Graphic novels intertwine words and illustrations to allow their authors to say what they need to without descriptions. Their audiences don’t need to imagine their worlds; they can see them. Art and words are used strategically to tell stories. Simplicity and silence, lavish details, and verbose prose, or vice versa, tell these histories. The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel…
by Adam Zemel Matt Bell’s third novel, Appleseed, follows three protagonists in three different time periods: At the end of the eighteenth century, Chapman and his brother travel the Ohio territories, planting apple orchards in the wilderness. At the close of the twenty-first, John seeks to infiltrate a corporation he helped found that has grown far too powerful––or perhaps just…
by Sara Grimes Ajit Dutta is a poet and graduate of UC Riverside-Palm Desert’s low-residency MFA program. His book, A Lover’s Sigh, is a translation of Urdu love poetry in a form called the “ghazal,” comprised of five-15 thematically autonomous couplets. It is Dutta’s work of the heart, combining classical and modern influences ranging from Indian and Pakistani songwriters to…
by Yennie Cheung If the saying holds true that readers discover books at the right time in their lives, perhaps now is the right time to discover Jack Wang’s We Two Alone. Each short story in the collection focuses on Chinese migrants and their children, living around the globe—the United States, South Africa, and Canada (Wang’s home country). Spanning about…
by Becky Lauer Author James Sie’s second novel, All Kinds of Other, tells the story of two teen boys who fall in love in a Los Angeles high school. Sie offers an escape for readers through the perspective of Jack Davies, a trans boy who moves to Los Angeles from Pittsburgh, and Jules Westman, a gay boy who’s lived there…
by Lucio Rodriguez I’ve known Tom Mavroudis for nearly a decade, having concurrently attended UC, Riverside— Palm Desert’s low residency MFA program. We’d frequently meet up at the bar between classes at residency to talk books or nonsense over truffle fries and lobster mac. We shared an interest in genre writing, including weird fiction and horror, as well as an…
by Adam Zemel The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, the debut novel from Dawnie Walton, sizzles with energy and attitude as it unspools a recognizably American story of self-invention and systemic injustice, unmet expectations and dramatic turns of fortune, the legacy of public trauma and the pressure of society, and the role of complicity in the persecution of the other.…
By Katie Gilligan I was lucky enough to sit down (via Zoom) with writing team Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger to talk about their new movie, Spiral, the ninth installment of Saw, one of the most successful horror franchises of all time. The latest piece of the puzzle (pun intended) follows police veteran Marcus (Samuel L. Jackson), brash Detective…
One morning, my atheist mother walked into her assisted living facility’s church service irate and naked. The attendees gasped. The reverend summoned a nurse’s assistant who quickly escorted my mother back to her room. When the head nurse called me to report the incident, she did not need to give me details: I could clearly picture my mother charging into…
“So what classes are you teaching this year?” my mother asks. I take a breath, my hands gripping the steering wheel. “Actually,” I say, “I’m not teaching anymore.” “Oh,” she says, with a hint of disappointment in her voice that any daughter could recognize. She was so proud when I told her five years ago that I’d be teaching…