Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief
In Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, a collection of 30 letters, Victoria Chang writes about intergenerational memory, silence, grief, racism, and death. Extending an approach featured in her poetry collection, OBIT (2020), she writes to both the living and the dead, as well as to concepts such …
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Radicle: An Interview with Gretchen Legler
Gretchen Legler is a teacher, a writer, a sketcher, and an avid gardener who earned a Master’s of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. When I asked about her history as a writer, she said, “I have always been one. It was a gift.” She wrote and illustrated stories as a …
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Rainbow Rainbow
In the wake of Florida’s House Bill 1557, aka the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, it is more important than ever that we share examples of queer joy. Lydia Conklin’s debut story collection Rainbow Rainbow does just that, entering boldly as a fearless exploration of the many facets of LGBTIA++ identity …
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The Use of the Brahms’ Scherzo in The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner
Music can affect what words cannot. Jennifer Rosner’s debut novel, The Yellow Bird Sings (Flatiron Books, 2020), is about the remarkable bond between a mother and daughter forged during the Holocaust. It is a National Jewish Book Award finalist in two categories (Debut and Book Group), a Massachusetts Book Awards Honor …
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Radicle: An Interview with Morgan Talty
I discovered Morgan Talty’s work a few months ago when I saw his name frequently appearing on all the highly anticipated book release lists that come out at the start of each year. I bookmarked some of his stories and read each one gradually, on my dimmed phone screen during …
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The Sea and More Than the Sea: A Review of Time’s Web & The Tired Apple Tree by Ruth Moore
If I was going to throw a dinner party and could invite three writers living or dead, who would they be? Djuna Barnes, Elena Ferrante, and Ruth Moore. Or maybe Wanda Coleman, Stanley Crawford, and Ruth Moore. Or Diane Seuss, Marcel Proust, and Ruth Moore. Ruth Moore makes my list …
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Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze (1956-2021)
Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze died on August 4, 2021. Her work as a dub poet and great performer is legendary. Less so (though no less deserving) is her turn in her later writing to a number of narrative, lyrical poems that celebrated what she called “the simple things of life.” Unabashedly …
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Radicle: An Interview with Fred D’Aguiar
Fred D’Aguiar is a celebrated British-Guyanese poet, prose writer, playwright, and Professor of English at UCLA whose career has spanned 35 years. D’Aguiar’s many accolades include earning a Guyana Prize for Literature and being shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. As a writer, …
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Radicle: An Interview with Kerri Arsenault
The impetus for creation is often thought to be love: divine love, parental love, the blessings of cheerful muses. However, love, in all its squidgy warmth, was not the radicle of Kerri Arsenault’s premier book, Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains. Arsenault grew up in rural Mexico, Maine in the …
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Radicle: An Interview with Hala Alyan
The radicle of Hala Alyan’s writing career sprouted in the sixth grade, after the first full book she ever read. In this interview, Hala and I explore this genesis and discuss the various roots and branches her writing has developed since. It includes four award-winning poetry collections and two stunning …
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