Dream House
Poets & Writers Magazine|November - December 2019
IN HER NEW BOOK, IN THE DREAM HOUSE, CARMEN MARIA MACHADO REIMAGINES THE MEMOIR FORM BY EXAMINING HER PERSONAL STORY OF DOMESTIC ABUSE USING DIFFERENT NARRATIVE TROPES AND SHINES NEW LIGHT ON THE HISTORY AND REALITY OF ABUSE IN QUEER RELATIONSHIPS.
Jera Brown
Dream House
FOR some writers the line between fantasy and reality is so fluid, they are able to uncover the poignant truths that can be found in that fringe space in between. This borderland is the realm of fantasy and horror writers like Shirley Jackson and magical realists like Jorge Luis Borges, two inspirations for Carmen Maria Machado, the author best known for her debut collection of speculative short stories, Her Body and Other Parties.

Magical realism, or nonrealism, is also fertile ground in which to write about ideas and identities that are generally muted or oppressed in dominant society. In a piece in the Atlantic that appeared shortly after her first book was published by Graywolf Press in 2017, Machado, a queer woman of Cuban descent, said nonrealism is a way of insisting on something different. “It’s a way to tap into aspects of being a woman that can be surreal or somehow liminal—certain experiences that can feel, even, like horror,” she said. “It allows you to defamiliarize certain topics like sexual violence that some people might unfortunately dismiss as ‘oh, just another story about rape.’ Nonrealism makes room for mythic expressions of the female experience and I think can be a way to satisfy the hunger for narratives in which women have rich inner lives.”

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Literary MagNet
Poets & Writers Magazine

Literary MagNet

When Greg Marshall began writing the essays that would become his memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, June 2023), he wanted to explore growing up in Utah and what he calls \"the oddball occurrences in my oddball family.\" He says, \"I wanted to call the book Long-Term Side Effects of Accutane and pitch it as Six Feet Under meets The Wonder Years.\" But in 2014 he discovered his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, information his family had withheld from him for nearly thirty years, telling him he had \"tight tendons\" in his leg. This revelation shifted the focus of the project, which became an \"investigation into selfhood, uncovering the untold story of my body,\" says Marshall. Irreverent and playful, Leg reckons with disability, illness, queerness, and the process of understanding our families and ourselves.

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THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY
Poets & Writers Magazine

THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY

READING The Museum of Human History felt like listening to a great harmonic hum. After I finished it I found the hum lingering in my ears. Its echo continued for days.

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The Sea Elephants
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sea Elephants

SHASTRI Akella's poised, elegant debut, The Sea Elephants, is a bildungsroman of a young man who joins a street theater group in India after fleeing his father's violent disapproval, the death of his twin sisters, and his mother's unfathomable grief.

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The History of a Difficult Child
Poets & Writers Magazine

The History of a Difficult Child

MIHRET Sibhat's debut novel begins with God dumping rain on a small Ethiopian town as though. He were mad at somebody.

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The Sorrows of Others
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sorrows of Others

AS I read each story in Ada Zhang’s brilliant collection, The Sorrows of Others, within the first few paragraphs— sometimes the first few sentences— I felt I understood the characters intimately and profoundly, such that every choice they made, no matter how radical, ill-advised, or baffling to those around them, seemed inevitable and true to me.

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We Are a Haunting
Poets & Writers Magazine

We Are a Haunting

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RADICAL ATTENTION
Poets & Writers Magazine

RADICAL ATTENTION

IN HER LATEST BOOK, THE LIGHT ROOM: ON ART AND CARE, PUBLISHED BY RIVERHEAD BOOKS IN JULY, KATE ZAMBRENO CELEBRATES THE ETHICAL WORK OF CAREGIVING, THE SMALL JOYS OF ORDINARY LIFE, AND AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE NATURAL WORLD WITHIN HUMAN SPACES.

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The Fine Print
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Fine Print

HOW TO READ YOUR BOOK CONTRACT

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First
Poets & Writers Magazine

First

GINA CHUNG'S SEA CHANGE

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Blooming how she must
Poets & Writers Magazine

Blooming how she must

WITH ROOTS IN NATURE WRITING, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, POETRY, AND PHOTOGRAPHY, CAMILLE T. DUNGY'S NEW BOOK, SOIL: THE STORY OF A BLACK MOTHER'S GARDEN, DELVES INTO THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL ACT OF CULTIVATING AND DIVERSIFYING A GARDEN OF HERBS, VEGETABLES, FLOWERS, AND OTHER PLANTS IN THE PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COMMUNITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO.

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