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ZYZZYVA

For the Writer's Choice issue of The Literary Review, ten well-known writers selected ten writers they believe deserve much wider recognition. They introduced the work of the fiction writers and poets they chose with brief essays about their promise and their significance.
      Burton Raffel chose Kendall Delcambre, Ilan Stavans chose Alcina Lubitch Domecq, Eric Sellin chose Joanna Goodman, William Zander chose Thomas Halloran, Gladys Swan chose Dale Kushner, Gordon Weaver chose Allen Learst, Francois Camoin chose Rob Roberge, Thomas E. Kennedy chose Susan Schwartz Senstad, Richard Zenith chose Paulo Teixeira, and Ales Debeljak chose Andrew Zawacki.
      This online edition contains selections from each of the ten writers worth knowing.

Kendall Delcambre, from The Trick Is Not to Mind The first time we met, she was carrying in her mouth—for reasons I still don't completely understand—a razor blade. By this I don't mean she had a sharp tongue, a cutting wit. Certainly, she did; but she also had a stainless steel Gillette double-edged razor blade, and she kept it in her mouth. Alcina Lubitch Domecq, "La Llorana" On the street La Llorona's children were crying out loud. She began to ask for una lumoznita, a small charity. After a while a passer-by gave her a few pesos but also whispered to her ear that she could get a few more by selling herself once or twice that night. She cried in desperation. Joanna Goodman, "This Is Joy" Is love most required when it's most unsafe? St. Francis wanted God's so terribly he vowed to stand outside a shelter, cudgeled, profaned through snow and rain and say, this is perfect joy. Thomas Halloran, "Spring, the Seawall" At the edge of sight, where this line of wall bends back, hotels rise against the sea, against scatter of white-gold, afterlit down. Dale M. Kushner, "Damaged Heart" I write this down to give an impression of my life. An impression, like those famous paintings in which the lilies and the pond and the sky swirl into a recognizable whole, that is, until you step forward and see how the medley separates, blossoms from clouds, clouds from the matrix of water.

Allen Least, "A Sheet, a Clothesline, a Bed" Gray hands. Mr. Brown says: "I need help." Fat white man. Poor fat dead white man. His head a green helmet—his eyes covered by a sun visor. Homeboy says we need to turn him loose, drag that white boy up on the beach so his mama can have him back. Rob Roberge, "Do Not Concern Yourself with Things Lee Nading Has Left Out" To Cleeve, Hank's a moron. To Hollis and Church, he's a victim of crazy Geri, and to the rest of the town, he's become the nice martyred husband. He watches Melissa with the dog, feeling, she's got it right; nailed him flush and hard and pure and straight as a 22-ounce hammer on a perfect swing. Susan Schwartz Senstad, "Ground Zero" "Take him away!" "Take him. He needs to nurse." "Let the shitbag starve." But now she only whispers. Susan Schwartz Senstad, "Seed of Patriots and Heroes" He doesn't know what to do. He struggles to get his arms out of the embrace so he can put them around her neck, his little hands patting her shoulders rhythmically. Then they're both crying. "No more, no more, no more . . . " is all she says and she kisses his eyelids, his forehead, his cheeks. Paulo Teixeira, "Deus Absconditus" God-the-dregs-of-Himself, at day's end: a wound opened by the fury of lawless beasts and the dampers of belching chimneys. Andrew Zawacki, "Penumbra" Coiled in their nest like wrinkled ghosts, newborn mice open to hunger and the stringent hawk.