“You can’t eat ’em if you don’t find ’em. And you can’t find ’em if you’re not outside. I know that’s where I’ll be,” writes Frank Hyman in his latest book, How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Identifying 29 Wild, Edible Mushrooms. An avid outdoors enthusiast, Hyman has foraged […]
In the opening pages of the new zine, Under the Table and Screaming: Volume 1, musician Gina Sobel says, “If you run into a friend who just left the Tea Bazaar, you ask them, ‘Oh, were you just at the Tea Bazaar?’” This is a reference to the distinctive smell of the Twisted Branch Tea […]
In The Good Ones, Polly Stewart’s new novel of literary suspense, a woman’s family and friends struggle to find answers about her disappearance in a small Blue Ridge town. Set almost two decades after Lauren disappeared, leaving behind a bloodied washcloth and little more, the novel centers on her old friend, Nicola, the protagonist, who […]
“In the human body: trillions of cells, 78 organs, five senses. Though sight was neither the first nor the last to evolve, it is the pinnacle sense in my mind. The eye is the eminent organ. Next to it, the hidden organs quiver, the minor senses falter.” So begins the forthcoming book, Small Pieces, a […]
A deeply researched book, The House Is on Fire is Richmond-based author Rachel Beanland’s gorgeous new historical novel, constructed out of the archives and her own narrative license. Set in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, the book traces four characters and their communities as they struggle in the aftermath of the historic fire that destroyed the […]
Poet, pediatrician, and public health researcher Irène Mathieu follows her three award-winning poetry collections with milk tongue, a new book of poetry. Referencing the milky covering that can occur on an infant’s tongue after feeding, milk tongue is a collection that explores parenthood, family, and the intricacies of existence in this world, filled with Mathieu’s […]
The latest book by novelist TJ Klune features a cast of robots who love to garden, make sex jokes, listen to Miles Davis, and watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. From more familiar robots, like a loyal vacuum cleaner named Rambo and a sadistic robot health professional named Nurse Ratched, to extremely futuristic robotic killing […]
Inspired by her own experiences with clinical depression and childhood grief, National Book Award finalist Amber McBride published We Are All So Good at Smiling, her second young adult novel in verse, earlier this year. Though heavy at times in its examination of the lasting impacts of trauma—and complete with content warnings for readers who […]
The poems in John Keene’s latest collection, Punks: New & Selected Poems, span three decades, saturated with the desire, loss, and reflections of a Black gay man who lived through the early days of the AIDS epidemic and continues to navigate our contemporary traumas and tragedies. Keene received the 2022 National Book Award for Poetry […]
Known best for her short stories and novels, author Ann Beattie recently published More to Say: Essays & Appreciations, a collection of short nonfiction. The winner of numerous awards, Beattie brings her keen insight and sense of language to these curated pieces, all of which were originally published between 1982 and 2022 in a variety […]