A Musician Finds His Voice By DeWitt Henry, Literary Bookmarks Editor LONESOME LIES BEFORE US: A NOVEL by Don Lee (Norton, 2017). 336pp, $26.95. Don Lee’s fourth novel is a masterpiece, an anti-romance romance between a once-promising alt-country singer and song-writer and a once-promising photographer, both of whom have given up careers (and the lovers once…
Tag: fiction
Site Review: SFK Press
Southern Fried Karma by Emily Jaeger, Features Editor SFK Press, a.k.a. Southern Fried Karma, is an independent press founded by Steve McCondichie devoted to publishing Southern authors. Based in Metro Atlanta, McCondichie is after works that expand the definition of Southern literature, from “the bespectacled Flannery O’Connor” to authors who “have dumped the askew pastorals…
Site Review: LitReactor
Gaming the Workshop by Emily Jaeger, Features Editor The team behind LitReactor, a literary website that offers online classes and writers’ workshops, a features magazine, a podcast, and a Reddit-esque community chatroom, doesn’t shy away from bold claims. On their about page, they boast: “If you’re passionate about reading and/or writing, this is the only website…
WTP Writer: Stephen Davenport
“I’m in a hurry—which is a great way to live.” Interview by Emily Jaeger, Features Editor Stephen Davenport has taught and coached in both day and boarding schools and has been the head of The Country School in Madison, Connecticut and of The Athenian School in Danville, California. Davenport draws on his long experience of working…
WTP Writer: Jacqueline Crooks
Short-story author and novelist Jacqueline Crooks Looking Back on 2016 Interview by Jo Ely, Contributing Editor Jacqueline Crooks is a Jamaican-born, British short-story writer whose main subjects are migration and Caribbean subcultures. Crooks is A Wasafiri Prize runner-up, and the first chapter of her novel Fire Rush was published by Granta (WW15, the Anthology of New Writing,…
Review: Annie Dillard’s Living By Fiction
Traditional vs. Modernist approaches, Fine vs. Plain prose styles By Richard Gilbert, Contributing Editor LIVING BY FICTION by Annie Dillard. Harper Perennial. 192 pages. The cultural assumption is that the novel is the proper home of significance and that nonfiction is mere journalism. This is interesting because it means that in two centuries our assumptions have…
Featured Bookmarks: The Literary
January 2017 By DeWitt Henry, Literary Bookmarks Editor Monthly link highlights to online resources, magazines, and author sites that seem informative and inspiring for working writers. Most are free. Suggestions are welcomed. The Nervous Breakdown Brad Listi, based in Los Angeles, is the founding editor and creator of The Nervous Breakdown (TNB), an influential, informative, and engaging…
WTP Writer: Charlotte Holmes
Into the Grass Labyrinth Interview by Emily Jaeger, Features Editor Charlotte Holmes is a writer, a poet, and a teacher of creative writing. Her first book, Gifts and Other Stories, was published in 1994. Published by BkMk Press in 2016, her new collection of stories, The Grass Labyrinth, has been hailed as “a contemporary classic.” Holmes received…
WTP Writer: Patty Somlo
Transforming Struggles Into Art Interview by Emily Jaeger, Features Editor Patty Somlo is an author of fiction and creative nonfiction living in Sonoma County, California. Her second book, The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil), was a finalist in the Fiction: Short Story category of the 2016 International Book Awards. Her work has appeared in journals, including the Los Angeles Review, the…
Site Review: thebaumer.com
An Amusing Amalgam of the Offbeat By Angelica Gonzalez, WTP Editorial Assistant Because WTP’s mission revolves so strongly around Web presence, it’s not uncommon for our editors to peruse the sites of our submitters. I had the pleasure of stumbling upon Mark Baumer’s after reading his quirky submission to our magazine. (His work appears in Vol.…
Site Review: Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour
A Literary Blog with a Twist by Emily Jaeger, Features Editor The bantering banner of Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour is the perfect introduction to the general vibe of this web-blog that combines literary arts, politics, cartoons and more: quirky but crucial, conversational but intellectual. The founders, best-selling and award-winning authors Bill Roorbach (The Girl…