In South of My Dreams (U of SC Press 2024)a part detailed memoir, part therapy session, we follow F. K. Clementi, the author of, as she searches the world, from her birthplace in Rome, to Poland, to an Israeli kibbutz, and finally to New York City in America, the place of her fantasized dreams. Only […]
“Like Zeros, Like Pearls” by Lola Haskins
September 30, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Judging from her exceptional poems in Like Zeros, Like Pearls (Charlotte Lit Press 2025), award-winning poet Lola Haskins has both a scientific and a literary bent to her world view. In this new and glorious collection, she showcases both. Like the cicadas in her poem “The Spirituality of Cicadas,” creatures believed by ancient Chinese to […]
“Terra Incognita” by Steph Post
September 30, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Steph Post’s exceptional world-building is on full display in Terra Incognita, a novel that first appeared in 2024 in a limited run of 100 hand-crafted copies. The book quickly earned acclaim, winning the Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Fiction, and was re-released as an ebook in May 2025. The story opens in 1800s New […]
“Iron Bridge Sunday and Other Stories” by Les Brown
September 30, 2025 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Jeanne Malmgren If anything is synonymous with Appalachian heritage, it’s the art of storytelling. For generations, highlanders have sat on front porches and under trees, spinning yarns that are sometimes true, sometimes a little “stretched.” When Les Brown was a boy, he listened keenly to the oral history of his forebears—and now, in […]
Melissa Jean
September 28, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Melissa Jean is an environmental studies professor, independent researcher and writer/editor, forest therapy guide, and community educator teaching about nature-based mindfulness and creative writing. She holds a PhD in Human Dimensions of Ecosystem Science and Management and an MFA in Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in The Colorado Review and a variety of online journals, including […]
“Fulfillment” by Lee Cole
September 28, 2025 by Leave a Comment
In Fulfillment (Knopf 2025), Lee Cole’s second novel, half-brothers Joel and Emmett find themselves together again in their family home in Paducah, Kentucky. You don’t have to have read Cole’s first novel, Groundskeeping, to easily jump into the western Kentucky world of Fulfillment. The two half-brothers are living such different lives. Emmett is broke and […]