The introduction to Christy Tending’s remarkable memoir in flash essays, High Priestess of the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Disobedience, opens with the following questions: How do we meet the feeling that the world as we know it is ending? How do we maintain...
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Review of Steve Passey’s In Line At Walmart With All The Other Damned by Francois Bereaud
Steve Passey is from Alberta, Canada, a place I take to have lots of space and relatively few people. In his remarkable collection, In Line At Walmart with All the Other Damned (Cowboy Jamboree Press), Passey manages to give us both the intimacy of lives lived hard...
Conversation with Francine Witte
by Swetha Amit SW: RADIO WATER is a beautiful collection of flash stories dealing with poignant themes. What inspired this selection, and how did you put it all together? FW: I published a book last year, Just Outside the Tunnel of Love, and found that there were...
Review of Luke Johnson’s Quiver by David John Baer McNicholas
“For he is not mad, he through whom the abject exists.”—Julia Kristeva I. Cruelty is God. Thou shalt have no other God before cruelty. Thou shalt make no serene images. Thou shalt kill what offends thee. Thou shalt kill what entices you out of sheer blank-faced...
Review of Melissa Flores Anderson’s A Body In Motion by Francois Bereaud
“Here, you are only a body. You have no future, no hopes, no dreams. You are a heart that beats too fast.” The opening line from “A Body in Motion,” one of the creative non-fiction pieces in Melissa Flores Anderson’s debut chapbook with the same title published...
Review of Terese Svoboda’s Dog On Fire by David John Baer McNicholas
The dead do not simply disappear underground. This is something every murderer learns; you keep what you kill. It’s true in more subtle ways when death is inflicted more slowly through family dynamics. Svoboda’s narrator lives in a town where she can’t escape her dead...
It’s God’s Fog Up Top: A Review of Benjamin Niespodziany’s Cardboard Clouds by Jonathan Cardew Who Quotes Various Lines from the Work Instead of a Traditional Review (Plus a Few Pics) Partly Because He is Lazy and Partly Because He Doesn’t Want to Debase This Extraordinary Hybrid Collection of One-act Plays and Prose Poem Oddities with the Mundanity of Review Language Hence This Recycled Homage to Language Play Itself (and a Few Pics)
Language! “The symphony in the pit consists of rhythmic minimalists.” “Lips like witch” “The sky is a sweltering velvet, held together by loose nails.” “Low. But also loud. Like a herd of cattle. Like dark, dark dust. Dense. Shut up.” “She sews a wisdom tooth into her...
Bending Genres Q & A with Dominique Christina by BG Editor David McNicholas
Dominique Christina is a prolific artist. Last month she taught a weekend workshop on writing allegory at Bending Genres. I was lucky enough to attend, where I found myself generating writing from places I couldn’t anticipate. I wanted to share Dominique’s inspiring...
Review of Amy Barnes’ Child Craft by Francois Bereaud
A mom, two kids, a jar of pickles, an abandoned K-Mart, and a flood walk into an Amy Barnes story … For the rest, you’ll have to read Barnes’ new hybrid collection, Child Craft, recently released from Belle Point Press. Whether Barnes’ punchlines hit in the...
Review of Laurie Marshall’s Proof of Life by Francois Bereaud
“At first, you think it’s snowing.” This opening line of “Some of Your Favorite Things Aren’t Made to Last,” the first story in Laurie Marshall’s masterful flash collection, Proof of Life, sets the tone for an unexpected and wild, but, ultimately, very...
Process, Process, Process: A Review of Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash by Michael Loveday (review by Jonathan Cardew)
When I opened up Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash by Michael Loveday, I did what I imagine most writers will do when they get this brilliant guide: I wrangled and chivvied a bunch of flashes into a novella-in-flash. Ergo, this guide works. It’s...
Review of no farther than the end of the street by Benjamin Niespodziany (by Robyn Schindeldecker)
There Goes the Neighborhood: A Review of Benjamin Niespodziany’s No Farther Than the End of the Street In The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard draws a connection between the solitude of human consciousness and the solace of intimate...
Review of A World Beyond Cardboard by Jonathan Cardew (by Dan Crawley)
I was ecstatic to find out that Jonathan Cardew published a debut microfiction collection, A World Beyond Cardboard (ELJ Editions, 2022). I have been following his writing for years and greatly admire his talent of creating memorable short fiction. Cardew’s use of...
