M. Scott Momaday’s ‘House Made of Dawn’ Offers Light to See By
In the 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning House Made of Dawn, Native American author M. Scott Momaday confronts an infinite darkness in nature and ourselves.
Shaun Anthony McMichael
Shaun Anthony McMichael is the editor of two collections of poetry by
youth affected by trauma, mental illness, and instability: The Shadow
Beside Me (2020) and The Story of My Heart (2021). Sixty of his
short stories, essays, reviews, poems, and author interviews have
appeared or are forthcoming in literary magazines, online, and in print. He has taught writing to students from around the world, in classrooms, juvenile detention halls, mental health treatment centers, and homeless youth drop-ins throughout the Greater Seattle area. He lives with his wife and son in Seattle. Follow him on Instagram (@samcmichael) and LinkedIn (@shaunmcmichael).
‘Calling for a Blanket Dance’ Sews Together a Story of Single Fatherhood
Calling for a Blanket Dance stitches an intergenerational quilt of rich themes: gift-giving, second chances, reclaiming culture, family loyalty, and the indelible search for a home.
Will the TV-Adaptation of ‘The Power’ Persuade Viewers?
The characters’ prospects in the upcoming TV adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s The Power are dubious, considering it’s an idea-driven dystopian novel that fries them with an over-abundance of imagery and biblical allusion.
In ‘All Your Children, Scattered’ a Rwandan Family Picks Up the Pieces Post-Genocide
Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse’s All Your Children, Scattered, is a compact, trance-like meditation on the unintended effects of love and survival in the Rwandan diaspora.
Will the Film Capture the Artfulness of ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’?
With its film adaptation releasing this summer, the best-seller Where the Crawdads Sing calls a reader to open themselves to places and people on the edge.
The Long Hard Way through ‘Mississippi Prison Writing’
The harrowing quality of incarcerated existence is compounded by the persistent and heartbreaking presence of injustice in Mississippi Prison Writing.
In Author Dennis E. Staples’ Town, Sleeping Dogs Don’t Lie
In Dennis E. Staples’ remarkable debut This Town Sleeps, flawed mothers and sons must pacify vengeful ghosts and family curses.
‘Breathing Through the Wound’ Will Leave You Gasping for Air
As dizzying as Víctor Del Árbol's philosophy of crime may appear, the layering of motifs in Breathing Through the Wound is vertiginous.
Cordelia Strube’s ‘Misconduct of the Heart’ Palpitates with Dysfunction
Cordelia Strube's 11th novel, Misconduct of the Heart, depicts trauma survivors in a form that's compelling but difficult to digest.
Class, Craft, and the Cost of Ambition: An Interview with ‘Lake City’ Author Thomas Kohnstamm
While Lake City masquerades as a social climber satire that is really something else, author Thomas Kohnstamm is an open book about his intentions in his work and his hopes for his city.
Finding Harmony Amidst Discord: ‘The Mountains Sing’
A Vietnamese family's song resounds over the effects of decades of tumult in Nguyen Phan Que Mai's excellent novel, The Mountains Sing.
‘American Dirt’ Now That the Dust Has Settled
Though the bluster has asserted the opposite, Jeanine Cummins' prose in American Dirt washes away the gore and grime to show the human faces that make up the migrant crisis of the Western Hemisphere.