Aracelis Gonzalez Asendorf’s Dressing the Saints (Black Lawrence Press 2024) is a collection of nine short stories that vividly explores the lives of Cuban Americans. The book, which won the Gold Medal for Fiction at the 2025 Florida Book Awards, brings to life the close-knit immigrant communities of South Florida and the rich cultural heritage […]
“The Best That You Can Do” by Amina Gautier
March 21, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Amina Gautier’s The Best That You Can Do (Soft Skull, 2024) is a powerful, multi-award-winning collection of short stories centered on characters from the Puerto Rican and African diaspora. The book has received numerous accolades, including the Midwest MLA Book Award, the Florida Book Awards Silver Medal, and the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize. It […]
Dawn Major in Discussion with Christopher Lowe, author of “Make Some Wretched Fool to Pay”
November 12, 2024 by Leave a Comment
In Make Some Wretched Fool to Pay (University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press 2023), Christopher Lowe unleashes the dark side of “Friday Night Lights,” alongside its cutthroat recruitment tactics, the commercialization of players, and the dynamics of football family legacies. Set in the Deep South where high school football is the heartbeat of small Southern […]
“What Doesn’t Kill You Opens Your Heart”: Denise S. Robbins interviews author Max Hipp
September 25, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Introduction The author, teacher, and musician Max Hipp is a creature of the South, which becomes immediately clear in the first sentence of new debut short story collection—and every sentence after that. What Doesn’t Kill You Opens Your Heart (Cool Dog Sound 2024) is an honest, brutal, and necessary dive into the heart of the […]
Fairy Tales, Monsters, and More with Bradley Sides, Author of “Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood,” and Dawn Major
August 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment
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 […]
“The Final Days of Great American Shopping,” by Gilbert Allen
November 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Allen Mendenhall With so many journals and genres available today, the dependable reviewer has a duty to warn off the noble optimists and advise the faint-hearted when a book is not for them. Obligation thus requires that I caution readers: Gilbert Allen’s The Final Days of Great American Shopping, a collection of short […]