Tag: Recommended Reading

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