FEATURES

With Fatal Flaw’s first-ever poetry contest underway, we thought it would be fun to ask our guest judge, Carla Ferreira, about her favorite poetry books. Read on to learn about Carla’s top 10 must-read poetry collections in her own words, including why each book earned a spot on this list. And make sure to enter the contest!

We asked the fiction writers from our Paradox issue questions about the creative spaces that make their writing possible. A few then answered those questions, delving into their ideal writing conditions, creative rituals, and inspiring musical and literary works. Read on to learn more about Robert Frankel, Katharine Tyndall, Jeremy Broyles, and Zachary A. Bakht. Make sure to check out their work in Volume 11: PARADOX!

We sat down with Jefferson Liu, the artist behind the cover of our most recent issue, to talk about memory as inspiration, the craft of portrait photography, and the connection between artist and subject. You can explore Liu’s full series "Meaning Less" in Vol 11: PARADOX, available now!

We asked the writers and artists from our Paradox issue what song best represents their work. Our contributors responded to this question with thoughtful creativity. For some, the song is a reflection of the work itself, the creative process, or thematic parallels. For others, the song is a connection to an inspirational musical artist, or perhaps an emotion captured in both works. We’ve created a Spotify playlist made up of these songs: our Soundtrack to Volume 11.

In Arlene Naganawa’s otherworldly new poetry collection, I WEAVE A NEST OF FOIL, we enter the liminal where the mundane and commonplace are transformed into the ethereal. Here, the familiar becomes peculiar and the present becomes unstable.

We sat down with James Gianetti, author of Calvin Klein (ELJ Editions, 2024) and Fatal Flaw contributor, to discuss his new novelette, the craft of writing an unconventional narrative, and his portrayal of vulnerability in a long-term friendship.

Kelly Gray’s newest chapbook, THE MATING CALLS OF A SPECTER, is a haunting exorcism that explores in stark, incisive language the profound ways in which sexual trauma imprints itself on the body and changes that body’s very composition.

Evelyn Berry’s debut poetry collection, GRIEF SLUT, is a vibrant, punchy, pop-laden triumph that explores the poet’s life as a trans woman growing up in the American south. The poems inside are a mix of sweet and tart, grease and glitter, bursting with life like overripe fruit, their juices pooling on the page in all their glorious stickiness so that you come away with their pulpy guts on your fingertips.