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Book Review: ‘The Behavior of Words’ by Efe Duyan, transl. Aron Aji
In the translator’s note, Aron Aji — director of MFA in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa — gives some insights on his methodology and experience as both a reader and translator of Efe...
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Book Review: ‘Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep...
Kerry Howley, you had me the title. Maybe your brain hasn’t been colonized but internet worms for the better part of three decades, but I for one recognized immediately the reference to a viral video...
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Book Review: ‘The Language of Love and Loss’ by Bart Yates
As Noah York says of his mother: “Of course I love her, but that’s beside the point.” She is the “most complicated person” he knows, “running the gamut from holy woman to gargoyle, depending on the...
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Book Review —‘What Woman That Was: Poems for Mary Dyer’ by Anne Myles
An elaborate persona collection for American feminism, What Woman That Was: Poems for Mary Dyer (Final Thursday Press) by Anne Myles explores the foundations of a culture that would both vilify and...
View ArticleAlbum Review: Elizabeth Moen —‘For Arthur’
For Arthur by Elizabeth Moen The teenaged Arthur Russell left Oskaloosa in 1968. He was a musical prodigy (cello and piano), a hippie vagabond and a spiritual seeker. He moved to a Buddhist commune in...
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Book Review: ‘Stellaphasia’ by Jason Bradford
Posthumously published from his MFA thesis, Jason Bradford’s Stellaphasia (North American Review, 2023) chronicles life inside a disabled body. It’s unfair to say that this collection is about being...
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Fully Booked: The best Star Wars novels in the galaxy
Can’t decide what to read next? Librarians at the Iowa City Public Library have some ideas. Browse the ICPL’s collection of print books and audiobooks online. A long time ago, in a Carnegie library in...
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Book Review: ‘You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live’ by...
When Paul Kix set out to write You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham that Changed America, one of his goals — in spite of the text’s lengthy title — was...
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Book Review: ‘The Beckoning World’ by Douglas Bauer
Though the all-star game of July 11 has passed, baseball fans still looking for a summer read might consider Douglas Bauer’s most recent novel: The Beckoning World (University of Iowa Press, 2022)....
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Book Review: ‘On Becoming an American Writer’ by James Alan McPherson, ed. by...
I am constantly amazed by how long I was in Iowa City without really hearing about James Alan McPherson. In part, I attribute this to being a student during my first few years in the state. Yet it...
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Book Review: ‘Pas de Don’t’ by Chloe Angyal
Pas de Don’t is Chloe Angyal’s first novel, a story of romance informed by the author’s years spent reporting on gender and power in American ballet. Angyal, an Australian-born writer now based out of...
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Book Review: ‘The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story’ by Grant...
Readers may know Grant Faulkner for his work as director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) — a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging aspiring writers to pen a whole novel in 30...
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Book Review and Q&A: ‘The Overnight Guest’ by Heather Gudenkauf
I grew up in a small town — population 600 on a good day. Rural Iowans are familiar with the one gas station, one bar kind of town, but it takes a special writer to encapsulate small-town life without...
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Book Review: ‘I am home.’ by Marianne Maili
Marianne Maili’s second full-length publication, I am home. (Chez Soi, 2023) is a memoir hiding inside other genres. It flits through its own timeline, asking to be considered among modernist texts....
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Book Review: ‘Inmani: Nova Mundo Blues’ by Cullen McHael
Never before have I come across a book that so thoroughly encapsulates the experience of enjoying a piece of Juicy Fruit gum. Cullen McHael’s debut Inmani: Nova Mundo Blues does just that; the novel...
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Book Review: ‘The Demon, the Hero, and the City of Seven’ by A.E. Kincaid
Imagine going to your middle school Scholastic Book Fair, picking up an intriguing fantasy title and thumbing through to find “fuck” sprinkled throughout. If that prospect delights your inner (or...
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Book Review: Carol Roh Spaulding —‘Waiting for Mr. Kim and Other Stories’
Waiting for Mr. Kim and Other Stories by Drake University professor Carol Roh Spaulding is well-deserving of winning the 2022 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, utilizing a masterful short...
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Book Review: ‘Monologues by LGBTQIA+ Writers for LGBTQIA+ Actors’ edited by...
The phrase “representation is important” has become ubiquitous, so commonplace that it’s easy to lose sight of its meaning. On Twitter, or “X,” the phrase is used memetically to accompany pictures of...
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Book Review: ‘Other Minds and Other Stories’ by Bennett Sims
Within Bennett Sims’ Other Minds and Other Stories (Two Dollar Radio) you’ll find several stories about a variety of psychologically interesting narrators. The one thing that brings them together:...
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Book Review: ‘Sundog’ by Melissa Conway
“At the end of January 2018 I sat in a coffee shop sipping a tea I couldn’t afford and reflected on the last month I barely survived. This exercise became a monthly meditation on time passing, what...
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