Brilliant Stories from a Brilliant Mind: The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street by Jacob M. Appel

May 31, 2017

  Man, oh man- this gentleman is brilliant! I might have guessed an “American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic” according to Wikipedia, would produce some stellar writing, but still wasn’t prepared for how fully invested I’d be in each story in Jacob M. Appel’s The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street! The characters are … More Brilliant Stories from a Brilliant Mind: The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street by Jacob M. Appel

Violet

May 30, 2017

-Violet- There were various elements at play. The weather. Her work schedule. How she will feel about herself at that particular moment in time. She cannot simply commit to going. If she can say maybe, she’ll say that, but any more commitment needed and her response will be a resounding no, out of sheer necessity. … More Violet

Exploring the Most Important Job in Washington: The Gatekeepers by Chris Whipple

May 17, 2017

I have to fess up to being a neophyte when it comes to politics and political history. I’d be pretty hard pressed to tell you much about the goings on in Washington any farther back than ten years, given that I was barely out of school then and had little interest or predilection for the … More Exploring the Most Important Job in Washington: The Gatekeepers by Chris Whipple

A Worthy Prequel to The Scarlet Letter: Cherie Aldridge’s Hester

May 4, 2017

  Class after class, year after year, she introduced reluctant high school juniors to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterwork, The Scarlet Letter. Yet the novel never got old to her- something new always managing to kindle an imaginative spark within her. She had voiced her desire to write this book for as long as I can remember. … More A Worthy Prequel to The Scarlet Letter: Cherie Aldridge’s Hester

A Beautiful Study in Narrative Voice: Shani Mootoo’s Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab

May 3, 2017

  Have you ever read something so poignant that it almost makes you angry? Angry that you can’t set words dancing melodically to a beautiful and evolving narrative the way this writer so effortlessly can? Surely, I’m not alone on this one . . . ? From the first paragraph of the first page of Shani Mootoo’s … More A Beautiful Study in Narrative Voice: Shani Mootoo’s Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab

Chapter 1- An Excerpt of the Novel I Will One Day Finish

April 26, 2017

Chapter 1 She did not awake at 5:30 a.m with the intent to completely abandon all elements of the life she had lived, relatively well, all considered, for the past twenty-eight years, but that is precisely what she did. She simply left it all behind. Denver had gotten up that morning and readied herself for … More Chapter 1- An Excerpt of the Novel I Will One Day Finish

Dark Satire: Tell Me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levinson

April 20, 2017

What changes will the year 2022 bring? A mere five years in the future, but still, one can look forward to at least a modicum of progress, right? An inching toward that ever-present goal of harmony and justice? Unfortunately not so in the fictional world David Samuel Levinson presents us with in his new, acerbic … More Dark Satire: Tell Me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levinson