By Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera Driving east on Interstate 10, I crank up the a/c. The sun peeks up over distant mountains, blinds me despite my designer sunglasses. Damn! It has been years since I trekked across this desert. Swore the last time I’d never do it again. I don’t remember much about last time. Just knew when I left, there…
TCR Daily
January is the month of new beginnings. This is the time when people look toward the future with hope and bright intentions. Science fiction has long been lauded as the first step to imagining our collective future, be it with technology, arts, or health advancements. This month, our reviewers examined science fiction novels written by authors from underrepresented groups. The…
By Sara Marchant In Suleikha Snyder’s Big Bad Wolf, the world is full of strangers and strangeness, but it is recognizably our world. “Different,” she tells us, “unequal, but same.” The novel is set in the Divided States of America after the Darkest Day of 2016, where Sanctuary Cities are more than lip service and operate to protect the rights…
By Kathryn E. McGee I had the privilege of meeting Lisa Quigley and Mackenzie Kiera while studying with them in the UC Riverside Palm Desert MFA Program about seven years ago. We were beginning our careers by working on horror and dark fiction projects, and I remember how remarkable it felt to suddenly know these amazing women who were trying…
In this episode, we asked our reviewers—readers from various marginalized communities—to write about any book by any marginalized author that has stayed with them in some way. Their choices spanned the globe and reached deep into what it means to be human. Ranging from nonfiction to thrillers, these four books take readers around the world and to different time periods,…
by D.S. Grauel Gloves, nitrile with the scent of industry, Mask, moist with fetid breath, the two—a double-edged salvation– are not with me at this tender moment. One in the trash. The other, laundry room sink. My face is nude. I open the door with Barbaresco Nebbiolo in hand, a cellar selection gifted from a friend in Porta Venezia,…
by Sara Grimes Elizabeth A. I. Powell doesn’t pull any punches when satirizing her lovers in Atomizer. The collection is a sassy, whip-smart treatise on the deceitful nature of love, using the extended metaphor of scent as a cover-up. Powell brings each love under the microscope of her fierce poetry to see if it is in fact a gem or…
When my children were young, we went around the dinner table and shared serendipities—something surprising and joyful that had happened to each of us during the day. My children are grown now, and I live alone, and we are in the midst of the worst phase of a global pandemic.
Being avid readers, we have always looked for book recommendations or reviews. As readers from minority communities, it became clear during high school we were not hearing about authors or reading about characters who represented what we saw in the mirror.
“what would I write if no one could see
I would write that I blame my mother
and then I would write that I was justified”
Eleanor Levine’s collection of short stories Kissing a Tree Surgeon takes readers on a hilariously offbeat journey amidst an equally offbeat cast of characters.
When California locked down last March to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the physical world seemed to shrink overnight. To contain the virus, we were instructed not to travel unless we were frontline workers. Many of us were confined to our homes.