Book Review: Hunting Abigail
Note: An ARC of Hunting Abigail was provided through Reedsy Discovery. Click HERE to a read a preview of the novel, as well as links for where to buy it. This review is reposted from Reedsy. Thank you!
Traveling through the airport is a psychological thriller unto itself. Unlike the airport, Hunting Abigail is fast-paced and engaging. If there’s one similarity between the two, it’s that both are chock-full of surprise twists and turns.
Hunting Abigail centers on two time periods: 1992, where detectives search for the “Valentine Killer,” and 2011, where survivors of a plane crash must confront their own deadly mystery. Connecting these periods is Abigail Fuller, who came face-to-face with the killer in 1992. She wasn’t afraid then, but now, stuck on a deserted island with ominous happenings, she can’t help but fear that the past has caught up to her.
Read MorePiece in Mixed Rice Zines + General Update
Mixed Rice Zines’ latest edition, Queering Friendships, is out now, and I have a piece in it. It’s probably the most emotionally vulnerable piece I’ve published yet, but I’m honored to share it.
To learn more about the Zine, you can check out its page here. Physical copies are available for $10, and digital PDF copies are available for $5. You can buy the Queering Friendships zine here, as well as Mixed Rice Zines’ other editions. All proceeds from this release will be donated to Black Trans/GNC/NB individuals.
As for a general update, I’m on summer vacation now and (thankfully) still healthy. All this really means is that I’ve been reading more, but also have been sleeping until noon more. I do have some writing and submissions planned, but I’m sure its understandable when I say that it’s a bit hard to focus right now.
Even so, I hope to get myself out there more soon. So thanks to everyone supporting me, and to those giving me the chance to put my writing out there. It truly means a lot.
Stay safe everyone!
Featured on Literary Ashland!
I was recently a guest on Literary Ashland, a radio show about writing hosted by Ed Battistella and Michael Niemann. We talked about how I got into writing, what I like to read, and I even shared two poems from my chapbook. It was a wonderful experience, and I’m truly honored that I was allowed this opportunity.
The interview is about thirty minutes long, and you can find, download, and listen to it on either the KSKQ website here, or Michael Niemann’s site here.
I’d like to thank Michael and Ed again for allowing me to participate in this. It still feels unreal to hear myself talking about writing and knowing others are listening, but no matter the case, I hope you enjoy it!
Extra Salt
Originally written: March 2nd, 2020
A piece from last term, working with time between scenes. The questions my professor asked of us were:
How can you have a large space of time past but maintain the story?
Image by HG-Fotografie from Pixabay
What can you write that gives the readers enough information to figure out what happened in the skipped time without stating it outright?
Read MoreIce Queen
Originally written: October 21st, 2019
Media made man is merch,
but all the cons are during school,
so forget the physical and stick to the visual;
stick to the audio, the most important
sense for your sanity.
You can try to explain it all but it never makes sense.
You don’t allow it to.
Why?
I dunno.
How come?
No idea.
One day a steel door simply wedged itself somewhere
between your heart and your mouth, opening only
when the flooding pressure of tears and love and guilt
and peace become too much. You count its openings
by the depth of the dust.
Everything’s always obtuse isn’t it?
Be straightforward for once—it’s not that hard to say “this means a lot to me; I am not cold; I am rich on the inside,”
now is it?
Long Time, No Post
The school year is back in session now, which means I’ve become swamped with work again. I’m so busy I couldn’t even scratch up a doodle for this post!
Summer ended up being a sort of small break from writing for me–I finally read all the journals I got from AWP19, though. So as my teacher likes to say, I may have not been actively writing nearly as much, but I was studying writing way more.
Read MorePeaceful
Originally written: May 31st, 2019
Hopeful melancholy comes lying down,
as the sun traces your body, bare
for no one but yourself to see.
Light a loving touch on your arm
filtered through upturned blinds,
kissing the blanket’s softness, switching
sides as lazily as the moment’s tempo allows.
What a day it’d be to hold a love like this—
to breathe each other and be as the orange sun fades.
To feel skin against skin and trace patterns
of nothing, meaning everything.
Book Review: Like Wings, Your Hands
Note: This ARC was given to me by the author. It will be officially released by Ren Hen Press in October 2019.
Like Wings, Your Hands is unlike anything I’ve read before. Coming-of-age stories aren’t rare, but this is the first one I’ve encountered that was not only focused primarily on a disabled protagonist, but was also heavily philosophical. While I unfortunately can’t claim to love this book, it’s still one that I think everyone could benefit from at least taking a glance through.
The novel follows Marko, a fourteen-year-old boy who has spina bifida and is partially paralyzed, and his mother Kalina, a Bulgarian immigrant with a penchant for the spiritual aspects of life. Their relationship has always had its ups and downs, but once Marko becomes interested in his mother’s past, more stresses begin to appear. It reaches a boiling point when Marko learns about his mother’s estranged father and asks to visit him.
Read MoreStanding Still in a Moving Sea
Originally written: April 5th, 2019
There’s nothing that will come out so I give up on trying.
Sometimes walking clears the brain but squats hurt the leg
and so today I limp.
Spring showers bring May flowers even though I showered today
and would rather not get wet, but in the end what does it matter
I’ll be inside again soon. Pass familiar faces, unfamiliar names.
Rabbits reproduce at a fast rate so I wonder how long
until they take over the building. We should get a rabbit,
I’d remember its name.
It’s not that I don’t care simply that caring is tiring and sleep
sleep even more so.
Music to inspire but that’s a fickle thing, repetitive even after a hundred tries.
I could limp up and down the stairs again. I could acknowledge the faces
who sit in the lobby and know me and I them, even if only casually.
There’s power in a name—just say it.
It’s pouring now and the pink and white fawn looks away from me,
feigning ignorance as One New Message
hovers above its head. I unlock. Hit mute as though the world
will follow and all that will remain are the sounds of what I want:
I wish we had a pool, but at least in this way I can drown comfortably.
Read MoreBook Review: Less
Aging is a strange thing.
There are days when I feel too young for most “adult” issues. Then I see the younger siblings of people I graduated high school with graduating high school, and suddenly I feel ancient as hell. Age is a weird number that means a bunch of different things to different people.
In Arthur Less’s case, turning 50 means it’s time to avoid an ex-boyfriend’s wedding and travel the world instead.
Andrew Sean Greer’s novel Less is a lot of things. It’s satirical, bittersweet, hopeful, and at times, even soft. It’s the first time in a while that a novel has made me genuinely smile and chuckle. I hadn’t heard about the Pulitzer win before reading, but after finishing the story, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Read More
Amber M. McGee 