful novel about four friends living their post-college life in New York. Over the course of several decades and navigating into past and present, we see these four men struggle to succeed and often ... Read More

"The Semplica Girl Diaries." This is such a tightrope walk of grim humor and sadness. The story also contains one of the weirdest (and weirdly moving) examples of "people as commodities" that you can think of.  "The Semplica Girl Diaries" can be found in The New Yorker. Also found in his short ... Read More