From a pond monster called King George to docile dragons and half-shark boys to monsters of the human variety, Bradley Sides’s Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood (Montag Press 2024) puts a new spin on how we view monsters and modern-day mythmaking. Clearly, monsters hold a special place in Sides’s writerly heart because we met […]
“Out of the Blue: Life on the Road with Muddy Waters” by Brian Bisesi
August 20, 2024 by Leave a Comment
“Gypsy woman told my mother Before I was born You got a boy child comin’ He’s gonna be a son of a gun…” –Muddy Waters At twenty-two years old Brian Bisesi played guitar in Muddy Waters’s band. Bisesi also served as Muddy’s road manager from 1978-80. Bisesi’s music career has now spanned over forty years. […]
“Not What She Seems” by Yasmin Angoe
August 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Riveting. Character-driven. A literary thriller you will want to devour in one sitting. Not What She Seems (Thomas & Mercer 2024) is all this and more. None of the many-layered characters are what they seem at first glance. Yasmin Angoe’s latest novel is a worthy successor to her series featuring Nena Knight, which SLR reviewed […]
“The King Street Affair” by Jon Sealy
August 13, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Full of intrigue and plot twists, Jon Sealy’s The King Street Affair grabs you in the first chapter and doesn’t let go. The mystery/spy novel develops an increasingly eerie atmosphere as Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper reporter Wyatt Brewer stumbles through a web of lies, secrets, and betrayals into a surreal world where nothing is as […]
John Wall Barger interviews Shannon Robinson, author of “The Ill-Fitting Skin”
August 13, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Introduction: Raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Shannon Robinson holds an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis. Robinson received Nimrod’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts, a Hedgebrook Fellowship, a Sewanee Scholarship, and an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland Arts […]
“All We Have Loved” by Julia Nunnally Duncan
August 6, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Julia Nunnally Duncan’s latest collection of essays, All We Have Loved (Finishing Line Press 2023) tells stories of her childhood, growing up the daughter of textile workers in the mountains of western North Carolina, as well as the childhoods of her loved ones. In these short vignettes, Duncan describes holidays in her rural neighborhood in […]