First, the Picasso Blues.
This weekend’s reviews included a revealing summary of Bonnie Zobell’s book, What Happened Here, by Anna March, and Jac Jemc’s collection, A Different Bed Every Time. In the former, Zobell employs a cast of characters from the North Park area of San Diego to give us a “tremendously well-written take on trying to understand that which we can never know about what shapes a life…” Then, Heather Partington shares some insights into the “beautiful and complex” stories of Jac Jemc. Though difficult, she argues, Jemc’s book is “worth the effort”:
Jemc’s stories are rough. Unapologetic. And they’re not easy or transparent. But read in doses, they reveal something about not just the characters, but how we as readers want to read character in a story.
And Tova Gannana recounts the ups and downs found within poet Peter Campion’s El Dorado. Campion’s “honesty” lends power to poems authored by a writer who is “distracted by the lives and fate of many.”
The, in the Sunday Interview, Kimberly Ann Southwick talks with Kathleen Rooney about the author’s”poignant debut” novel, O Democracy! The co-founder of Rose Metal Press offers us her thoughts on the writing process, including the tribulations of using an innovative point of view, writing fiction based on reality, and the role of the author in her own narrative.
