A Critical Look
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"After suffering a great loss, Kira begins to experience the memories of her grandmother—a woman she's never met." This is author Cheryl Ossola describing the premise of her debut novel The Wild Impossibility (Regal House Publishing) in an interview with Suanne Schafer. "While Kira tries to figure out what happening to her and why, her World War 2-era story unfolds, revealing deep, inexplicaple family connections." Ossola describes Kira as a character who is "good at blaming, isolating, and sabotaging herself." As the story unfolds, it's up to the reader to determine whether Kira experiences a mental illness, or something metaphysical.
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Imagine Heaven as a slum in the middle of Bagalore, India. A People's History of Heaven ( Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing) by Mathangi Subramanian follows the lives of five young girls and their mothers. Maria C. Goodson writes about the third person plural perspective of the novel in Atticus Review: "The choice is not just a clever way for Subramanian to tell her story, but commentary on what makes the girls’ friendship so strong. ... On their own, none of these characters are perfect. They pick on each other, make mistakes. But their interconnectedness is what makes Heaven actually like heaven—they protect their homes and each other, pulling each other through their ever changing and difficult circumstances, and loving one another till the end."
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"Like a cold shower to ward off the standard narrative arc." That's how reviewer Sarah Boon describes Meander, Spiral, Explode (Catapult) by Jane Alison. The book explores "many novels that actually follow patterns that are fundamental to nature: meander, spiral, explosion, radial, fractal, and cell. ... This is a playful and exciting book that opens up all sorts of new possibilities for narrative arcs. Indeed, in the Epilogue, Alison has an image of a narrative arc that looks suspiciously like a series of tropical storms forming in the South Pacific. Can you imagine a novel written in that pattern? As Alison writes at the end of the book, 'I hope that other patterns might help us imagine new ways to make our narratives vital and true, keep making our novels novel.'"
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The twenty-one stories in Great American Desert ( Mad Creek Books) by Terese Svoboda are loosely arranged chronologically and are knit together by "longing, discomfort, and ties to people." In Heavy Feather Review, reviewer Wendy J. Fox continues: "Svoboda’s characters occupy a continuum that is forever exploring the nature of familial relationships and the ways in which life can be predictably hard. That’s not to suggest that this collection is desolate or depressing. There is a kind of human spirit that punctuates the trying times of particular scenarios but the don’t bother us above is emblematic of the looming quality that many of these stories have, with a just off-stage authority, a threat of consequences."
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 Read the latest review of Besotted in After the Pause!
"In what could have been a staid romantic dwindle across nearly three hundred pages, Duclos employs a few narrative tricks to make this anything but a rudimentary star-crossed romance. While telling the story from Sasha’s first person perspective, chapters sometimes shift into taking on the perspective of Liz, Sasha’s girlfriend, or Dorian, a mutual friend who flows into and out of the story like a bothersome tide. Her usage of this flawed narrator to take on what amounts to a first-person omniscient narration is bold and makes the reconstruction of their failing relationship all the more heart-rending as the reader is left not knowing how much to believe when Sasha narrates from Dorian’s or Liz’s perspectives. Duclos also uses emotions as pseudo-characters, deftly weaving Love, Anxiety, and Loneliness into Sasha’s telling of the story."
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Individual writers very often do some heavy lifting when it comes to building literary community. This month in Magnify, I wanted to recognize a handful of authors who work to promote and support other writers.
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Fiction writer, critic, essayist, and editor Ilana Masad is the founder and host of The Other Stories podcast, where emerging writers read excerpts of their work and then talk with Ilana about them.
Why did you start a podcast with a focus on emerging writers?
I had the idea for the podcast in 2014, when I was still a very new-to-the-scene writer myself. I was beginning to listen to some podcasts, and I knew about Fresh Air on NPR, and I liked The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, but I realized that almost everyone who gets featured by these big-name places is already quite well known. But writers have thoughts about their own writing, their craft, their work long before they become famous—if they ever do, which most of us don't. But there isn't a great place to discuss it anywhere. You either have to be actively studying writing around other people who are writers willing to talk to you about this stuff, or you have to find a writing community where you live (which isn't always there, or welcoming) or online (which can be tricky as well), or you just don't get to talk about it. And I love talking about writing! So I wanted to give writers of all stripes and levels of experience a place where they would be treated seriously, as writers, regardless of their publication history.
What’s the relationship between your own writing and the work you do on the podcast?
I'll be honest—it's fraught. The podcast sometimes feels like another thing that gets in the way of writing. But, BUT! While it’s a lot of work maintaining the website and the mailing list, doing it all alone with very occasional (but usually lovely) interns, when I'm having a conversation with an author who's just read some of their work—that feels worth it every time. It feels truly wondrous to hear writers thinking aloud when I ask them something surprising, or to have writers gleefully share their writing process or the authors they love or the way they approached this one tricky thing. The conversations themselves, more than the trappings of the podcast itself, are what I continue to love and enjoy, and what continues to nourish me as a writer. The podcast is kind of an excuse, at this point, to keep having these conversations and to get to share them with other people.
