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Short Story Review: “Coven Covets Boy” (2018) by John Elizabeth Stintzi
In short, John Elizabeth Stintzi’s short story “Coven Covets Boy” (Puritan Magazine, March 2018) is an amazing piece of contemporary short fiction. My amazement at such a work makes it difficult to...
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Remembering John Lewis
I recently returned to this; the author James Farmer (1920-1999) grew up in Austin, Texas, where I live: View this post on Instagram I had already marked it from the last time I read it. A post shared...
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This Monotony of Literature
In light of having recently finished Václav Benda (1946-1999)’s essays, with its theories of a parallel polis, and amid my preparing to soon read some published works from NewPopLit and Screamin’...
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The Brave New World of Chris Arnade’s “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row...
I’m very excited to have The Fortnightly Review publish my essay review of Chris Arnade’s Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America (2019). It covers not only Arnade but has plenty of Thoreau,...
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Short Story Review: “The Goddess of Beauty Goes Bowling” (2018) by Chaya...
Upon first reading of Chaya Bhuvaneswar’s short story “The Goddess of Beauty Goes Bowling” (Chattahoochee Review, Spring 2018): the mythological and religious references (e.g. Rama, Buddha, Vishnu),...
View ArticleGhost Riders of Manor Road, Austin, TX
Yes, everyone likes to complain how big the city has grown, but it’s still small enough to ride your pony to the store. View this post on Instagram Ghost riders of Manor Road A post shared by...
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Crumbs Cut from Work in Progress
Here is a crumb I cut from a current work in progress: It was also immediately evident upon my arrival that this was one of those “high time” moments for local mythology studied by the Romanian...
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Currently Reading: October 2020
View this post on Instagram Currently reading A post shared by Christopher Landrum (@bookbread2) on Oct 14, 2020 at 7:04am PDT What I’m currently reading for October 2020: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex,...
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Another Crumb Removed from a Work in Progress
Here is another crumb removed from a work in progress, but one perhaps worth sharing nonetheless. Long-distance relationships don’t always work, but long-distance perspectives are often useful for art...
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Is There Any Wisdom in Laughter? One Last Crumb from a What was Once a Work...
Here is a final crumb removed from what was once a work in progress, but is now a work needing but a final polish before being ready to be submitted. Just one more darling killed and culled and cut...
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Short Story Review: “There Is in This Dirty Night a Running Chase Off and...
I don’t know what you call this style of narrative, but I’ve met it (or at least cousins of it) before. Of course, style is and isn’t substance. And all styles have their precursors, unchosen...
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5 Short Stories Reviewed in Short Length
Here are 5 short stories written in the last 3 years that I have reviewed in the last 6 months. (You know you have nothing better to do than read fiction on election day!) Robert Garner McBrearty’s “A...
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Random Readings from 2020 no 1: Mark Twain
From Mark Twain’s The Innocent’s Abroad (1867): At eleven o’clock at night, when most of the ship’s company were abed, four of us stole softly ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon favoring the...
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Random Readings from 2020: no.2 The Gordon Riots
Before this riotous year, I was unaware of the Gordon Riots of London: By the late spring of 1780 the reform movement was already disintegrating. The final discouragement came with the terrible Gordon...
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Random Readings from 2020 no. 3: Gore Vidal
It is always easy to disagree with Gore Vidal–but in his prime, he was difficult to spar with. First, from 1961: Any citizen can be usefully engaged. He can also be useful in social and moral...
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Three Poetic Pieces I Read in 2020
Currently, I’m about half-way through Quintilian (35–100 AD), who is teaching me rhetoric, and while reading him, I recalled this passage that had previously read from Ernst Robert Curtius...
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Random Readings from 2020: no. 4 Lawrence of Oxford and Arabia
What did T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935) read at Oxford and in Arabia? Well, according to him: I had read the usual books (too many books), Clausewitz and Jomini, Mahan and Foch, had played at Napoleon’s...
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Short Story Review: “TV Dreams” (2020) by Tim Frank
Tim Frank’s “TV Dreams” (Misery Tourism, November 2020) is a powerful little short story. Frank’s efficiency and economy of words, is incredible, reminiscent of Kafka’s “Das Urteil” (“The Judgment”)...
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Random Readings from 2020 no 5: Samuel Butler and the Victorian Reading Public
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) wrote his coming-of-age novel The Way of All Flesh from 1873-1884, though it wasn’t published until after his death in 1903. Regarding the reading habits of Victorian...
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Short Story Review: “Server” (2020) by Stephan Moran
I don’t recall having that many (consciously) physical reactions to literature…. though upon arriving at the last pages to Andrew Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (1985), I remember being tempted to throw...
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