“She wished that she could read music. She might have hummed the melody, or at least understood why this phrase of music was important or original or innovative enough – or elusive enough, at the risk of being forgotten – to require being written out so urgently. But she couldn’t read music, and so theContinue reading “THE HISTORY OF SOUND – Ben Shattuck”
Tag Archives: short story collection
JOLLOF RICE AND OTHER REVOLUTIONS – Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi
“…oga dinma, oga dinma, it will be okay. Today. Tomorrow. Someday.” Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories (Amistad 2022) is my favorite kind of short story collections – the kind where the stories weave in and out of each other, building the reader’s connection to a full castContinue reading “JOLLOF RICE AND OTHER REVOLUTIONS – Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi”
THE END OF WORLD IS A CUL DE SAC – Louise Kennedy
I called Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses a “weeping wound of a novel about womanhood, love, and family” in my 3/30/2023 review, and her collection of stories, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Riverhead 2023, expected 12/5/2023; first published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2021) is a series of festering woundsContinue reading “THE END OF WORLD IS A CUL DE SAC – Louise Kennedy”
ANCESTOR APPROVED: Intertribal Stories for Kids
“Your body remembers how to dance. Your ancestors have been dancing like this for generations.” Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids (Edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Harper Collins 2021) is a collection of eighteen stories that are all connected by the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow, an intertribal event held in Anne Arbor, Michigan. MuchContinue reading “ANCESTOR APPROVED: Intertribal Stories for Kids”
SEEKING FORTUNE ELSEWHERE – Sindya Bhanoo
Two short story collections in one month? Who am I?!?! Short story collections are underrated. The tight writing and one-sitting reads make them perfect to get out of reading slumps and to serve as palate cleansers. I really should add more to my TBR. Catapult sent me Sindya Bhanoo’s collection, Seeking Fortune Elsewhere (2022), andContinue reading “SEEKING FORTUNE ELSEWHERE – Sindya Bhanoo”
PROOF OF ME & OTHER STORIES – Erica Plouffe Lazure
Erica Plouffe Lazure’s Proof of Me & Other Stories (New American Press 2022) cements her rightful place as one of my favorite southern contemporary short story authors. We studied at ECU together and I’ve been a fan since that first story we workshopped. I’ve previously compared her work to Bobbie Ann Mason and Flannery O’Connor,Continue reading “PROOF OF ME & OTHER STORIES – Erica Plouffe Lazure”
A Girl Named Tommi 