Review by Margaret Sáraco Genevieve Betts’ second poetry book, A New Kind of Tongue, follows her debut, An Unwalled City (Prolific Press). Betts, an assistant professor of English at Sante Fe Community College, also teaches creative writing for Arcadia University’s low residency MFA program in Glenside, PA. The author takes us on a journey transitioning from living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to her new home in Sante Fe, New Mexico. It is no small task to move from New York to Arizona with her family, but this is only part of her story as she searches for understanding in…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Diane Gottlieb No one would accuse Rachel Zimmerman of burying the lede. Here’s how she starts “Widow,” chapter one of her riveting memoir Us After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide: If I were writing a news story, I’d start like this: On July 1, 2014, Seth Teller, MIT professor and father of two, parked his crimson Honda Insight on the Tobin Bridge, three miles from his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and jumped to his death (5). A former journalist, Zimmerman knows the importance of providing the facts—up front. As a memoirist,…
Review by Janet McCann Theophany is an encounter with a deity that manifests in an observable and tangible form. These encounters are described in many religious texts and are part of the spiritual life. In this work, glimpses into the spiritual dimension define a distinctive angle of vision. Sarah Ghazal Ali is the author of Theophanies, which was selected as the Editors’ Choice for the 2022 Alice James Award. A Djanikian Scholar, Stadler Fellow, a 2022-23 Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University, and winner of the 2022 Sewanee Review Poetry Prize, she has published in Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, and…
Review by Emily Webber Jessica E. Johnson’s memoir, Mettlework: A Mining Daughter on Making Home, revisits her unique childhood during the 1970s and 1980s. Through her mother’s letters, written during Johnson’s childhood, Mettlework beautifully interweaves her mother’s journey with her own. Johnson examines how people continuously discover new versions of themselves and others and how the idea of home changes as people enter different stages of life. Shortly after Johnson had her first child, she received an email from her mother with scanned photographs and two letters written by her mother in 1979 and 1980. Eventually, her mother shares…
MER Quarterly June 2024 Spotlight on our print issue, MER 22 – Ages/Stages Watch the Launch Reading on our @merliterary YouTube Channel. MER 22 Ages/Stages Issue Launch Reading Sunday, June 9, 2024 READERS Allison Blevins, Anne Graue, Barbara Henning, Cheliss Thayer, Christine Jones, Heather Sweeney, Heidi Seaborn, Hilary King Juan Pablo Mobili, Kali Lightfoot, Karla Daly, Laurel Benjamin, Lois Roma-Deeley, Lydia Gwyn, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Megan Merchant Meghan Miraglia, Natalie Solmer, Paulette Guerin, Robin Dellabough, Sarah Browning, Susan Michele Coronel, Tina Barry HOSTS Cindy Veach, Jennifer Martelli, Marjorie Tesser VIRTUAL PROGRAM EXCERPTS…
Selections from MER 22 POETRY FICTION PROSE Get the issue: Print Issue – $18 ($15 with coupon code “STAGES”) PDF Copy – $5
MER vol. 22 Ages/Stages Issue Launch Reading Sunday June 9th, 6 PM EDT Watch the reading on our @merliterary YouTube channel Get the print issue here Get the PDF issue here Hosted by Cindy Veach, Jennifer Martelli, and Marjorie Tesser Readers: Allison Blevins, Anne Graue, Barbara Henning, Cheliss Thayer, Christine Jones, Heather Sweeney, Heidi Seaborn, Hilary King, Juan Pablo Mobili, Kali Lightfoot, Karla Daly, Laurel Benjamin, Lois Roma-Deeley, Lydia Gwyn, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Megan Merchant, Meghan Miraglia, Natalie Solmer, Paulette Guerin, Robin Dellabough, Sarah Browning, Susan Michele Coronel, Tina Barry Reader Bios Allison Blevins is the queer disabled…
Review by Elizabeth Brown Fictions by Ashley Honeysett, the Miami University Press Novella Prize Winner 2023, is the author’s first book. She studied creative writing at Stephens College in Missouri and has lived in the United States, Ireland, and Japan. Before Fictions, she published poetry and prose in various literary journals. Written in almost a diary-like style, Fictions depicts the principal character’s life as a mother and her life as a writer. Writers will identify with the way she has interwoven these strands throughout. The style and tone work strongly together, juxtaposing the mundane and the dramatic in patchwork…
Review by Jane Ward Janelle Wolf’s birthday celebration is approaching, Charles Wolf’s business is going through a rebrand, and their daughter–Mira–is planning her wedding. On the surface, it appears the Wolf family leads a rather ordinary life. But award-winning author Mindy Friddle makes it clear from the start that life within the home of the Wolfs of Her Best Self is nothing close to mundane. Beneath the mannered surface lurks dysfunction and worse: lies, deceptions, and manipulations that threaten to bring down an entire dynasty. The novel toggles between events of 2015 and thirty years earlier when matriarch Janelle…
Review by Theta Pavis Carole Stone’s latest book Limited Editions (her sixth poetry collection) is a love song to a treasured life. Stone, a distinguished professor of English, Emerita, at Montclair State University, writes about a love that encompassed everything and the everything that must be survived after it is gone. From the very beginning, when her date mentions Ulysses, Stone knows she’s met someone to build a life with. Through that steadfast love she finds, even when she has to transition years later into the role of caretaker, a full appreciation for all life can give us. The…