This is Kristy Woodson Harvey’s eleventh novel. An avid follower of hers, I love this book. I love it the best of all of her books so far; of course I may have said that once or twice before when her previous new ones came out. A Happier Life (Gallery Books 2024) is the story […]
“The Butterfly Cage: Joy, Heartache, and Corruption: Teaching While Deaf in a California Public School” by Rachel Zemach
October 23, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Kelly Kolodny Educational, compelling, and deeply personal. These words describe Rachel Zemach’ poignant and beautifully written memoir, The Butterfly Cage: Joy, Heartache, and Corruption: Teaching While Deaf in a California Public School (Paper Angel Press 2023). In her book, Zemach chronicles her career as a Deaf teacher—work she portrays as joyful, intriguing, and at […]
“Lake County” by Lori Roy
October 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Lake County by Edgar Award–winning author Lori Roy (Thomas & Mercer 2024) is a treasure of a historical mystery/thriller suspense novel. The story is well imagined, and charming, even with its violence. Exuberantly paced, it is a complicated work with a dash of noir and a righteous dose of historical Tampa, Florida. Many smaller stories […]
“No Perfect Mothers” by Karen Spears Zacharias
October 15, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Karen Spears Zacharias’s novel No Perfect Mothers imagines the life of Carrie Buck, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court Case upholding the constitutionality of eugenics-inspired, forced sterilization. As Zacharias observes in the acknowledgments, “The book is important at this pivotal time as women seek to reclaim what the Supreme Court has once again taken from […]
Dawn Major interviews Raymond L. Atkins, A Southern Bard
October 15, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Introduction: I was an undergrad at Kennesaw State University when I attended my first poetry reading and had the pleasure of hearing Robert Pinsky read. I can’t recall if he had already served out his term as the U.S. Poet Laureate; Pinsky served as Poet Laureate for three consecutive years, so it may have been […]
“Craft & Current: A manual for magical writing” by Janisse Ray
October 15, 2024 by 2 Comments
Janisse Ray could have taken the easy way out. She could have produced a manual for writers that offers up her secrets of scene-building, dialogue, narrative tension—the usual stuff. She could have stuck to the basics, and her legion of fans would have eaten up this book, anyway. Ray, however, did not take the easy […]