Edited by Melissa Joplin Higley New and forthcoming books (listed by publication date). Elizabeth O’Rourke, Rewoven in the Dew, Kelsay Books, June 2026, poetry Rewoven in the Dew explores shades of what life asks of us when we…
Browsing: Reviews
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley On our Bookshelf this month, books by Elizabeth Metzger, Preeti Parikh, Jo Pitkin, Erin Miller Reid, Linda Scheller, Suzanne Sherman, Avia Tadmor. Jo Pitkin, Village: Recession, Finishing Line Press, August 2026, poetry In…
Review by Christy Lee Barnes Future Tense is a memoir-in-verse spanning three years in poet Kelly Grace Thomas’ life—years in which she and her new husband grapple with the stress of trying to conceive while her mother battles ovarian…
Review by Sharon Tracey In tic, tic, tic, poet Heidi Seaborn unwinds and fast forwards a time capsule of poems that freeze and free, set within a swirl of personal, political, and moral questions of our time. Seaborn is…
Review by Lisa C. Taylor Beginning with a woman’s journey of infertility, and then shifting to her memories of attending Catholic school and becoming fascinated with the lives of the saints, Book of Hours is a story of the…
Review by DeMisty D. Bellinger Martheaus Perkins’ The Grace of Black Mothers is an honest and loving homage to the women who raised him, including his mother who lived a fully American life. Perkins also commemorates victims of state…
Review by Melanie McGehee In her poetry collection Material, Ana María Caballero excavates fear, yearning, and frustration from the ordinary material of family life. Children and husbands, bodies and books, household routines and memories bring a strange urgency…
Review by Mary Ellen Talley In much of the world, the summer heat of 2026 has been oppressive, pressing down like an ugly metaphor. How can we cope? First, it helps to identify the challenges. Doubly wonderful when a…
Review by Carole Mertz Despite its many comic touches, I found Grace Before the Fall to be a serious book with a serious message. Its provenance is quite interesting: Lipschultz began the novel over forty years ago, but it…
Review by Melissa Kutsche Tara Lynn Masih is an award-winning author of fiction, poetry, and essays. Her YA novel, My Real Name is Hanna, won the Florida Book Award for YA literature, and she has been nominated multiple times for…