In the titular poem of Forester McClatchey’s debut poetry collection, Killing Orpheus, the poet-prophet struggles to play a satisfactory song to the masses. From the start, we feel the audience wants sordid entertainment. When “sickle-girl” moves in, the crowd hushes: “Each cut she makes is a marvel of efficiency.” The crowd is drawn into the […]
“The Wondrous Lives and Loves of Nella Carter” by Brionni Nwosu
June 14, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Richly imaginative and provocative, The Wondrous Lives and Loves of Nella Carter (Lake Union 2025) is a time- and continent-spanning novel with social significance. Just as Octavia Butler’s Kindred revealed the depths of humanity’s racism through time travel, so does this debut novel by Brionni Nwosu. But the story goes far beyond exposing negative qualities […]
“Another Fine Mess” by Lindy Ryan
June 13, 2026 by Leave a Comment
A rural, southeastern Texas town has survived a summer of horrors — for the most part. The ghouls have been slain by the Evans women, like they’ve always done, and the dead can rest now. That is, until more killings start happening. Something is prowling the town and it’s out for blood. The Evans family […]
“Bless Your Heart” by Lindy Ryan
June 13, 2026 by Leave a Comment
The sun is rising over a small Texas town and the dead are rising too. Four generations of the Evans family run a funeral parlor, putting the dead to rest, even when they have to kill them again. It’s 1999 now and the buried are growing restless. Something has come to town, leaving a bloody […]
Read of the Month: “The Walls Are Closing In On Us” by Joshua Trent Brown
June 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
What would your life look like if it were played back for you in your final moments, watched from a lofty vantage like heaven, or the more oblique angle of purgatory? Would you see yourself being carried along, pinged from vertex to vertex as the polygon of your life develops? Could you name the forces […]
“Visual Cords” and “Dreaminations” poetry collections by Jianqing Zheng
June 2, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Jianqing Zheng’s Visual Cords (Broken Tribe Press 2025) and Dreaminations (Madville Publishing 2026) capture discrete moments in time with seamless beauty and often echo imagistic poetry with Zheng’s striking use of images and precise, concrete language. The poet, who spent his first thirty-some years in China and the last thirty-plus years in Mississippi, displays considerable […]