Reviews, Interviews, Opinions

When I was a little kid I remember reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books.  Making the choices to what the protagonist would do and seeing how it affected the outcome of the story was always a nail-biting experience, and I remember feeling a real sense of dread as I flipped the pages to discover whether the character succumbed to his plight or lived to see another page. 

I Take Back the Sponge Cake, coined by Rose Metal Press as “a lyrical choose-your-own-adventure,” is just that: a book of poems and drawings with many outcomes for the literary minded. After a brief introduction from the authors on the genesis of the project, you are given instructions on how to read the collection. 

No matter which path you take, each read-through always starts at the same place, a poem titled, “You Will Go Back Again.” 

“We have seen your future, and it’s all eyes,
you crazy head of bees.

One of the perks that comes with this lovely gig is that I get to discover new writers, publishers, and books that I may have not stumbled upon in my usual reading circles.  Last month, a New York based writer found me, and requested I review her novella, Watch the Doors as They Close, from the Spuyten Duyvil Novella Series. 

Watch the Doors as They Close is a woman’s account, in diary form, of her ex-lover Anselm and their relationship together.  Taking place in the latter half of December 2003, the author attempts to organize her confused feelings toward a man who seemed so important to her.   The book reads as if you found the diary on a table in a local coffee shop and stuffed it into your bag—it is at once both intimate and secretive, giving way to a feeling of voyeurism coupled with childish shame for opening such a personal door into the narrator’s life. 

As a writer of fiction and as a reader, I’m always hesitant when I find a story or book written in diary form; but, in this case, I found myself surprised and delighted at the way the story unfolded.  The form lends itself the bigger thematic question at hand: how well do we really know those that are closest to us—our lovers, our friends, our neighbors, and even ourselves?

As you make your way through the pag

I’m a director of Chicago Writers Association (CWA), a networking group for aspiring writers, established authors, publishers, and the like.  It’s an open forum that allows members to post questions, news updates about their writing, and learn about literary happenings here in Chicago and beyond. 

Through CWA I met Wisconsin-based writer Mary T.

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Recently I’ve been looking back on the last couple years of my life.  Two years ago I was barely a published writer, armed with all the faculties of my newly acquired education, meandering around the AWP Conference in Denver, sucking up all the literary love that one comes to find when thousands of writers are grouped together in the same building. 

It was at the Bookfair in Denver that I first met Michael Cyzniejewski, who was m

March seems to be the month of two’s.  It has been a little over two months since I reviewed Ben Tanzer’s So Different Now from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (CCLaP); and, once again, I find myself reviewing another story collection from the small publishing house.  Get Up Tim, by Sally Weigel, is both the second publishing effort from this author/publisher duo, and the second time Curbside Splendor has reviewed her work.  I’ve been both blessed and fortunate to have previously reviewed such outstanding works since joining the staff here at Curbside, and Weigel’s story collection stands with the best of them.  

Keeping with what seems to be a common theme amongst the books I’ve reviewed in my short time here, Weigel’s story collection is filled with bouts of loneliness, eccentric and estranged narrators, and teens who are so lost and brutally aware of their flaws, yet remain powerless to do anything about them.  Her stories, “Growth Spurts” and “The Land of What If” surprise and excite with their excellent use of magic realism.&nb