What is your guilty pleasure? What do you head for when you’ve had a bad day? A bowl of ice cream, a glass of wine, a bacon sandwich? Well, you can save those calories, just get a hold of Kristy Woodson Harvey’s newest of twelve novels, Beach House Rules (Gallery Books 2025), set it aside […]
Read of the Month: “Resurrected Body” by Elizabeth C. Garcia
August 6, 2025 by Leave a Comment
The opening poem, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” sets the soul-baring tone for Elizabeth C. Garcia’s stunning collection, Resurrected Body (Cider Press Review 2024). No wonder this book won Cider Press Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize! The phrasing of Garcia’s first poem will cause most mothers to recall those scary, cringeworthy moments in the delivery […]
“What’s Yours Is Mine” by Jennifer Jabaley
August 5, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Most readers have heard of tiger moms and “daddyballs”—those hyper-competitive parents who live vicariously through their children’s achievements. In What’s Yours Is Mine (Lake Union, 2025), Jennifer Jabaley dives into the intense world of Atlanta’s pre-professional ballet, where one mother takes that rivalry to a chilling—and dangerous—extreme. Fans of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere and […]
Donna Meredith interviews Elizabeth C. Garcia, author of “Resurrected Body”
August 5, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Introduction: So, how long have I known Elizabeth Cranford Garcia? Many years. Don’t ask how many. Let’s just say I stopped expecting the face of the person I was then to look back at me in the mirror. Or to use Liz’s metaphor, perhaps at some point I have been resurrected into a stranger’s body. […]
Deb Bowen
August 4, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Deb Bowen is co-author of A Good Friend for Bad Times: Helping Others through Grief (Augsburg Fortress Publishers). Her Crafting the Wheel of the Year (Search Press) with Claire Gelder is scheduled for release in autumn, 2025. Deb’s creative nonfiction, essays, and poetry are published in Salvation South and County Lines Literary Journal. Her current […]
August Books of Note: “Damn English!” and “When Time Was Suspended”
August 4, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Damn English! by Gary Sherbell Damn English! (Black Rose Writing 2025) by Gary Sherbell is a witty exploration of why your high school English papers were always covered in red ink. With humor and insight, Sherbell compiles a collection of homonyms, tricky spellings, and the many illogical quirks of the English language—all in one entertaining […]