Reading Log

Feb 21, 2010 03:24PM


Just read Randall Brown's Mad to Live, the 2007-2008 Fiction Chapbook Winner from California State University, Chico's Flume Press and it's very fine writing indeed. Brown's characters are all dealing with their "issues" and several of the stories pack a real emotional wallop but there is a tinge of melodrama, a kind of overloadedness to the writing. Fortunately, this is somewhat leavened with wit and insight, and in the later pieces, with metafictional irony. Recommended.


Feb 23, 2010 05:45AM


I really liked Amelia Gray's interconnected flash fiction collection, AM/PM. Wit and whimsy combine with sensitivity and creative use of language to make for a thoroughly engaging and fun book. This is among the best of the many little flash fiction type things I've read recently.