How is the heart won? Laughter certainly loosens the bars; cleverness occupies the mind, leaves the creature unprotected. After that the heart is easily cleaved in two. Troy Jollimore sneaks up on you. You’ll think the clap upside the... Read More

Poetry is perhaps the most intimate literary genre, in which secrets slip loose from their hiding places. Poems sidle up close enough to whisper (hot breath, smelling of wine and garlic) in your ear. Yet poetry also hails from an ancient... Read More

“Since 1993, over 450 girls and women have been murdered in or near the cities of Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico, along the US–Mexico border,” Valerie Martinez writes. “…Despite local and federal investigations, intermittent... Read More

"Dracula" is not the first story about a vampire, but it is arguably the most famous and it is certainly the foundation for the popularity of vampires today. Adaptations and re-imaginings of the story are numerous, but most do not... Read More

The “problem” with novellas that take just over an hour to read is that, if the author has done a stellar job, it may take twice as long for a reader to adequately describe the experience. Swimmer in the Secret Sea is such a book;... Read More

“There’s no duty like it. There’s nothing in this world like it,” the protagonist of "Knife Song Korea" hears of his assignment—a surgeon in an Army artillery unit during the Korean War. There’s nothing quite like this book... Read More

Haunting and cryptic, Josie Sigler’s debut collection of linked poems reads like a lyric accounting of violence. Comprised of shapely, often coupleted lines, this book is like one long feral female howl. Her poems are the sound words... Read More

Haunting. Disturbing. Very nearly true. "A Jew Must Die", by Jacques Chessex, is a fictionalized account of the horrific murder of Arthur Bloch, a Jewish livestock dealer in the Swiss village of Payerne. When Bloch is coaxed from Market... Read More