Tension. Simmering. —Beneath her matter-of-fact, easy-going, sit-yourself-down, let-me-tell-it-like-it-is chatifying. And her power we take deadly seriously. Camille T. Dungy is a Fort Collins, Colorado, essayist and author of three... Read More

Stand your ground and make thoughtful observations—carefully, and with aplomb. Ben Berman repeatedly delivers on this not-so-easy dictum. He ain’t no bum. A fan of Dante’s terza rima rhyme schemes, Berman’s early book, Strange... Read More

Myrna Stone’s depth of historical knowledge and talent for storytelling should not in any way suggest that her technical skills don’t reach the paygrade of poetry’s big leagues, far from it. Wherefore art thou wherewithal to learn,... Read More

The tickling of ivories, or birdsong, how one note relates to the next and amounts to something more—that’s the initial impression of Adam Houle’s lines, as they go about their work describing outdoor trades, chores, and pursuits.... Read More

No, we won’t find much comfort here, or words pretty for pretty’s sake. Sheila McMullin scores the flesh of her observations and sears them with ponderous, mostly unanswerable questions about pain and anger, consequences, finality.... Read More

All her life, Elsie Robins has had mysterious dreams of South Africa, a fire, and the death of her beloved nanny. Suddenly, the dreams are worse than ever although she’s thousands of miles and several decades past those early days.... Read More

When "After the Bloom" opens, Rita Takemitsu is, once again, cruising the streets looking for her mother, Lily. But as time passes with no sign of Lily, a new urgency infuses the old familiarity. Fourth-generation Japanese-Canadian... Read More

Shtum is a Yiddish word meaning noncommunicative or silent, and that’s where Ben Jewell finds himself in British author Jem Lester’s novel of the same name. Ben’s world is comprised of his autistic son, a troubled marriage, an... Read More