Island in the City: A Memoir is composed of a series of interrelated essays about identity by Micah McCrary. These essays interrogate what it means to be black, queer, and middle-class, even as they question the stability and meaning of those categories themselves.

For the most part, my copy of Letters from Max is unmarked. No circles around words with lines leading to other circled words. Minimal scrawls in the margins. This is due to the simple fact that I never wanted to stop reading in order to pick up a pen.

This book is tough. Buddhism for Western Children is a novel about a ten-year-old boy and his family, who drive from Halifax, Canada to Maine in order to meet and live with Avadhoot Master King Ivanovich, spiritual guru. It’s not a light, beach read, but a pearl that takes time. I will go ahead and say that it might irritate you a bit. There aren’t many quotation marks—and plenty of people speak throughout the novel—but once that epiphany sparks, the fact that the ten-year-old boy (Daniel) is just as perplexed, if not more, Buddhism for Western Children becomes this unbelievable, almost method-acted attempt to convey sensory overload.

Fourth & Sycamore fiction, nonfiction, poetry, reviews

Not going gentle. An exuberance of colors by cover and portfolio artist Anne Nealy introduces a market square of comedy and contemplation, unexpected narrative pathways, and an insistent push into unfamiliar locales, literal and figurative. The issue features poems by Ira Sadoff, D. Nurkse, Jane Wong, and two dozen others; inventive fiction of every stripe, including work by Valerie Sayers, Bipin Aurora, and John Biguenet; as well as essays and hybrid prose by Xujun Eberlein, Donald Morrill, Bonnie Friedman, and more.

In this issue, find poetry by Scott Wiggerman, Sarah Brown Weitzman, Ken Cumberlidge, Stephen Devereux, Mark Sadler, Reiss McGuinness, Marian Christie, Mantz Yorke, M.S. Rooney, Marc Janssen, Nick Carding, Aaliyah Cassim, Lavana Kray, George Cassidy Payne, Thomas Tyrrell, Goran Gatalica, Gareth Writer-Davies, Seth Crook, Colin Horseman, Annie Morris, John-Christopher Johnson, and Hélène Demetriades.

Stories by Amy X. Wang, Perri Klass, Les Myers, Victoria Alejandra Garayalde, Christian Winn, Brian Yansky, Rachel Heng, Kari Lund-Teigen, Jenzo DuQue, Alexi Zentner, Lindsay Haber, and Jonathan Sapers. Plus, an interview with Celeste Ng by David Naimon.

Gold Man Review is a West Coast literary journal that publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from writers in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. Issue 8 is both a beautiful and unusual blend of stories about mushrooms, swordfish, Kodiak brown bears, and estate sale lingerie, amongst others.

"Practical Living." Featuring the work of David Bergman, Jason Brown, Stephanie Carpenter, Dawn Davies, Ryan Dull, Gulchin A. Ergun, Gail Griffin, John James, and Kyle Minor. Featuring “Extremes: the Power of Scale in Art” and “Coco Chanel in Hollywood: Selling Movies through Fashion.”

New work by Amy Breeder, Danez Smith, Paige Lewis, Christian Wiman, Martha Zweig, Tarfia Faizullah, Karen An-hwei Lee, Eileen Myles, Amir Khadar, Nam Le, Rick Barot, Sandra Simonds, Mona Arshi, and more.