Interview by T.J. Tranchell Author John Palisano has worn many hats, among them musician, filmmaker, teacher, president of a writers’ organization, and fan of horror and sci-fi. His latest novel, Requiem, is a gothic-in-space following a crew as they visit an artificial moon, the Eden, designed to serve as a sort of cemetery. Grief, music, and the ever-present threat of…
By Breen Nolan I first met Emily May the summer of 2021 in a Zoom room. We were attending the Southampton Writers Conference and spent five days workshopping our essays with a small group of other writers. It was the height of the Delta variant and the West was burning; everything felt bleak. But May’s writing beckoned to something in…
By Breen Nolan Elizabeth Ellen’s dazzling and darkly funny novel, American Thighs, follows Tatum Grant, a former child actor who steals her daughter’s identity to start her life over as a high school cheerleader. Tatum’s troubled upbringing is the catalyst for her move from Hollywood to Elkhart, Indiana, a town with painful ties to Tatum’s past. Written in interview style,…
Reviewed by Eric Martin In his latest novel, Theft, Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah spins a tapestry of interwoven lives in Tanzania, where social mores both connect and divide. It’s a world defined by family—historic and impromptu, broken and reimagined. In this world, the lives of individuals are powerfully shaped by a family history that the individual has no power to control.…
By Breen Nolan Award-winning author Edgar Gomez is back with his second book Alligator Tears, an arresting memoir-in-essays that chronicles his experiences growing up in poverty with a single mother amidst the backdrop of touristy Florida. Gomez’s writing evinces a skillful analysis vital for examining one’s life on the page. Whether interrogating the systems hell-bent on silencing marginalized individuals or exploring the path to…
By Dave Oei Rachel Howzell Hall is entering brand new territory with her latest novel. After writing a book series featuring Detective Elouise Norton and ten other standalone crime and mystery novels, the two-time Los Angeles Times Book Award winner has published her first foray into the genre of romantasy with her new novel, The Last One. It features Kai,…
By Brian Hooper The Coachella Review first discovered Toronto native Chris Klassen when we published his short story “Thank You No Thank You” in our Summer 2023 issue. What we’ve learned is that Klassen isn’t afraid of the big questions. His first novel, An Individual, is an epic story about an anonymous man on a spiritual journey to unearth life’s…
By Kevin Morales Samuel Sattin has been playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons since he was an adolescent. The game and others like it have slowly expanded into the mainstream since the 1970s. The connection of communities has grown thanks to the proliferation of the internet and the game finding its way into the homes of anyone…
Edited by Dave Oei With the exploding popularity of Sarah J. Maas’s fantasy-romance series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the more recent bestseller Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros, the newly named genre romantasy has exploded. While lacking in specific definition, all such books share at least one common trait: Their plotlines require both fantasy and romance, though…
Reviewed by Evelyn Garcia The Harrowing is an innovative thriller written by Kristen Kiesling and illustrated by Rye Hickman. When a teenage farm girl named Rowan discovers she has psychic powers that give her the ability to see horrifying visions of future murders, her life is turned upside-down. Rowan joins Rosewood, a secret organization dedicated to training Harrows, who are…