I can vouch for Ilana's ability to ask surprising questions of the writers she interviews! Listen in on our conversation to hear some new thoughts—prompted by some very insightful questions—on how the setting of Shanghai in Besotted connected to my queer narrator's exploration of her identity.
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Steph Post is the author of the novels Walk in the Fire, Lightwood, A Tree Born Crooked, and, most recently, Miraculum (Polis Books). After Steph invited me to participate in her Author Spotlight series, I asked her why she started the series and what she feels it's brought to her life as a writer. Here's what Steph had to say:
"The Author Spotlight series I'm currently running on my blog is the third incarnation of my efforts to interview and support authors. Originally, I published in-depth interviews on my blog, but when I began doing full interviews for magazines and websites, I moved to last year's Book Bites format, where I was able to post short interviews every Friday on my blog. The Author Spotlight series is very much like Book Bites—the author chooses five questions to answer from a list I give them—but it allows even more authors to shine, because it doesn't just celebrate a specific book or book release, it celebrates the author as a writer.
"I started interviewing authors as a way to connect, really. My first interviews are total fan girl pieces—I wanted to get to know the authors I loved better, both as people and as masters of craft. I wanted to learn from them, too, and be able to share what I had learned with other new writers searching for honesty from established authors. And though the format has changed, I still feel like I learn something new with each Author Spotlight I post. I like to think of it as a win-win-win situation: I win because I connect with fellow authors, readers of my blog win because they can learn about craft, pick up publishing tips, or just be reminded that even successful authors are only human, and the authors I interview are able to connect with new readers and promote their work. One of the most important jobs an author can have is to support other authors. My Spotlight series allows me to do this."
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Looking to connect with more authors who actively support other authors? Check out some of my favorite literary community builders!
"Chelsea Clammer is an author of two books and a top-notch editor. She teaches writing classes for women through WOW! and judges their quarterly creative nonfiction contest. Through her work, she has made hundreds of connections with women writers and is instrumental in connecting those writers with each other. She helps women dive deep into their hearts to write about challenging subject matter, such as bodies and grief." Thanks to Melissa Grunow for this description of Chelsea's work building community and supporting writers!
Katharine Coldiron's novella Ceremonials is forthcoming from Kernpunkt Press in 2020. She hosts the column "Books I Hate (And Also Some I Like)" in Entropy Magazine, providing authors the chance to dish on the books that get under our skin. Check out Katharine's recent interview with 7.13 Books publisher and author Leland Cheuk. And stay tuned next month to hear about the books I consider to be the literary equivalent of dick pics.
If you're into flash fiction, check out Tommy Dean's series of mini-interviews with authors of flash fiction. Tommy is the author of the flash fiction chapbook Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks) and the flash fiction editor at Craft Literary.
Grace Wynter is a copyeditor, blogger, and writer of romantic women's fiction. Check out her Author Up Close interview series on Writer Unboxed.
On his website Snowflakes in a Blizzard, author Darrell Laurent features three books each week, providing his 3,000 followers with a summary of each book, a sample chapter, and brief interviews with the authors.
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If you know of a literary community builder you’d like to see highlighted in Magnify, please use this Google form to send me their information. Check out my blog to learn more about what I'm looking for.
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In the Inside Look column I'll share with readers a bit about my own writing life and experiences publishing my debut novel with the small press 7.13 Books. I'll also be reaching out to other writers, publishers, cover designers, book reviewers, and independent literary magazines and journals to learn more about the small press landscape. If you have an idea for the column, please feel free to reach out!
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 Some people like to read heavy tomes in the summer, but Blue Is the Warmest Color by Julie Monroh (Arsenal Pulp Press) is for those who like faster, easier reads. Not that there isn't a lot of emotion in this one, because there is, and it's both light and dark. This is a graph  ic novel and while sometimes art won't connect with everyone right away, I think the drawings here let the reader settle in to her style quickly. I didn't love the art from page one, but I immediately loved the subtle things she was able to convey in her pictures and with her use of color. For me a successful graphic novel will be able to tell the reader so much in the images, and this succeeds on this front, for sure. There is a lot to like in this quick, touching novel about discovering yourself and who/what matters to you in the end. It's a pretty sad read (but not overly so), as even though this is a story about love and discovery and the pages are filled with that love, it's also a story about struggle and homophobia and heart break. It's got a little bit of everything, and I think that it'll resonate with a lot of people because of that, and because of her use of the drawings to connect with the reader. |
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Each month, Another Read Through owner Elisa Saphier will choose a small press book released a year or more ago for our Another Look column. Based in Portland, Oregon, Another Read Through ships, so if you want to order any of the books featured in Magnify, follow the links to order them from Elisa!
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 Thanks so much for reading Magnify! If you have a review of a recent small press book you'd like to see included in our Critical Look, or questions about life as a small press author, feel free to contact me. See you next month!
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