Author Archive

In Bookstores Near You

Ervick’s un-biography gives us a historical tale that translates into a contemporary one: how women can take possession of their fates, write their stories as they see fit, even when living under the iron fist of societal pressures or men afraid of female power.

In Bookstores Near You: Donika Kelly’s Bestiary: Poems

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When Donika Kelly's debut collection of poetry, Bestiary, was released barely one month ago, it came as the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and a long-listed nominee for the 2016 National Book Award. From page one, it's obvious why.

In Bookstores Near You: OUR HEARTS WILL BURN US DOWN by Anne Valente

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Anne Valente’s debut novel, Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down, does not begin with the shattering moment when Caleb Raynor enters Lewis and Clark High School and opens fire—a moment that surely warrants the dimming of the lights, the rising of a curtain. But no, in Valente’s narrative, the

In Bookstores Near You: The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race ed. by Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward introduces The Fire This Time, an anthology of essays and poems of witness and dissent, by expressing her own commingled dismay and hope regarding race relations in America. This book, she says, gathers “the great thinkers and extraordinary voices” of her generation to consider racism, both subtle

In Bookstores Near You: Boy Erased by Garrard Conley

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Depicting his time as a “patient” in the ex-gay therapy program known as Love in Action (LIA), Garrard Conley’s Boy Erased opens in a way that reminds me, eerily, of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

In Bookstores Near You

Author: | Categories: Book Reviews, Poetry No comments
William Wenthe’s latest collection, God’s Foolishness (winner of the L.E. Phillabaum Poetry Award with LSU Press), begins in mid-August, weighted with back to school and the anticipation for new opportunities . . . but also the dissatisfaction of unfulfilled goals.

In Bookstores Near You

In recent weeks, my colleagues working as advocates and public interest lawyers inside the #BlackLivesMatter movement have called upon white people to join their efforts. Voicing support from the sidelines is no longer enough. And so they’ve been sharing lists on their social media platforms: what actions can white

In Bookstores Near You: THE BLACK MARIA by Arcelis Girmay

I found Aracelis Girmay's the black maria in a month filled with keen grief, the kind that follows a tragedy like Orlando or the loss of a loved one so paramount to your life that afterward people just going about their lives seem like a perverse mystery.

In Bookstores Near You

In 2004, the state of Texas most likely executed an innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham, for the murder of his three young children, who died in a fire in their family home. Arson experts later determined the fire was not intentionally set, and the story quickly became enmeshed in

In Bookstores Near You

In 1995, Dennis Covington’s breakout book, Salvation on Sand Mountain (Addison-Wesley), told the story of his immersion into the world of snakehandling, faith healing, and the fervent religious sects of the Appalachians. Back then, his search for renewal was triggered when, as a stringer for the New York Times,