A Review of Leigh Chadwick’s YOUR FAVORITE POET by Dan Crawley
Leigh Chadwick is the kind of poet who causes me to constantly blurt out, “That is so true!” when I read her superlative writing. And her new collection, Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022) causes me to shout my praises to the top of the sky about her...
Michelle Ross’s They Kept Running, review by Dan Crawley
They Kept Running (University of North Texas Press, 2022) by Michelle Ross is the 2021 Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. As I read this gem of a book by one of my favorite writers, I was not surprised this collection of flash fictions...
A review of Jayne Martin’s Daddy Chronicles by Jonathan Cardew
Less is more, so they say. But more what? In Jayne Martin’s case: more devastating, more incisive, more insightful. This book is a case in point. Through 37 bite-sized chapters, each about 100-300 words, Martin recounts her experiences growing up without a...
A Review of Stella Lei’s, “Inheritances of Hunger” by Amy Cipolla Barnes
Pull up a seat to Stella Lei’s word table with her collection Inheritances of Hunger. It feeds the soul in five story courses: “Games,” “Changeling,” “On Building a Nest,” “Graftings,” and “Meals for the End of the World.” Throughout, she...
Triumph of Female Empowerment: a review by Claire Polders of Let Our Bodies Be Returned to Us by Lynn Mundell
I’ve been a fan of Lynn Mundell’s writing ever since I discovered her work in 2015, so when her debut collection won the Yemassee 2021 Fiction Prize, I was not surprised. Mundell is a master of the darkly funny and tenderly magical. In this collection, she...
With the Help of Leigh Chadwick, I Review Shane Kowalski’s Small Moods
by Leigh Chadwick I first came across Shane Kowalski’s writing while doom-scrolling through Leigh Chadwick’s Twitter feed. It was a piece of flash fiction—nothing more than a slight paragraph. It’s been months since I read that piece of Shane Kowalski’s writing on...
How Far I’ve Come by Kim Magowan
How Far I've Come by Kim Magowan, review by Dan Crawley Kim Magowan’s How Far I’ve Come (Gold Wake Press, 2022) is a collection of flash fictions and a few longer works that brought me joy while I read. Yes, I smiled with delight, finding myself smiling time...
A Review Q&A with Myself on the Subject of Dan Crawley’s Collection The Wind, It Swirls with the Principal Answer Being I Couldn’t Put This Book Down by Jonathan Cardew
Q: Could you put this book down? A: No, I could not. I could not put this book down. Q: Why is it you couldn’t put this book down? Can you put your finger on the reason? A: I think there are many reasons. The stories fizz with interesting characters and...
TURMERIC & SUGAR: STORIES by Anna Vangala Jones; review by Dan Crawley
The debut short story collection, Turmeric & Sugar: Stories by Anna Vangala Jones (Thirty West Publishing House), is a feast for the senses and a tour of the challenges of love, triumph, and regret. Throughout, Jones’s prose is a wonderful mix of magic...
My Fave Five- May 2021
May 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew May Selector: Andrew Bertaina What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
MY FAVE FIVE- APRIL 2021
April 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew April Selector: Minyoung Lee What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
BENDING GENRES PRESENTS!!! Meg Tuite interviews Garielle Lutz about writing, life and so much more! So honored to have these two amazing writers in conversation…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTIyc9wIjL0 And you can order Gari's new book, WORSTED, from SF/LD here: https://www.hobartpulp.com/books/worsted
My Fave Five- March 2021
March 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew March Selector: Hannah Grieco What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
Bending Genres Reading for SMOLfair- March 5, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. E.S.T. This Friday, we have a great line-up for our Bending Genres Reading for the SMOLfair book fair event happening March 3- 7. Fiction Editor, Meg Tuite and EIC Robert Vaughan will be hosting a...
What Are The Chances? by Robert Scotellaro (review by Paul Beckman)
In Robert Scotellaro’s latest collection of gems, “What Are the Chances” he tells us the chances that way only he could write of lovers, friends, family, and more in a way that leaves you shaking your head in wonderment with these fast-paced stories filled...
