Del Sandeen’s This Cursed House (Berkley 2024) begins in 1962, Jemma Barker escapes her life in Chicago with a job offer from the well-to-do Duchon family in New Orleans. Pale enough to pass for white, the Black Duchons look down on darker-skinned Jemma, and the job she came to do doesn’t seem to exist. As […]
Betty Joyce Nash interviews John P. Loonam, author of “The Price of Their Toys: Stories of Men and Boys”
August 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Betty Joyce Nash crossed paths with John P. Loonam, author of The Price of Their Toys (Cornerstone Press 2026) when Betty Joyce and co-editor Deirdra McAfee chose John’s story, “Action Adventure,” for the anthology Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, (University of New Mexico Press 2017). John P. Loonam’s fiction has appeared in The Madison Review, Modern Shorts (an […]
Donna Meredith interviews Phil Oakley, author of The Oakleys series
July 13, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Book Summaries Little Hatchet When his brother is kidnapped from their New Mexico cabin, 12-year-old Walter Oakley sets off in pursuit, launching a multi-generational saga. Following the Oakley family from 1800s frontier life among Apaches and Comanches through Prohibition-era Texas, Little Hatchet chronicles their courageous struggle for survival amid unimaginable tragedy, violence, and determination. Runners […]
Trillium Meeks interviews Conor McAnally, author of “Bullets in the Water”
July 13, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Conor McAnally is a Renaissance man of the media world, having produced television shows, worked as an investigative journalist, starred in plays he wrote, and published short stories. He has won awards for many of these pieces. I was asked to review his debut novel, Bullets in the Water, and became so engrossed in it […]