“Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place” by Neema Avashia

When I came out to a college friend, I lamented my hesitance to claim the label bisexual. “Questioning if you’re bi enough is like, peak bi,” she told me. This conversation replayed over and over in my head as I read Neema Avashia’s Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place (West […]

“The Favorite Daughter,” by Patti Callahan Henry

Reviewed by Becca Spence Dobias The Favorite Daughter begins with a shocking inciting incident—one that immediately hooks readers. After laying this exciting groundwork, however, the writing begins to feel predictable. The main character, Colleen, feels like someone we’ve read before—the cynical New Yorker, burned by betrayal, commitment-phobic, and married to her work. When news of […]

March Read of the Month: “Call It Horses,” by Jessie Van Eerden

Reviewed by Becca Spence Dobias Call it Horses is a difficult text in multiple ways, and as is often the case, its difficulty makes it an incredibly rewarding read. Perhaps most challenging is its subject matter, which includes domestic violence, pregnancy loss, cancer, death, and suicide, but its prose, too, is thick and intentional, each […]