What Is Found, What Is Lost by Anne Leigh Parrish is a captivating look at the lives of two sisters raised by a mother who, at seventeen, hit the road to follow a revivalist minister. Parrish's gritty details are impressive as the reader witnesses the girls sleeping on a dirt floor and living with no [...]
One of the beautiful things about writing colonies, besides the nature that often surrounds, the artwork being created, and the solitude, is the amazing people you meet, some of whom become life-long friends. Such is the case with Elizabeth Evans, whom I met at MacDowell one summer probably more decades ago than either of us [...]
Those of us who have the pleasure of knowing and reading Rusty Barnes are completely aware of what a talented writer he is, and I better just say it right off—I'm a long-time fan. His fiction is gritty and human, his setting as real as it comes. Especially in this high-stakes novel Reckoning, set in [...]
Meg Tuite is one of those creative people who's brilliant at everything she does. Her fiction and poetry are stunning and her main form, but you should see her paintings and even the wonderful décor and yard art in the backyard of her adorable adobe home in the Southwest. Meg's fiction is out of this [...]
For years there was a man named Jim Ruland who lived in San Diego like I did. People spoke of him with reverence, yet I'd never met him. Finally, we had so many mutual friends that I emailed him and introduced myself. He was utterly friendly and suggested we get together for coffee and talk writing [...]
Claudia Smith's stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is the author of the short-short collections The Sky Is A Well (reprinted in Rose Metal Press's A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women, and Put Your Head In My Lap (Future Tense Books), and most recently Quarry Light (Magic Helicopter Press). Bonnie ZoBell: [...]
Heather Fowler: Suspended Heart Review by Bonnie ZoBell Heather Fowler is Kafka in drag, an American Marquez. If you are looking for a safe little book, one that lines up neatly with other short story collections being published today, then Heather Fowler's SUSPENDED HEART is not the collection for you. It is a book about [...]
I'm very pleased to have had my story "Graveyard" accepted by Wigleaf. The story is quirky and somewhat fun, though also a little sad, but I love the Dear Wigleaf entries on the site just as much as I like the stories. I had a lot of fun writing one of those.
I read recently for So Say We All, a great arts organization in San Diego that does all kinds of wonderful things for arts, for kids, and for the community. Justin Hudnell, So Say We All's Executive Director, a young guy and a writer himself, has brainstormed this wonderful artists haven only in the last [...]
I also got to go to Bread Loaf Writers' Conference this summer. What fun rooming with my pal Katrina Denza! Now there's a sly sense of humor. We both had a great time. I worked with the amazing writer Charles Baxter, who's also a truly excellent teacher. He helped our group get right to the heart [...]