“True North Everywhere”: Review of “House Under the Moon”

This review originally appeared in 15 Bytes Magazine. “House Under the Moon” was a finalist for the 2013 15 Bytes Book Awards in poetry. I liked this book partly because I’ve met Michael personally in Logan where he and his family live, and partly because he’s a practitioner of Buddhist …

Barbara K. Richardson’s Tributary, Winner of the 15 Bytes Book Award, 2013

In the fall of 2013 the winners of the first annual 15 Bytes Book Awards were announced. As the literary editor of this online arts magazine, I had the privilege of working with other magazine staff and the editor, Shawn Rossiter, to determine all the particulars of launching a new …

Poetry Book Review: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s “But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise”

    “It’s rare to read poetry that is this experiential, visceral and somehow transcendent at the same time. In three sections Bertram runs her electric fingers as if over the braille of American life  as varied as wildlife (coyotes, elk), the natural sciences (inter-galactic formulas, weather patterns—in both a …

Taking Care of Your Genetic Material: Review of MOTHERLUNGE

“MOTHERLUNGE IS A FULL-FRONTAL assault on every dappled, dimpled and doily-enhanced image we’ve had of both women and mothers. Think Sandy or Orem, Utah—scrubbed clean with culturally-defined markers of motherhood, riven with Victorian charms that are neither really Victorian or charming. Then think the opposite.That is Scott’s literary world. That the story is also hysterically funny …

“SECURING THE FUTURE OF OUR OBLIVION”: A Review of THE ORDINARY TRUTH, by Jana Richman

As with this country of ours at large, there is at play, in Jana Richman’s new novel The Ordinary Truth (Torrey House Press, 2012), the national see-saw of delusions vs. reality, collective doctrines vs. the sweet, inevitable flux of life’s authentic rhythms.  In central Nevada—the driest state in the union, …