Translated from Croatian by Jennifer Zoble (New York: Feminist Press, 2019) A confession: I’m a chronic page-flipper. Usually I end up scouting ahead for the end of the chapter because I’m desperate to get it over with. But in Mars, … Continued
(New York, NY: Schaffner Press, 2017) Most people have felt it at one point or another: that dull ache in the center of your chest when someone ignores you. The slow wrenching in your stomach when you’re not being understood. … Continued
(Denver, CO: Elixir Press, 2017) When bad things happen, there are certain words that inevitably pop up time and time again, like recurring by-products of tragedy. Everything’s going to be okay. This will pass. All things happen for a reason. … Continued
(Minneapolis, MN: Howling Bird Press, 2016) At first, the story is familiar: a man walking his dog down the beach opens a bottle tossed up by the surf, releasing a grateful genie. But when promised any one thing his heart … Continued
(Norman, OK: Texture Press, 2015) If real life is stranger than fiction, Nathan Leslie’s new collection Root and Shoot is the splendid exception. Vivid, bizarre, and hilarious, each individual piece of short fiction forms a mosaic of the everyday and … Continued
(Amazon Kindle Singles, 2016) Vez and Rake aren’t sorry to be deployed to the desert. This is what they trained for; this is what they’re meant to be doing. But when a mission gone south and ends with Rake picking … Continued
(Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2016) Nothing beats a good ghost story. Ghosts occupy a space between tragedy and terror, where no matter how horribly they might rattle their chains, a piece of them remains recognizable—even sympathetic. They illustrate what happens … Continued
(New York, NY: Tyrant Books, 2015) Clancy Martin’s Bad Sex is not just a novel about bad decisions. It’s about all the ways a human being can unravel, one loose thread leading to another, and then another, until nothing but … Continued
(New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2015) I love eavesdropping. Who doesn’t? It may be a guilty pleasure, but as far as vices go there are plenty worse to choose from. There’s something so fascinating about sitting in a public … Continued
(Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2015) If you’ve ever driven down a mountain road at night, you have some idea of what it’s like to pick up Lee Upton’s new poetry collection Bottle The Bottles The Bottles The … Continued