Buddhist’s Kiss

February 3, 2018 Nonfiction TCR Daily
By: Tobie Helene Shapiro

The Buddhist would not kiss me. He courted me; that is true. And during our courtship he regaled me with Buddhist stories, Buddhist parables, Buddhist lessons and teachings. And I know that he felt very wise. I decided not to test his hypothesis. It didn’t seem right, or fair, or even kind.

He expounded about the awful and soul-disfiguring injuries of his childhood. His father, the son of a famous and revered early twentieth-century artist, was evil incarnate. His mother watched soundlessly, sweetly failing to protect him. His older sisters—crazy, jealous, deranged, angry—all hated him, plotted against him, wanted him silenced in all matters of inheritance from the trust established by the famous-artist grandparent. His younger brother was the only salvageable human being in the lot of them, because his younger brother understood him. His brother, alone, was not a member of the family cabal, the terrorist cell pitted against him.

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Denny’s Grand Slam Special

January 8, 2018 Poetry

By: Tatiana Forero Puerta When I was little I thought people only died at night. When death came for her at 4pm the sun still shone blossoms pink to velvet opening their tabernacle mouths towards the sky, petals like hallelujah arms. A bird on the windowsill stared in opened its beak silent, unable to sing the piercing song of our sorrow.…

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Red Prince

January 8, 2018 Poetry

By: Barbara Westwood Diehl Let us be a diocese of two, not parishioners, but a confessional of cardinals, each of us red as papal slippers, a clergy plumed in tongues. Let us be our own absolution, our liturgy a litany of your hymn singing to my psalm, your hallelujah a chorus to my every verse. You and I, we are a…

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Blue Exhaust

January 8, 2018 Poetry

April 4, 1968 BY:Janet Reed At eight, sunk in the back seat of my dad’s red Corvair, yawning into my pink flannels, I lost faith fast, the way a bandage ripped from skin tears the weave of wound it’s tended. The night of the murder in Memphis, we waited in the graveled drive of a trailer park, my mind on…

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Mummy

January 8, 2018 Poetry

By: Marie-Andree Auclair My first mummy, I stared at so long my father wondered where I was. He did not see I was with herin the glass cage sitting compact arms holding my knees staring back. What had they done to me that I lingered undissolved leather on stone prisoner of time not allowed to fade? She found my dreams. We…

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TCR Talks with Ben Blatt

December 1, 2017 Interview Nonfiction TCR Daily
By: A.M. Larks

In his latest book, Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve, Ben Blatt uses his data journalism skills to tackle writing’s lingering questions and examine adverb usage, gender pronoun tendencies, reading levels, and writers’ favorite and fallback words.

Although Blatt uses statistical analyses to show that writers generally follow their own writing advice, word counts grow in size after the first publication, and co-authors rarely get equal title space on book covers, his work isn’t a math book disguised as a creative writing book. Blatt uncovers interesting insights into style and writing tendencies by looking at rule breakers and followers, including best sellers, critically acclaimed works, and fan fiction, to give the reading public and would-be authors a comprehensive view of what writing looks like by the numbers.

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TCR Talks with Jean Hastings Ardell

November 24, 2017 Interview Nonfiction TCR Daily
BY: Nathania Seales Oh

In Making My Pitch: A Woman’s Baseball Odyssey, Jean Hastings Ardell co-authors the deeply moving memoir of Ila Jane Borders, a woman shattering gender stereotypes in a male-dominated profession while navigating her secrecy, shame, and eventual acceptance of her sexual orientation.

Throughout the book, Ardell points to transformative moments of struggle in Borders’ life: as a child at home and in the church, as a young woman on the baseball field and in male locker rooms, and at a Christian university where she played before being signed to play professionally. There are moments of levity alongside anecdotes of profound loss and rejection that show the reader Borders’ path to authenticity and success.

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TCR Talks with Gayle Brandeis

November 18, 2017 Interview Nonfiction TCR Daily
By: Angela M. giles

I am not sure when I first became aware of Gayle Brandeis and her work. It was a few years ago, and truthfully, it was the story of her mother’s suicide that drew me to her. There is a strange bond between survivors of suicide, a shared understanding of that particular kind of loss and the way in which our kind of grief is often messy. I read a few of her essays online and was hooked. I poured through whatever I could get my hands on by her, and her poetry is amazing, by the way. I knew she was writing a book about her mother’s suicide, and whereas saying I was looking forward to it sounds a bit morose, I was. So, when the opportunity to speak with her about writing the book was presented, I was thrilled. It turns out, Gayle is as brilliant and kind in person as you hope she is, and she has an amazing ability to distill grace from even the most painful moments.

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Book Review: Joe Hill’s “Strange Weather”

November 17, 2017 Book Review Fiction TCR Daily
By: Xach Fromson

Joe Hill is no stranger to short fiction. His short story credits go back twenty years and includes the 2005 collection 20th Century Ghosts. After last year’s incendiary success with The Fireman, Hill returns to the form with Strange Weather, a collection of four short novels offering a panoramic view of humanity in scenarios that range from the fantastical to the all too real. Across all four stories, Hill excels at immersing readers in a full sensory experience that takes readers on unique journeys. The tightly written prose wastes no time in ratcheting up the tension, foregoing any trappings of the slow-build, existential horror in favor of rapid-fire pacing that never lets up.

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