Love Letter to the Sky

Love Letter to the Sky

by | May 28, 2018 | Bubbler, events, Features, Spotlight

Free State Review’s “Heavenly Creatures Contest” commemorates the luminous kite photography of celebrated darkroom artist Sally Gall, a photographer who has visited kite festivals around the world from Long Beach, Washington to Cervia, Italy and Fano, Denmark. These...

North by way of South

by | Nov 11, 2014 | Bubbler, Features, Spotlight

Now that we are putting the finishing touches on our fifth issue (due in February 2015), the awards are showing up for our 2013 issues. It seems fitting that Sandra Ramirez’ Best American Essay notable selection would begin South of the border because Free State...

Ten Cents a Dance

by | Mar 26, 2014 | Spotlight

The Babe Ruth Museum on Emory Street where the Sultan of Swat was born is also the ground zero of Barbara DeCesare’s multi-syllabic night life. “I’ve crashed—on couches—on nearby Paca, Eutaw, Lemmon Streets. Big Bam’s ghost—he knows me. Bummed a smoke off me, once.”...

A Britt in the Room

by | Feb 27, 2014 | Spotlight

It’s hard for Alan Britt’s poetry to sneak up on you. It’s like a diesel tractor, full of snorts and groans and clanging parts. A few years ago we heard him all the way in Dallas—a poem about Cuba in Ilya’s Honey. Britt came out of the old Hopkins Writing Seminars in...

Nikia, On the Rocks

by | Feb 10, 2014 | Spotlight

Love at first sight happens to most of us once in a life. It’s happened to Nikia Leopold twenty times. Architecture and painting—shape and color—inform her lines. In the space between the two, fantastic desire climbs hollowed out hand and toe holds. It climbs to...
Diamonds & Guatemala

Diamonds & Guatemala

by | Jan 24, 2014 | Spotlight

Making diamonds is a fairly simple process involving pressure (like that found at a depth of 100 miles), the elixir of time (about two billion years) and a little heat (1,400 degrees Celsius). Most writers spend their lives making diamonds from dead plants. As Billy...