Reckon Review

Author: reckonreview

  • Altered Earths – Storyteller as Scientist: An Experiment in Four Variables

    By S.E. Hartz I want to write this essay as a scientist would. I do not come with a conclusive thesis but with a working theory and a hypothesis to guide my investigation. The theory: things I have learned or explored in the laboratory and field can guide my fiction in new directions. The hypothesis:…

  • Back the Blue

    Fiction by Anthony Neil Smith Back the blue? Fuck yeah, I back the blue. You saw the flag waving out front of the house? Black and gray Amer’can flag, blue line running through it. I’ve got two more on my truck. Bumper sticker, too. Oh, and the tattoo. See? I’ll flex it for you. I…

  • Adversity and The Artist: The Persistent Myth of Inspirational Suffering

    By Barlow Adams There’s a certain hubris in agreeing to pen a column about writing through adversity. It’s an invitation to the powers that be to take you down a notch. Let me tell you, those bastards listen. In the months since I signed on to write this column it’s been an onslaught of death,…

  • Somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the last car of the last train to LA, I fell in love

    FLASH Fiction by Barbara Byar I followed the Hansel and Gretel trail of floor lights to a quiet corner of the slumbering car. Stared out the window at the star soup. Pulled out my notebook. There was no movement from under the blanket of your pea coat, so I jumped when you spoke. What are…

  • Brothers in Harms

    A Review of Mark Westmoreland’s A Mourning Song By Wiley Reiver Mark Westmoreland’s A Mourning Song, (Shotgun Honey, 2023) the sequel to his gritty, snarling A Violent Gospel, explores the consequences of violence and loss in a way not often found in genre fiction. To be sure, this second story about Mack and Marshall Dooley…

  • Eulogy

    Fiction by Stephen J. Golds The old man always liked to say he’d outlive me. He was wrong about that. Wrong about a lot of things as so many fathers are inclined to be. My sister, she was the one called me to let me know. Her voice sounding like a foreign language down the…

  • Sin & Righteousness in Appalachia

    a review of Michael Amos Cody’s A Twilight Reel by Chris McGinley Michael Amos Cody’s A Twilight Reel is simply one of the finest collections of Appalachian short stories around.  In its breadth, and in its subtle evocation of theme, it recalls the work of Chris Holbrook, Chris Offutt, or Ann Pancake.  Indeed, the twelve…

  • TV Time: Learning About Narrative Structure from a Book to TV Adaptation

    By Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez I spent the summer reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I read a chapter or two every night for about three months with the intention of watching the novel’s TV adaptation immediately afterwards. The novel and subsequent TV show follow a Korean family living through Japanese rule in Korea, their immigration…

  • Codependency (Animals Included)

    Flash Fiction by Anna Schachner My sister has a pair of fake alligator boots that come up to her thighs. Tonight, on pills, she is only a little high—thigh high, she says—and asks for them. I pull them from her closet and hold them out to her.  “No, you,” she says, flopping her head against…

  • The Second Eve

    A Review of Addie Tsai’s Unwieldy Creatures By Alex Carrigan Humanity has been caught in a cycle of creation and destruction since the beginning of time. We have many tales of humans being consumed by their creations or their creations causing death and destruction in the wake of their creator’s ideal. Whether it’s Pygmalion creating…