Interviews & Reviews

DAVID SIMMONS RECOMMENDS: THREE BOOKS

March 11, 2026

The Winnowing Draw by Michael Tichy (Castaigne Publishing, 2024) “Keeping a fire alive is an act of vigilance. The darkness merely awaits.” The Winnowing Draw is like Bone Tomahawk meets The Neverending Story, with beautiful language that really immerses you in the time period. We are in 1880 where a poor teenager named Cecil is on the run after accidentally (or not so accidentally?) murdering his best friend, another boy, but from a privileged and prestigious background. Meanwhile, a colonel, his kidnapped two-spirit guide, and his band of ragtag soldiers are on a hunt for American monsters. The wild

Things I Hate A Little Bit Less Than Others By Travis Jeppesen (author For Those Who Hate a Little Bit of Everything)

February 24, 2026

The stories of Diane Williams After finishing a thousand page novel a few years ago (Settlers Landing, ITNA Press, 2023), as a way of “recovery” I started writing these very short stories, many of which are gathered in this latest book. Diane Williams has built an entire career out of writing such miniatures – I hate the term “flash fiction”; one is almost tempted to call them “fragments,” only they’re not. Williams’s stories, along with Kafka’s parables, might look like fragments; in fact, they are wholes. (When we speak of fragmentation as form, we’re really talking about texture.) Equal,

DISCO AND THE INFERNAL CITY: AN INTERVIEW WITH CALEB BETHEA by Rebecca Gransden

February 17, 2026

The city lights up after nightfall, and Caleb Bethea knows the way. With Disco Murder City (Maudlin House, 2025) Bethea takes the lead, chasing fear along emptied alleys, into pulsating nightclubs filled with star-kissed divas. The sweat of violence and the will to get down infect every pore, and demons release their energy with a smile. Bethea decorates the city in cinematic grit and sparkle. The only thing more silver than the screen are the knee high platform boots. I spoke to Caleb about the book. Rebecca Gransden: Disco Murder City takes place in a world saturated in the

IT’S ALL IN THE EDIT: AN INTERVIEW WITH CHELSEA SUTTON by Rebecca Gransden

February 10, 2026

Chelsea Sutton’s rollicking novella Krackle’s Last Movie (Split/Lip Press, 2026) deals in magic and monsters. The mythology of horror icons meets the world of the film documentarian, in a whimsical ride full of frisky humour and spooky glamour. At its ghoulish heart the tale is a quest—a resolution residing somewhere within old videotapes and archived audio cassettes. I spoke to Chelsea about the book. Rebecca Gransden: Travelling back in time, what is the first monster you remember? When did monsters enter your life? Chelsea Sutton: Monsters very clearly entered during The X-Files era of my life — which was

“HONEST BLURBS FOR DAMN GOOD INDIE BOOKS I DID NOT BLURB.” – David Scott Hay Recommends

February 5, 2026

I read. I write. Sadly, I’ve learned over the years that I am an awful reviewer. I can converse about books, but when I set out to write about them, the critique part of my brain devolves into grunts and hoots. Any intelligible attempt at an academic critique finds my original thoughts replaced by clichés and tropes. The same for my emails (all subject to endless drafts and restructuring). But not today, Satan. Today, I blurb. I can blurb. That I can do. Hence the style of this column. Warning, all books are praised. A few, more than you think

IT’S KINDA PUNK ROCK TO WRITE ABOUT JOY: AN INTERVIEW WITH AARON BURCH by Kirsti MacKenzie

February 3, 2026

Part of the fun of being a writer, and learning from other writers, is seeing what others leave of themselves on the page. To follow their work and discover their signature—the intangible that makes someone’s writing so intensely theirs that there is no mistaking it for being anyone else. There’s no mistaking Aaron Burch on the page. Tacoma (out with Autofocus Books) has all the hallmarks of a Burch book—nostalgia, magic, fun, optimism, friendship, and more heart than almost any other writer doing it today. As writers, we’re often taught that characters should grow through hardship, conflict, and struggle. Tacoma

Samuel M. Moss Interviewed by Perry Ruhland

January 22, 2026

In Samuel M. Moss’ debut novel The Veldt Institute (Double Negative Press, 2025), anonymous patients seek the cure for their own ineffable malady. Their treatment is conducted on the grounds of the titular institute, some strange cross between an abbey and a sanatorium, where their philosopher-doctors prescribe a wide range of strange and specific activities. Reading this great book, and particularly the accounts of these treatments, prompted me to take long walks, sit by the lake, and stare at my ceiling. I asked Samuel M. Moss about some of the practices behind the cures. Perry Ruhland: One of the

YOU MAY APPLAUD NOW: JOSEPH COWARD ON ‘JESUS CHRIST KINSKI’ BY BENJAMIN MYERS

January 20, 2026

Klaus Nakszynski was born in Germany in 1926, and within a few short decades became everything from Nazi conscript, to piss-drinking mental patient, to one of the most prolific and notorious stage-screen presences of the twentieth century. Despite everything he was as an actor, Kinski (excising sections of his name after returning to Germany from a Colchester POW camp) became better known for his psychopathic behaviours both at work and recreationally. He screamed at Werner Herzog for an hour and a half over a cold cup of coffee; he once stalked one of his psychiatric nurses for three days before

FOLLOWING THE THREADS: AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HASKELL by Rebecca Gransden

January 14, 2026

How to move. John Haskell’s Trying to Be (Fiction Collective Two, 2025) plots the potentials in life by means of undefinable and expressively changeable essays. Always shifting, the collection weaves around the central conundrums of existence, and in so doing implicates itself in this unceasing mystery. At once a humane interrogation of headspace and exploration in what it means to pass through the world as a physical being, Haskell’s work teems with the presence of the engaged observer, caught in the maelstrom we sometimes call reality. I spoke with John about this slippery and enigmatic book. Rebecca Gransden: You

MEMOIRS IN THE MORAL MUD: DAVID LEBRUN AND JOSHUA MOHR TALK SHOP

December 30, 2025

My debut memoir, Delirium Vitae (Tortoise Books, 2025), recounts five months of hitchhiking and street busking I did from Costa Rica to Phoenix Arizona, in 2001, when I was broke and struggling with addiction and mental health issues. In 2020, I was halfway through editing my memoir, when the pandemic left me happily unemployed. I read Joshua Mohr’s Sirens and discovered he offered editorial service through his Decant Editorial. We worked hard on my manuscript for three months, but what stuck with me most was his encouragement and certainty that the book would find a publisher. Four years later, when