I had had Alaska writer Dan Walker’s YA novel SECONDHAND SUMMER on my list for a long time, and two weeks ago finally had the chance to dive in. I wasn’t disappointed. Walker’s book, geared for middle school readers (but still immensely enjoyable for adults), follows 14-year-old Sam’s move to Anchorage from the small fishing… Read More Book review: Secondhand Summer by Dan Walker
I love getting packages in the mail, don’t you? I love the mystery of not knowing what’s inside, and even if I know what’s inside, I still love the opening part. Maybe it reminds me of Christmas and that wonder, that thrill. Whatever the case, a few weeks ago, I received a small package in… Read More Work included in The Best of Brilliant Flash Fiction anthology
Please excuse the jumbled nature of this review: I was up until 6 a.m. last night, finishing Eternity Began Tomorrow. I literally could not stop reading. And it wasn’t just the story, which is intriguing, fast-paced and unpredictable (most of the time—I did guess at the ending). It’s that the writing is so smooth… Read More Review: Eternity Began Tomorrow, by Kevin Brennan
First things first: My flash creative nonfiction piece A Fancy Department Store in Cleveland, 1970 is up at the The Disappointed Housewife. Here’s the beginning: A Fancy Department Store in Cleveland, 1970 We knew we didn’t belong, my sisters and me. We knew by the way the saleslady tightened her mouth, the edges of her lipstick… Read More Essay up at The Disappointed Housewife, and a busy week
Oh, Daniel James Brown, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love the way you write. I love the way you write. I love the way you research. I love the way you pace your books. I love the gentle yet firm way you handle characters (are they called characters in… Read More I love how you write, Daniel James Brown
I seem to be on a YA kick lately. Maybe I’m trying to recapture my own childhood or maybe I’m looking for a less complex way of looking at the world. Whatever the case, it’s refreshing to read YA novels, refreshing to sink down into a world where adulthood is still foreign, where the days… Read More Book Review: Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel by Kimberly Willis Holt
Good news on tax day: I just started I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez and I am blown away. I’ve read a lot of good books lately, and while I’ve raved about some of them, this one is in a category all of its own. What I love most is the… Read More I am totally loving “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” by Erika L. Sanchez
All the Wind in the World, by Samatha Mabry, Algonquin Young Readers, 273 pages I love YA novels and try to read a least one a month. I find them refreshing and without the cynicism that populates too many adult novels. Plus I enjoy the pacing, the characters, and the action. Mostly, I enjoy the… Read More Book review: All the Wind in the World by Samantha Mabry
Swimming Lessons, by Clare Fuller, Tin House Books, 354 pages You know how sometimes you find a book that clicks with you so that you have no choice but to suspend your life in order to cozy down with it? Swimming Lessons is like that. It’s not a perfect book but it has some damn… Read More Book review: Swimming lessons by Clare Fuller
I was lucky enough to snag an interview with Simon Fitzmaurice, author of the the beautifully written memoir It‘s Not Yet Dark and filmmaker of The Sound of People and My Name is Emily, and my only regret is that I wasn’t able to publish it before he died in October of last year. (You can read the review… Read More Simon Fitzmaurice interview
Cinthia Ritchie 