Petrofiction Review: Oil on Water

Petrofiction Review: Oil on Water

Here’s my review of Oil on Water by Helon Habila – a petrofiction novel which won The Commonwealth Prize and Caine Prize. For context, petrofiction stems from petroleum and fiction. A specific text that focuses on petroleum culture in political economics...
Recommendations for Women’s History Month

Recommendations for Women’s History Month

March is a time to celebrate Women’s History Month – and what better way than to dive into literature! Here are four recommendations for Women’s History Month. These books offer a variety of literature forms, all written by women with a strong woman...
Danez Smith at AWP

Danez Smith at AWP

Richard Saker/Contour by Getty Images As we end Black History Month, here is one of my favorite poets, Danez Smith, who writes on intersectionality between their Black and Queer identities. At the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Kansas...
Lying in Memoir

Lying in Memoir

Lauren Slater crafts diligent, depictive metaphors in narrative, and I hate her writing, simultaneously. Should there be lying in memoir? In her book, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2000), Slater crafts lies from epilepsy to nunneries to doctor visits and proposed peer...

Interview with George Looney

By Merrick Glass Last week, BGSU hosted the visiting author, George Looney, and I had the great opportunity to speak with him! Here is the Q&A I shared with him from the BFA and MFA experience to his achievements, advice, and favorite writers. As I read from the...

Treating Yourself this Valentine’s Day

With Valentine’s Day coming up, here are a selection of books and prompts to embrace self-love. There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself to a bookstore date with the best person around – yourself.   Self-Love for Small-Town Girls –...

Feminist Fantasy in The Priory of the Orange Tree

From East to West and North to South, let us travel into this stand-alone epic. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (2019) builds a feminist world of dragons, queendoms, politics, and religion. The female leads of Tane, Ead, and Sabran, all from...

Books in Light of MLK, Jr. Day

MLK Jr. Day celebrates the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr who advocated for nonviolent activism during the Civil Rights Movement. On behalf of his community, he spoke out against racial discrimination. Here are a selection of books written by Black authors that...

Books to Cozy up with this Season

By Jay Grummel The weather outside is frightful, but some of us do not have fires to feel delightful. So instead, I bring you four books of comfort this season. Each of these are cozy reads, along with a few that are theme around the holidays or season. Before the...

My Lowest Rated Books of 2023

By Jay Grummel Its that time of year again, where we all cram to read the last few books of our GoodReads goal, hoping to achieve it just before the 31st. I personally have been using GoodReads since the beginning of the year. Due to this I have read a few books I was...