TCR Talks with Emily May, author of Some Girls

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 me that felt like hope. Her prose was poetic, raw, and funny. I was impressed with the way she could travel through time and excavate herself fearlessly. Over the years, we’ve spent time together in other writing workshops, exchanged endless…

TCR Talks with Edgar Gomez, author of Alligator Tears

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 becoming a YouTube beauty influencer, Gomez transports his readers on a journey that will have them laughing through their tears. . The Coachella Review spoke to Gomez about the evolving nature of his process, the value of nuance in nonfiction writing,…

The Necklace by Leah Fisher

My fingers are filthy. Blackened at the tips with grime underneath my fingernails. I should wash my hands, but I have more to do. I look up at the fluorescent glowing numbers on my dusty cable box. The figures are blurry at first, forming an indecipherable shape. I squeeze my eyes shut and reopen them. I imagine my corneas, dry and neglected, dust forming pockets of blindness in the corners of my lids. Fuck. It is 3:42 AM. I want to stop looking, but I can’t. I know that goddamn necklace is somewhere, and I’ll never sleep if I can’t…

A History of My Enthusiasms, or Use Everything by Jamie Harrison

At the end of a book tour, rosy thoughts don’t come naturally. You’re alternating between an audience of ten or one hundred, a sense of giddiness and futility. You’ve searched for your novel in airport bookstores, handled reader questions about your use of the wrong car model, introduced yourself to people you’ve met before. You’d ideally be placed in suspended animation for the first six months to avoid wondering about sales, or to prevent futilely searching for your name on one list or another, trying to reinflate your ego for another event. You love your books but you’re sick of…

The Compton Creek by Mike Sonksen

The Compton Creek is the Los Angeles River’s southernmost tributary, the only one that starts in the inner city. Its headwaters come from the street storm drains of South Central Los Angeles. Other LA River tributaries like the Tujunga Wash, Arroyo Seco, Rio Hondo, Pacoima Wash and the Burbank Western Wash flow downstream from the northern foothills of either the San Gabriel or the San Fernando Valley. The Compton Creek is more anonymous, much less known than the Arroyo Seco which runs next to the 110 freeway or the Burbank Western Wash which flows past movie studios. Whereas the concretized…

White Lines by Mark Routhier

I don’t know when the decision-makers brought in two trailers and divided them in half to make four classrooms. They were like that when I arrived. Slapped between the main building and the ball fields, the big playground constantly beckoned to us. The bank of windows on the other side of the classroom faced the cafeteria. Isolated and tucked away from the watchful ears and eyes of the headmaster and administration at East School in New Canaan, Connecticut, some of the kids exiled to the cheap little trailers frequently misbehaved.  If they chose the sixth graders for those temporary classrooms…

TCR Talks with Samuel Sattin, author of Side Quest

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 who watched Stranger Things on Netflix, or the players of the popular Baldur’s Gate video games. Time Magazine also recently published a massive edition in honor of Dungeons & Dragons’ 50th anniversary. But where did this game come from? How…

My Life in Nine Obituaries by Ann Levin

1 – Philip Pearlstein, Whose Realist Nudes Revived Portraiture, Dies at 98 The other day, I found the New York Times obituary for Philip Pearlstein in a folder with the extremely unhelpful file name “Miscellaneous.” It was jammed in next to an article titled “Five Easy Exercises to Strengthen Your Abs.” Why I put it there, I don’t know. In the moment, I think I’ll never forget these things, but five minutes later, I do.  I’ve always read obituaries in the morning with my coffee, after dividing up the paper and giving the front section to my husband, Stan. He…

Life Uprooted by Janice Post-White

The stately burr oak stood deeply rooted in the center of our backyard, high up on the hillside. It shaded the patio from the midday summer sun and provided the perfect hideout for backyard games. I took its steady, reassuring presence for granted for the thirty years we lived under its canopy.  When the tree’s bark started to peel, the young, lithe arborist led the way as we tromped through wild grasses and ground cover draping the steep, compact backyard. “It’s dying,” he said as he tugged at a strip of peeling skin. “Something damaged its roots.”  “Dying?” I echoed,…

Head, Heart, Belly by Jennifer Lang

 חָרִיף Haifa, 1989 Philippe drizzles a greenish, garlicy hot sauce on his falafel. Between the torrid temperature and cayenne pepper paste, he is on fire. Watching him bite into the fried cumin-infused balls causes me to salivate. The thought of his thick, fleshy lips on mine creates inner heat.  “Délicieux,” he says in his mother tongue. Beads of perspiration form on his forehead and trickle down his face. “Spicy food,” he says, “makes me sweat.”  My senses are on high alert. Men and women, young and old, race to shop for Shabbat at the souk before stores close midafternoon. Stalls…