Within the first ten seconds of You Won’t Be Alone, an intriguing-enough sounding movie with Noomi Rapace concerning a witch in Macedonia, a cat is eaten alive by some creature off-screen. I didn’t find out what the creature was because I turned off the movie after listening to its little bones get pulverized in the monster’s maw.
And ya know? I’m fucking tired of watching cats die in movies.
It feels like this piece has been a long time comin’.
On-screen cat deaths are usually a punchline, a mistake, or the product of a sadist’s gruesome machination. They are the animal equivalent of the dead prostitute who is merely a stepping-stone to catching “the killer”.
In Dogtooth, a criminally sheltered teenager stabs a cat to death with a pair of garden shears because his father told him they are evil.…
The Smoke is me, Burning by Constantine Blintzios, is the story of a family surviving on the edge of a pine forest in Harmswood, Arkansas. Crops have been corrupted by an outbreak of parasites in the rye. Livestock and buzzards alike are dying, so decay is left to spread unchecked. Blake and Jamie Ackerman have grown up on the lip of these woods. Raised by an alcoholic mother and a Vietnam-war veteran uncle, they have grown up believing in gods beyond the chicken-wire fence of their backyard, gods that steal children from their beds. When they are little, Jamie sees something in the woods and blinds his brother in one eye to keep him from seeing it, too.…
I met Jessica O’Dwyer when we were both MFA students at Antioch University in Los Angeles. I was immediately taken by her kind and giant heart—and her beautiful writing. I am not alone in my regard for Jessica and her work. Mother Mother: A Novel has received much deserved critical acclaim: it has been named the winner of the 2021 San Diego Book Association Awards in general fiction, a finalist of the 2021 National Indie Excellence Awards in general fiction, a Distinguished Favorite of the 2021 Independent Press Awards in women’s fiction and was awarded third place in the 2021 Feathered Quill Awards in literary fiction.
Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, JessicaO’Dwyer’s powerful account of her family’s experience with international adoption, was named Winner of Best Memoir San Diego Book Publishing Awards in 2011 and one of the Top 5 Adoption Books by Adoptive Families Magazine in 2011.…
Jenn Bouchard’s debut novel, First Course, was published by TouchPoint Press in 2021. It has been the recipient of nine awards and distinctions, most notably as a finalist in the American Fiction Awards and the Independent Author Network Awards. Her short stories have been published in Litbreak Magazine, the Penmen Review, and the Little Patuxent Review, with an additional story forthcoming in MARY. She has presented at the Fall for the Book Festival, the AWP conference, and the Annapolis Book Festival. She is a high school social studies teacher of twenty-two years and lives with her family in the Boston suburbs. She is seeking representation for her second novel, Palms on the Cape.
Some stories are just too amazing not to be told. In Judy Batalion’s Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters In Hitler’s Ghettos, she uncovers the incredible stories of brave young women during the Holocaust. In the midst of horror, these women banded together and formed a deadly militia in which they called themselves, the “Ghetto Girls.” The book begins with a powerful and heartbreaking quotation taken from a song about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and written by a young Jewish girl before her death: “With graves on street corners, Will outlive her enemies, Will see the light of days.”
The women in Light of Days had unwavering courage that allowed them to choose the more difficult and honorable path, to fight the Nazi regime.…
Matty Bennett’s debut poetry collection, What Are The Men Writing in the Sugar?, was published by Rebel Satori Press last April. His poems have appeared in Juked, Watershed Review, Cardiff Review, and many other journals. He earned his MFA in poetry from Virginia Tech. Currently, he works as a high school ESL English teacher and coach in Providence, RI.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Bennett chats with Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum about his writing; his life as a student and teacher; and much more.
Brandi Spering is the Assistant CNF Editor at Schuylkill Valley Journal Online. Her first book, This I Can Tell You (Perennial Press, 2021), is a poetic memoir that examines the fragility of memory. Other works can be found in super/natural: art and fiction for the future, Forum Magazine, Superfroot Magazine, Artblog, and more.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum chats with Sperling about the creation and publication of her book, reconciling trauma, finding catharsis through creativity, and much more!
