by Jayne Bowers At first it seemed amusing, or rather the Facebook banter about the book seemed amusing. Intrigued by a friend’s comments about her personal use of the exclamation point, I clicked the link she had posted to a New York Times article about Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.… Read More Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Benjamin Dreyer
By Amber Wheeler Bacon When I worked with Alice Mattison at the Bennington Writing Seminars, she helped me see that what I thought was my novel was actually a series of strong, barely connected episodes. I began studying novel structure then and saw that a novel needs some kind of narrative momentum to keep a… Read More Questions and Momentum in the Novel
By Amber Wheeler Bacon If I met Rebecca Lee at a party, I might be afraid to talk to her. Or I would have been until reading her collection, which makes topics like the Indochina refugee crisis, Eastern European politics during the Second World War, and yes, even terrines accessible to easily befuddled readers (and… Read More Bobcat, Rebecca Lee
by Sharon May They called me Sheriff, though I had been out of office for five year. Listened to that scanner every day after I retired. In my blood. I knew there’d be trouble when they started building houses up there. First one house, then another. On the sixth one, they was found. Was just… Read More Redeeming Hills
by Candace J Carter Colorado Plateau, Late Spring Henry Smith paused in the sparse shade of a juniper. He recognized the truck in the canyon below, and that bothered him. The stock trailer and makeshift loading chute bothered him even more. He followed a deer trail down the slope and approached the vehicle. Examining tracks… Read More Muddy Waters
by Gayle Baldwin Sorrow all the Wilder Nest The bulging eyes of water bloat A sail beach-frozen Welded in sand Navigating nowhere, animated by crabs Palsied, probing. Sorrow all the Wilder Nest Flame licking fallen ashes Hardened, lava hills On which the she-goat bleats Full tits hanging, She screams for her young and they… Read More Wilder Nest: Bleat
by Denise Lynn Two things the husband-of-thirty-some-odd-years did every Sunday morning in place of religion: watch the TV news talk shows and accompany his wife to eleven o’clock hot yoga class. This was the concession he made to his wife and her frequent admonitions that he needed to take better care of himself. In… Read More Namaste
