Chapbook Review: The White Swallow by Anna Kovatcheva
The White Swallow by Anna Kovatcheva. Los Angeles, California: Gold Line Press, 2015. 52 pages. $10.00, paper. Anna Kovatcheva’s The White Swallow was the winner of the 2014 Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Competition. Broken into five sections, The White Swallow explores the complexities of fulfilling expectations and the sacrifices one makes to take care...
“Pastoral” by John Beardsley: A Review
Published in Vol. XXXVI, no. 1, John Beardsley’s poem “Pastoral” is reviewed by an editor of Mid-American Review. As we enter Beardsley’s “Pastoral,” we take from the simple and familiar title a sense of impending rural comfort. The compendium of our experience with the pastoral rushes forward and leaves us anticipating a romantic exploration of...
Accepted: “The Barnum Interview” by Michael Hurley
In the poem “The Barnum Interview,” Michael Hurley crafts an imaginative interview with P.T. Barnum, who becomes a completely unlikeable—but strangely seductive—speaker. As with all well-done persona poetry, Hurley’s Barnum casts an unusual view of the world, but one the reader wants to believe could be real. Barnum’s observations accumulate into character, perhaps most chillingly...
An Interview with writer Sam Martone
In this interview, Former fiction editor Lydia Munnell chats with Sam Martone. Martone’s fiction story “Night Watch at the House of Death” appears in Volume XXXVI, issue 1. I’m interested in the way ideas happen for writers—do stories start with an image or a character or a situation or are they fully formed for you?...
An interview with Christina Duhig, author of “Lesson” (by Coral Nardandrea)
I was a Gender Studies major in college, and I’m a person who, generally, just cares. It’s difficult for me, as an assistant editor on the MAR staff, to pass up a poem that speaks to something bigger and manages to remain artistic. Any of us can say an alarming amount of women are murdered...
Accepted: “No Paper Cowboys” by Bryn Agnew
In our “Accepted” column, Mid-American Review editors discuss why they selected stories, poems, or essays for publication. In this post, Fiction Editor Tom Markham discusses the marvelous “No Paper Cowboys.” Genre: short fiction Title: “No Paper Cowboys” Author: Bryn Agnew MAR Issue: 36.1 First Line: “Your parents stand on the porch as you park your car under the...