Bookworm

Zachary Mason insists that Void Star is not cyber-punk  Although it is set more than 100 years in the future during climate catastrophe, he describes the novel as literary fiction that uses science fiction and genre elements.

Alan Felsenthal's first book of poetry, Lowly, moves in the direction of the visionary, the mystical and the metaphysical.

Written about a time when she was hospitalized for depression, Yiyun Li's Dear Friend, from My Life, I Write to You in Your Life is a combination of memoir and essay.  She believes that cherished writers saved her from sorrow and suicidal ideation.

In his novel House of Names, Colm Tóibín finds, in adapting Greek tragedy, a home for all of his old concerns and room for new ones, too.

In Claudio Magris' Blameless, a museum of the implements of war and destruction is created to inspire peace. But this conversation is not just about war and peace.

Biographer Brad Gooch reveals that he traveled 2500 miles to trace Rumi's footsteps, learned Persian and spent eight years to write Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love.

Has the feeling of doom become our weather? If so, Richard Bausch says he contends with contemporary life by writing about people coping with loss and sorrow.

Poet Ron Padgett reveals that in the 1960s, he found a dusty novel in a Manhattan bookstore. Originally written for teenage girls during World War I, Padgett has been playfully rewriting it ever since.

Steven Moore has gathered his book reviews and essays that take us from the Beats and the Fifties to practically yesterday or even tomorrow. 

Talamantez Brolaski is trans-gender and describes himself as a multi-gendered, racial and linguistic mongrel.  His poems chart a journey out of pain, confusion and darkness into a visionary state.