Reckon Review

Author: reckonreview

  • Seventeen, locked up again

    Creative Nonfiction by Carrie Lynn Hawthorne 1998 – Northridge Adolescent Psych Ward. Woke up in a Pepto Bismol pink room. The day before, my hospital roommate, Lucy, had found out she was pregnant. By her dad. When Lucy slept, she looked so much younger than fourteen. Too young to be motherless, with no home to…

  • The Fractured Mirror – The Fabulous Fiction of Folklore: A Conversation with Icy Sedgwick

    By Edward Karshner Icy Sedgwick is a blogger and host of the Fabulous Folklore Podcast which explores a range of folklore and mythology including its appearance in art and film. She is working on a PhD about haunted house films. When research gets tiresome, she writes dark fantasy and gothic horror fiction. You are the…

  • Momentum

    Fiction by Nan Wigington Whatever happened to Sandy Shores? I blink, think of the women Uncle Len dated, his “conquests” – the freckled Esther Long, the 14-year-old Lena Miles (she looked 20), the fat and loyal Patricia Lovato, then stop. The amusement park? I say My sister lifts a cigarette, puts it to her plump…

  • Our Hearts, Hunters All

    A Review of Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt By Wiley Reiver For all that is lost yearns to be found again, re-made and given back through the finder to itself, speech found for what is not spoken.– William Goyen, The House of Breath Hard on the heels of her two earlier very fine novels, this…

  • The Nitty Gritty: Talking with Cathy Ulrich about Small Burning Things & the writing life.

    By Charlotte Hamrick Cathy Ulrich is a well-known name in the Flash Fiction world whose debut collection, Ghosts of You, was released by Okay Donkey Press in 2019 to rave reviews. Her latest collection, Small Burning Things, was recently released by Okay Donkey to the delight of her many fans. I talked to Cathy about…

  • Clarity

    Fiction by James Callan Lying there in the tall grass, not a scrap of clothing to cover his bare body, the bug bites bloomed over Jim’s exposed flesh in scattered, scarlet constellations. He had sprinted across the emerald fields of soy, September sunshine on his back, and collapsed, heaving, laughing, delighted while in the arms…

  • Standing Up, Standing By

    A Review of Dawn Major’s The Bystanders by Jon Sokol The bystander effect is a theory describing a syndrome where normally decent people display apathy toward an injustice being perpetrated in front of them, especially in the presence of other people. Their thinking is that surely someone will do something. The unfortunate result is that…

  • Adversity: Sacrificing Your Scribbles and the Six Sacred Sentences

    By Barlow Adams Everyone has heard about killing their darlings, but few writers talk about sacrificing their scribbles—at least not directly. We address it in a roundabout way when it comes to drafting, but even then we tend to put a positive spin on it. We are improving. We are refining. Transferring written lead into…

  • At Such High Temps

    Fiction by Jennifer Fliss We’re looking at a field of charred tree trunks. Ghostly, blackened tall things reach into the sky trying to find the light. They’re not all dead, though some have fallen. Many have fallen, but quite a few are still standing. “The lodgepole pine needs fire,” the guide says. “At searing temperatures,…

  • Healthy Habits: Intentional Steps Required

    By Valerie Peralta When I started chronicling my journey toward healthier habits in Reckon Review, the stakes were high. I had eaten myself to high cholesterol and the largest pants size I had ever needed. Never one to embrace the phrase “it is what it is,” I did not want to take a spate of…