Water imagery cascades through Yance Wyatt’s lyrical literary novel, The Watersmith, from beginning to end in both expected and very unexpected ways. Three epigraphs illustrate the religious importance of water with quotations from the Buddha, Allah, and Jesus.—totally expected use of water in a novel. So are the thunder, rainstorms, rivers, and lakes created by […]
“The Train from Santa Fe” by Ginger Pinholster
September 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
The Train from Santa Fe (Regal House 2026) by Ginger Pinholster is an intricately layered story about the generational and cultural time in our country’s history that nearly wiped out the indigenous society that had lived and thrived in cohabitation with a part of the planet now called the U.S. The story explores the impact […]
“Wounded Boarders” by George Singleton
September 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
South Carolina writer George Singleton’s new short story collection Wounded Boarders (Dzanc Books 2026) introduces us to a motley crew of distinctly Southern characters. Eclectic, vulnerable, and often not entirely likable, they find themselves working unusual and sporadic jobs, in strange and sometimes absurd settings, and dealing with equally unusual interlocutors. Opening story “Horace Poor, […]
August Books of Note
August 27, 2026 by Leave a Comment
River of Silence (Mountain State Press) by M. Lynne Squires is a heartbreaking novel about a woman suffering from postpartum depression in the 1950s before the condition was understood by the medical community and humane treatments were developed. After Anastasia leaves her job to care for her newly adopted baby, she becomes severely depressed. She […]
“City of God” by Bill Lavender
August 23, 2026 by Leave a Comment
I am tired of blurbs with their inflated claims of greatness. “Not since so and so have we seen such amazing thus and such” etc. Yet, in turning to the daunting task of reviewing Bill Lavender’s City of God (MadHat Press, 2026), his book, which, let me get it said sooner rather than later (in […]
“Free Hugs” poetry collection by Jefferson Carter
August 19, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Jefferson Carter’s grand collection of poetry, Free Hugs (Coyote Arts 2025) is a delight, displaying a perceptive talent for phrasing and filled with apt observations and acute insights. While Carter was an academic for a long while, these poems are not per se academic poems with heavy literary allusions but rather they are a kind […]