By Karen A. Parker “There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” These words from the late, great Octavia E. Butler open the New Suns anthology series, edited by the legendary Nisi Shawl. As a founder of the Carl Brandon Society, a Clarion West board member, and an award-winning speculative fiction author, they have fought for increased diversity, equity, and inclusion inside the speculative fiction genre and outside of it. In 2005 with Cynthia Ward, they co-wrote Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, which remains a seminal text on how writers can craft inclusive stories and characters…

By Tamara MC For fans of Educated by Tara Westover, Maid by Stephanie Land, and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Michelle Dowd’s debut coming-of-age memoir Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult contains echoes of all three, yet it is wholly unique unto itself. Dowd was born in the 1970s into a survivalist cult called the Field, governed by her grandfather, who was seen as God’s prophet. Much of the memoir is set in the Angeles National Forest at a place Dowd calls the Mountain, as the family prepares for the world’s end. Education became her liberation, and plants played a role in her survival.…

By Dannah Elizabeth In her first full-length poetry collection, SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS, UC Riverside-Palm Desert alum Mag Gabbert explores the fragmented meanings of language. With striking imagery, she transports readers into a dreamy world where words might be mistaken, misused, or reduced. Drawing from etymological research, Mag Gabbert uses experience and associations to create new portraits of relationships and sex. Playfully weaving myths and research, she challenges readers to examine their own word histories. We spoke to Gabbert about the power of language, her journey to getting the collection published, and how the collection’s title came to be. THE COACHELLA…

By Betty-Jo Tilley Belinda Huijuan Tang’s A Map for the Missing journeys back and forth from the 1970s through the ’90s in the US and China. Protagonist Tang Yitian—his surname given in honor of the author’s family—has spent fifteen years in the United States as a college math professor. In the opening pages, he receives a frantic call from his mother, begging him to return to the small rural village he has not seen since he left home, because his father has gone missing. Outside this mystery, the book is also a tale of brotherhood, featuring Yitian’s older brother, Yishou,…

By Rebecca Lauer Paul Tremblay has been speaking to so many interviewers lately that when I started our interview, he responded by discussing the wrong book: after I asked my first question, he answered by mentioning the point of view of Wen, the little girl in his novel The Cabin at the End of the World, which was adapted by M. Night Shyamalan into the movie Knock at the Cabin, which premiered earlier this month. “Oh,” I interrupted him. “I mean for The Pallbearers Club.” He was happy to change the subject. In The Pallbearers Club, the book’s fictional author,…

By Shelbi Glover Adaptations are a daunting specter for a screenwriter. When done well, a film adaptation can cement itself as equally important as its literary counterpart; The Godfather, No Country for Old Men, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Rashomon all come to mind. Then there are the adaptations that, for one reason or another, sour on screen and eventually fade into obscurity. But Max Gee, a UC Riverside-Palm Desert alum, rose to the challenge with her recent short film, Standing Woman. Based on Yasutaka Tsutsui’s short story by the same name, Standing Woman is the harrowing and heartbreaking tale…

By Yennie Cheung When drummer Ryan Dusick left Maroon 5 in 2006, his public statement explained that the nerve damage in his shoulder, sustained from incessant touring, had grown too severe to perform. In reality, the physical pain wasn’t his only hindrance. He’d also grappled with anxiety and alcoholism—an addiction that worsened as he grieved the loss of a band he’d founded in high school. After years of struggle and recovery, Dusick reveals his truth in the memoir Harder to Breathe: A Memoir of Making Maroon 5, Losing It All, and Finding Recovery. With a forward by frontman Adam Levine,…

By Maxamina Muro In Graft, a collection of short stories set in Whittier, just outside of Los Angeles, Margaret Elysia Garcia explores Mexican goth, serial killers, saints, sexuality, and David Bowie. Garcia captures elements of Los Angeles County that are familiar to everyone who lives here, namely that suburbs just outside of the city can feel like another world. Most of the characters in these stories exhibit their own version of Hollywood glamour, whether that means trying to find a way in front of the camera, risking their lives in the process, or dressing in homage to pop stars who…