Review by Issa M. Lewis Peonies are relatively fragile flowers, both to grow and to maintain in cut flower arrangements. They require the right balance of light and water to thrive, and have difficulty growing in close proximity with others. The fact that peonies were a favored flower of celebrated Czech writer Franz Kafka has not gone amiss for Judith Skillman; in her latest collection of poetry, Kafka’s Shadow, she frequently makes reference to it, alluding to Kafka’s own character and personal life, as well as his writings, in the process. For those well-versed in Kafka’s body of…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Kerry Neville All too often, childbirth is depicted through the rosy lens of the birth’s afterglow: the mother gazing down at her swaddled infant at her breast, woozy and love drunk. Adrienne Rich argues, in Of Woman Born, that “As soon as a woman knows that a child is growing in her body, she falls under the power of theories, ideals, archetypes, descriptions of her new existence, almost none of which have come from other women.” Or, as Thais Nye Derich describes in her memoir, Second Chance: A Mother’s Quest for a Natural Birth After a Cesarean, she…
GUARDIAN: The female is the warrior, her armour protects her words, her children. She is steely, cold, an austere goddess. Mira Ho is a Nottinghamshire-born artist who studied at Derby University and is currently doing a Masters in Contemporary Arts Practice at Coventry University.She is a mixed media artist who deals with issues of female identity, motherhood and the uncanny, often in a domestic setting. The image represents the silenced female, who is bound by domestic servitude/motherhood; she is the mother artist the creator who is aware of her responsibilities.
GUARDIAN: The keeper that accepts all of one’s flaws, all of one’s magic and conjures the push to go beyond survive and instead thrive. Sophia Philip works in education, production and the arts. Trained as a visual artist, Ms. Philip uses any and all materials and includes social art and dance in her practice. Ms. Philip works for educational initiatives that make art accessible and a way to explore one’s identity.
A GUARDIAN is the protector and keeper of all things valuable and cherished. Liz Leggett’s paintings and drawings range from abstract and representational to the space in-between, where imagery is suggested but left open for interpretation. Currently, she is working on drawings that depict the masculine culture of American sports. Liz’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has participated in numerous artist-in-residence programs. She received her BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College and MFA at the Maine College of Art.
Review by Lara Lillibridge Carol Smallwood has published numerous titles of nonfiction and poetry—over five dozen according to this book’s About the Author page. Smallwood’s Women on Poetry: Tips on Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching is on Poets & Writers Magazine List of Best Books for Writers. She has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and won the National Federation of State Poetry Societies Award; Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest Winner; Eric Hoffer Award for Prose; ByLine 1st Place for First Chapter of a Novel. Thirteenth Annual International Ultra-Short Competition Honorable Mention, 2016. (www.pw.org) Interweavings is a collection of 43 essays, organized…
Review by Lisa Taylor Joni B. Cole leads creative writing workshops. Her book, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive is “strongly recommended” by Library Journal. She is the author of the personal essay collection Another Bad-Dog Book: Essays on Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior. Cole founded the Writer’s Center of White River Junction, New Hampshire, serves on the faculty of the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and teaches at the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at Dartmouth College. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a United States Artist Fellowship. Good Naked is an often self-deprecating…
Mom Egg Review at CLMP PRESS FEST! Celebrate indie lit with us at CLMP’s PRESS FEST!, an event of PEN World Voices Festival’s renowned Lit Crawl NYC. It’s a big small press block party in NYC on Friday, May 5, 4 – 8 PM. Browse and buy exceptional books, attend author signings and literary readings, and chat with editors and publishers. #PRESSFEST17 CLMP PRESS FEST PEN World Voices Festival Lit Crawl PRESS FEST! is now happening in NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at 53 Washington Square South. Publishers will take over the gorgeous, airy Atrium and the adjacent Portrait Room.
Review by Judith Swann In the the past 400 years, ventriloquism has outgrown its association with demons in the belly and has come to be associated with funfairs, vaudeville, Shari Lewis, Paul Winchell, the Letterman show (after Willie Tyler was once invited), Vegas, and the college entertainment circuit. With the appearance of Athena Kildegaard’s Ventriloquy, however, it now sits at the left hand of the divine. Take “The Saint of Grace,” for example. Like the other twenty-six “Saints – Contrary and Futile” that populate Ventriloquy, the Saint of Grace’s title is also its first line: The Saint of Grace eased…
Review by Libby Maxey Christine Stewart Nuñez published three poetry collections prior to Bluewords Greening, yet this latest book feels like a life’s work. It encompasses years of motherhood clouded by the struggle to understand and cope with both her oldest son’s mysterious seizure disorder (the focus of the first half of the book) and her recurrent miscarriages (the focus of the second half). Stewart-Nuñez, a professor of English at South Dakota State University, talks through these intimate agonies with reference to medical science, visual art, the natural world, and the philosophy of medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen. Throughout, she…