Table Talk & Second Thoughts: A Memoir in Flashes by Michael Martone

Table Talk & Second Thoughts: A Memoir in Flashes by Michael Martone

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
Anodyne by Khadijah Queen

Anodyne by Khadijah Queen

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
Ghost Dogs by Andre Dubus III

Ghost Dogs by Andre Dubus III

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
We Deserve the Gods We Ask For by Seth Brady Tucker

We Deserve the Gods We Ask For by Seth Brady Tucker

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
Nervosities by John Madera

Nervosities by John Madera

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
We Contain Landscapes by Patrycja Humienik

We Contain Landscapes by Patrycja Humienik

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
Don't Go Crazy Without Me: A Tragicomic Memoir by Deborah A. Lott

Don’t Go Crazy Without Me: A Tragicomic Memoir by Deborah A. Lott

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
Alba and Other Songs: Poems and Poemas by Fred Arroyo

Alba and Other Songs: Poems and Poemas by Fred Arroyo

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
Better to Cry Now: Shaping the Flow of a Gay Black Man by Geoffrey Newman

Better to Cry Now: Shaping the Flow of a Gay Black Man by Geoffrey Newman

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
White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton

White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton

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
The Tutor by Marilee Albert

The Tutor by Marilee Albert

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
My Heresies by Alina Stefanescu

My Heresies by Alina Stefanescu

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
Arroyo by Chip Jacobs

Arroyo by Chip Jacobs

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 | Recommended by Mercury-Marvin Sunderland

Forget It | Recommended by Mercury-Marvin Sunderland

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 | Recommended by Kevin Grauke

Milkman | Recommended by Kevin Grauke

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 | Recommended by Joseph Lapin

Your House Will Pay | Recommended by Joseph Lapin

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 | Recommended by Jennifer Moglia Lucil

Braiding Sweetgrasss | Recommended by Jennifer Moglia Lucil

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 | Recommended by Jennifer Moglia Lucil

Braiding Sweetgrasss | Recommended by Jennifer Moglia Lucil

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 | Recommended by Ann Beman

As a River | Recommended by Ann Beman

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 | Recommended by Tim Fitts

The Beginning of His Eventful and Excellent Career | Recommended by Tim Fitts

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 | Recommended by Cory Johnston

After James | Recommended by Cory Johnston

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 | Recommended by Alexa Doran

Revenge of the Asian Woman | Recommended by Alexa Doran

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 | Recommended by Nicole Hylton

Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 | Recommended by Nicole Hylton

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
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A Little Life | Recommended by Michael Nye

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 | Recommended by Nathan Tavares

The Semplica Girl Diaries | Recommended by Nathan Tavares

"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