Indie Book Reviews and a Look at Indie Publishers by Lanie Tankard, Book Review Editor Book: Body of Water: A Sage, a Seeker, and the World’s Most Alluring Fish Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, October 11, 2016 ($24.00 cloth, 232 pages). ISBN 978-1-57131-352-2 (Also available as ebook.) Author: Chris Dombrowski An acknowledged poet, Chris Dombrowski speaks here…
Tag: writing
Literary Spotlight: Joyce Peseroff
Boot Found on the Side of the Road See her work in Vol. IV #8 Joyce Peseroff is a valued contributing editor to The Woven Tale Press. Her fifth book of poems is Know Thyself. She is also the author of The Hardness Scale, A Dog in the Lifeboat, Mortal Education, and Eastern Mountain Time.…
A Story That Made Me Want to Write
On Yates’s “The Best of Everything” By DeWitt Henry, Contributing Editor I first read Richard Yates’s short story “The Best of Everything,” some fifty years ago. Yates was in his prime then as the promising author of Revolutionary Road, which he had just followed with the collection, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, where this story appears.…
Book Review: Grabbing the Apple
An Anthology of New York Women Poets By Joyce Peseroff, Contributing Editor Edited byTerri Muuss and M.J. Tenerelli JB Stillwater Publishing The foreword to Terri Muuss and M.J. Tenerelli’s anthology of poems by New York women poets, Grabbing the Apple, could have been written forty years ago. “In response to the glaring lack of parity…
Site Review: The Art of Poetry Video Repository
Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky on Poetry By Emily Jaeger, Features Editor Boston University’s The Art of Poetry Video Repository allows those with a thirst for all things poetry to learn about the masters from Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. An archive of videos recorded for Pinsky’s EdX and Massive Open Online course (MOOC), The Art of Poetry…
Site Review: The Poetry Conversation
Poet Sharon Bryan in the Cyber Arena By Emily Jaeger, Features Editor The first word that comes to mind when thinking of Sharon Bryan’s new website, The Poetry Conversation, is generosity. An award-winning author of four collections of poetry, Sharp Stars, Flying Blind, Objects of Affection, and Salt Air as well as a professor of…
The Benefits of Entering a Writing Contest
Courtesy of The Puritan Senior Editors For every literary magazine, a prize. Our lit culture’s thick with them. Whether you’re an ardent submitter, see them as a necessary evil to keep literary ships afloat, or you love to hate them, writing contests can often feel more common than the periodicals they support. Here at The Puritan,…
Richard Gilbert: Word by Word
Writing’s Values—Intelligence, Sensitivity & Beauty—Challenge Me By Richard Gilbert, Contributing Editor “The ability to forgive oneself … is the key to making art, and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life.”—Ann Patchett English departments inherently espouse reverence for thoughtfulness, sensitivity, and comely expression. I codified this recently for myself while…
From Novelist to Poet
On Logophilia and Process By Stephen Mead See his work in Vol IV. #7 Just as some have a natural proclivity for math or sports, I have had one for actual words since an early age. “Chrysalis” was a particular favorite, the name of an old Jethro Tull record – I remember the icon on the…
Eye on the Indies
New To WTP Blog: Indie Book Reviews and a Look at Indie Publishers By Lanie Tankard, Book Review Editor Book: Ninety-Nine Stories of God Portland, OR: Tin House Books, July 12, 2016 ($19.95 cloth hardcover; 168 pages) ISBN 978-1-941040-35-5 Author: Joy Williams The highly respected writing of Joy Williams includes four novels, four prior short-story collections, a…
Information vs. Emotion in Memoir
Writing about Dreams, Loss, Fatherhood & Farming By Richard Gilbert, Contributing Editor One fall day, I sat down to write about my family’s experiences in Appalachian Ohio, where we lived and worked and were part-time farmers for thirteen years. It took me a year and a half to produce a manuscript of 500 pages. It took me…
Literary Spotlight: Tess Barry
Emptied of All But Wildness See her work in Vol. IV #7 Running past an urban field emptied of all but wildness, I see a scattered patch of bricks, sprawling weeds grown brown and tall and in among them glimpse some purpled heads of summer clover. They bend and blow toward me. A single Queen…