Thoughtful, dreamlike, meandering–these were my expectations of Ali Shaw’s debut novel, The Girl with Glass Feet. For the first chapter or so, the novel held up. Lines like “It was a darkening afternoon whose final shafts of light passed between trees, swung across the earth like searchlights,” drew me into St. Hauda’s Land, setting up yet more expectations. Then it all fell flat.
The Journal
Candor: A Review
If I were pitching Pam Bachorz’ Candor at an editorial meeting, I’d call it “dystopian contemporary YA meets The Stepford Wives with a dash of Wisteria Lane from a male perspective”.
Next Year in Paradise
Ginnie and Roger were already planning next year’s trip, when they’d just arrived for this year’s annual family vacation, one of the lesser Caribbean islands with a Catholic-sounding name. They preferred to just call it Paradise, as in Next year in Paradise we’ll rent a car for the far beach, the one with the goats. When their daughter Maxine was little, Roger would hoist her on his shoulders to hang their bag of peanut butter sandwiches from a high branch so the mangy gray goats couldn’t nuzzle for a bite. By next year, Maxine’s baby would be old enough to make goat sounds, if Ginnie sang “Old MacDonald’s Farm” like she used to with Maxine.
Cara
It’s strange to grow old. I feel I’m the same person inside. All my life I was around people more or less my own age, and suddenly there are hardly any left. I think about death all the time. I guess you could say I’m apprehensive. I don’t want to suffer. I live my life as if my actions could make a difference, but I suppose at heart I’m a fatalist. Whatever happens, happens. I have to accept the fact that my efforts might not have the results I want them to have.
Dogs in Guatemala
All the dogs in Guatemala are like this. It’s what Laurie wants to tell her, this college sophomore crying in the street over yet another brutalized puppy, except she can’t imagine a worse moment for explanations.
“Come on, Arabella.” Laurie touches the girl’s sharp-boned back. “We can’t just hang around out here. [...]
Blessings and Curses by Anne Whitehouse, Reviewed
It is rare to find a volume of poetry that stares so directly and honestly at life as does Anne Whitehouse’s new collection, Blessings and Curses
Welcome To Acronym, Inc.
About six months ago I was reading through an email from an action group and a light bulb went off in my mind. The message encouraged me to support the JUSTICE (Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools in Counter-terrorism Efforts) Act, which I did. But what caught my attention was the acronym. I sat there staring [...]
In The Land of Cane, by Mark Shannon
Mark Shannon is one of the 2009 Awards Program finalists. Below is an excerpt from the prologue and first chapter of his entry, In The Land of Cane.
Where Luck Lies, by Mary Larkin
2009 SFWP Awards Program finalist Mary Larkin presents Where Luck Lies. This story has since been published in Shenandoah .
The Revelation of Everything (excerpt)
Snow fell again like feathers tumbling from the sky and when they hit the concrete, they dissolved into a clear liquid.
The old joke that Phoenix used to tell Jalen when it snowed back in Cross River was that he’d spotted two snowflakes that were exactly alike. It was never that funny, or even original, but year after year he’d tell it and cackle as loudly as he did the first time Pop Pop or his father (he couldn’t remember who told him the joke) first said it way back when he was five or six. Now, Jalen wasn’t around to hear the joke. Cliff was, but he was a poor substitute. It seemed he had forgotten how to laugh.