Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
What began as a bold experiment in grassroots service produced future ambassadors to help guide U.S. diplomacy through seven decades of global upheaval.
Read, Listen, Watch
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Beneath the surface of Black River, the taut debut by S.M. Hulse, flows the grey enigma of ultimate justice. The narrative forces the reader to ask: Does a recidivist criminal capable of torture, yet claiming to have found Jesus, deserve parole? Or would such redemption be an injustice to the man he brutalized decades earlier? By…
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Extracts from the work of shortlisted novelists for the 2014 Dundee International Book Prize are now available in e-Book format. Priced to move at $0.00! Congratulations to my shortlisted compadres Sheena Lambert of Dublin, Rachel Fenton of Auckland, Amy Mason of Bristol, Veronica Birch of the West Country, Rosaliene Bacchus of California, Jasper Dorgan of Wiltshire, Suzy Norman of…
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Leapfrog Press announced their fiction contest results for 2014. My manuscript for Sea Never Dry was named a semifinalist. Thick with spies and fetish priests, Internet fraudsters and the orphans turning a buck on Ghana’s e-waste ash heaps, Sea Never Dry centers on the conflict between Western development efforts and lucrative criminal activity in the developing world. Read More Congrats to the…
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Blood Sport and the American Dream The Family Hightower takes a savage and intelligent look at the American Dream, asserting an inextricable link between capitalism and crime in a voice that borders on the eternal. Appropriate, considering the timeless and unattainable aspiration of Brian Francis Slattery’s characters: to “get out”, to escape the prison of wealth and violence…
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The Dundee International Book Prize announced their short list for 2014. Sea Never Dry, my novel about dirty cops and drug trafficking in West Africa, made the list. Thick with spies and fetish priests, Internet fraudsters and the Ghanaian orphans turning a buck on Accra’s e-waste ash heaps, Sea Never Dry centers on the conflict between Western development efforts and…
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Laurence Walker’s debut novel opens on a high wire between the noir and the literary. Here’s an obviously talented writer with an instinct for giving and withholding detail, at once building and satisfying tension. His technique hints at a pulse just below the surface, something buried alive beneath layers of detail, which the author promises…
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Preston Lang’s discreetly funny debut crime novel The Carrier is an amoral story about semi-decent, semi-depraved, mostly-human people who eat and argue and screw genuinely enough as they pursue their proverbial pot of gold in parts unknown of the U.S.A. Some get what they got coming, some get less, others more, but always around the corner is another day…
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The idea is to write a story in 100 words flat. The boys weren’t allowed to have guns. But they wanted to play gangster, so Howard cut rifles out of cardboard. “We want pistols,” 5-year-old Mickey said. “And Uzis,” said Danny, age 3. Howard, who watched many movies with pistols and Uzis while the boys’…
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Paradise in Front of Me – Realizing Life’s Beauty in an Unexpected Place – by Kevin G. Finch (Honduras 2004–06) The recurring image in Kevin G. Finch’s Paradise in Front of Me is that of an impoverished Honduran child looking up at a locked schoolhouse door. Shut out again. The author and the residents of El Paraíso repeatedly find…
Ben East Books 