You Ask Me Where It Comes From It comes from anywhere and everywhere. It’s the irritant that starts the nacre’s flow within the shell, the thing that captures your attention and won’t let go. Somewhere in the back of your brain as you go about common duties: washing dishes, folding laundry, it begins to form until you pry your mind open with a…
By Emily Schleiger The Coachella Review had the pleasure of reprinting Maryann Aita’s essay “The Geography of Flight” in our Winter 2021 issue. The essay also appears in Aita’s debut memoir Little Astronaut (ELJ Editions). Aita’s collection of essays deals with her childhood experience in the shadows of family members’ illnesses (anorexia, cancer, alcoholism), the ways in which she coped,…
According to the CDC, one in four people in the United States live with some type of disability, whether visible or less apparent. Without respectful discussion and proper representation in the media, those living with disabilities are often stereotyped and misrepresented. This is also true for people who don’t always consider themselves disabled, such as Deaf and Blind folk. This…
by Ellen June Wright After My Life by Mary J Blige When I woke this morning I had been standing before the congregation preaching on the love of God, preaching affirmations of love because before I knew myself, I was loved. No matter the circumstance, I was created from His love. The energy that sparked the ovum to divide…
By Sara Grimes In Natashia Deón’s second book, The Perishing, Lou, a Black youth with no memory of her past, wakes up fighting for her life in an alley in 1930’s Los Angeles. She gets taken under the wing of a police officer who helps her as she adjusts to life in a foster home. But, as Lou transitions…
by Lisa Loop A poet once said, “War is man’s tragedy. Woman’s is motherhood.” Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I think she was getting at something. The role of warrior has been mythologized, plumbed, and dissected throughout the ages. Motherhood? Not so much. I wish it had. Nothing I read prepared me for the loss of self that…
by Daniela Z. Montes Within These Wicked Walls, by Lauren Blackwood, is an Ethiopian retelling of Jane Eyre. The classic may be the inspiration, but Blackwood takes the bones and runs. We first meet the protagonist, Andromeda, in a carriage crossing the desert. The driver drops her off far away from her destination, but it is the closest he will…
By Rachel Spalding Writer and 2017 UCR Palm Desert MFA alum Pam Munter has, not completely joking, one subject that interests her—and she comes by it honestly. Born in Los Angeles and raised in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, Munter grew up in a palm-treed paradise that included both the craftspeople who toiled behind the scenes of the moviemaking capital…
Reviewed by Michael Medina Writers speaking on the topic of race or sexual orientation are habitually hypersensitive of how they portray minority groups, even when said writers are among those minorities, which can so often take away from the raw truth of a story. Casey Hamilton, however, doesn’t hold back, doesn’t edit uncomfortable truths in his characters or the minority…