Author Archive

Review: STOMACHS by Luna Miguel (Translated by Luis Silva)

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There are times for sadness and severity and all things bleak, and what do we do then? Luna Miguel might not have solutions but Stomachs reminds us that melancholy is not always destructive.

A Conversation With Margot Livesey and Whitney Terrell

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Whitney Terrell’s 2016 book The Good Lieutenant was selected as a best book of the year by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Refinery 29. Terrell also happens to be my former student.

Review: LIVING IN THE WEATHER OF THE WORLD by Richard Bausch

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While not all of the fourteen stories in his new collection are a fair illustration of his ability, the balance demonstrates, once again, why he deserves a lasting place among American literary masters.

Review: OPTION B: FACING ADVERSITY, BUILDING RESILIENCE, AND FINDING JOY by Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

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Indeed, the theme of moving on—but not necessarily past—tragedy is her central message here.

ERNESTO by Umberto Saba

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Umberto Saba died four years after writing Ernesto (1953), and it went unpublished until 1975 when its content would have been far less radical than in 1953.

Review: LIKE THAT by Matthew Yeager

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One hundred pages, six poems. A hand holding a small ball of foil reaches across the center of the cover, finger stretched, insistent or offering.

Review: THE RULES DO NOT APPLY by Ariel Levy

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A staff writer for The New Yorker, Ariel Levy describes her beat as “women who are too much.

Review: FAIL BETTER by Beyza Ozer

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Fail Better is expansive, moving across great distances to share with readers wholly intimate moments, but it is not a book that could be called timeless. Two poems in particular, “When I Kiss You, A Casket Opens” and “I’ve Watched Myself Die Twice This Week,” compel readers to reckon

Review: AN ARRANGEMENT OF SKIN by Anna Journey

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For Anna Journey, it starts at the University of Houston, during the last year of her PhD program. Away in Richmond, Virginia, for a literary conference arranged by a close friend and mentor, Journey begins the affair that will end her seven-year relationship.

Review: SCRATCH: WRITERS, MONEY, AND THE ART OF MAKING A LIVING edited by Manjula Martin

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Scratch, a collection of interviews and essays from writers spanning the gamut of genre, commercial success, race, gender, and class, boasts pieces from Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Yiyun Li, Porochista Khakpour, and Jonathan Franzen. Topics range from the gritty details of checks and debts to a philosophical pondering of