Time. Wow. by Neil Clark (review by Jonathan Cardew)
Full disclosure: I am a complete and utter sci-fi nerd. Give me Star Trek. Give me LeGuin. Give me 2001: A Space Odyssey. Give me anything that is not of this planet/ space-time continuum-related/full of stars. So when I first came across Neil Clark’s small,...
Demolition in the Tropics by Rogan Kelly (review by Alina Stefanescu)
Rogan Kelly. Demolition in the Tropics. Lewisburg, PA: Seven Kitchens Press, 2019. 28 pages. $9.00. Some readers expect to be punched in the gut repeatedly. Demolition in the Tropics is not for them. Rogan Kelly's poetic line is wistful, impressionistic, similar to...
Death, Desire and Other Destinations by Tara Isabel Zambrano (review by Dan Crawley)
Tara Isabel Zambrano’s full-length flash collection, Death, Desire, and Other Destinations (Okay Donkey Press, 2020), illuminates, enchants. I’m awestruck with Zambrano’s effortless talent, her swings from stark realism to inventive magic realism. She is...
Ghosts of You by Cathy Ulrich (reviewed by Audra Kerr Brown)
Audra Kerr Brown lives betwixt the corn and soybean fields of southeast Iowa with her husband and two children.
Bending Genres Q & A with author Karen Stefano (What A Body Remembers) and Emily Bertholf
Q & A : Interview with Karen Stefano, author of What A Body Remembers. Emily Bertholf: Your latest book is a memoir about the life-altering night in 1984 when you were violently attacked on your way home from work and your long struggle of dealing with...
How to Be an Undiagnosed Autistic Girl
First things first, flat affect scares neurotypicals, so practice smiling in the mirror or ask a friend for help. Just kidding! You don’t have friends because everyone says you’re a bitch. If you ask what specifically you did, they can’t pinpoint anything but would...
All About Eve and Her Ex-Wife-In-Law
One day, Eve will live in infamy as the temptress who seduced the first man into partaking in the original sin but, for the moment, she is merely a frustrated new wife cooking a gazpacho, minus garlic, onion, basil and cilantro this time, for a man of insipid taste,...
All About Eve and Her Ex-Wife-In-Law
One day, Eve will live in infamy as the temptress who seduced the first man into partaking in the original sin but, for the moment, she is merely a frustrated new wife cooking a gazpacho, minus garlic, onion, basil and cilantro this time, for a man of insipid taste,...
Word Wizard
The Word Wizard was handing out words and all the best poets in the land were eagerly lining up to see what their assigned word for the day would be. Their challenge would be to weave this word creatively into a poem – rhyme it, if possible – and report back to the...
A Bucephalus Breed
He runs in a wild circle over and over, coming close then veering away. Celebratory! Neighbor says the obvious, that my appearance and behavior are the trigger. Like I don’t know. Still, I’m silent as my spirit soars in witness to the excitement. It’s who I am and...
A Short Catalogue of Abandonments
The herstory is buried. Nestled inside the dolls. An abandonment of identities lying on the stairs who fit between the wall and the spindle. Pressed with the decision at two years old to leave with my mom or stay with my Oma. Knowing I want to stay, but seeing the...
In the Ditch
Lily Dale had feared dying alone. She’d speculated scenarios. Who would find her, when, and in what state of decay. It’s better this way, she thought. In a ditch by the side of a flowered, rutted road. Far from home, where nobody knows my name. Much ado, then nothing...
Two Places at Once
The path of pale beige sand softly sifts over my tennis shoes as I move without stopping deeper into the evergreen forest toward the dunes. The Christmas green branches of jack pines and white pines brush my shoulders. My mother’s shoulders are ornamented with wires...
Fernwood Cemetery
Hey Trixie, Meet us at the Fernwood Cemetery this Sunday- we’ll be passing through. Had to cut our trip short after Timmy drowned. Bummer about Duncan’s colitis- I didn’t know dogs can get that. Those medical bills must be astronomical! It’s 104 degrees at 9 am, we...
Picture postcards
After 60 years of marriage, my husband and I don’t travel anymore. He has difficulty walking – I feel sad for him when I watch him, bent over, taking short, hesitant steps, too proud to use a walker. Not even a cane. At the airport next month, when we fly out East to...