Evelyn Berry Reviews “ORCHID ALPHA” by Kimberly Ann Southwick
ORCHID ALPHA, by Kimberly Ann Southwick (2023, Trembling Pillow Press, New Orleans, LA, 101 pages, $16.99, 978-1-7374768-1-8) Reviewed by Evelyn Berry Orchid Alpha Dares Us to Know Kimberly Ann Southwick...
Laura Villareal Reviews Wendy Guerra’s “Delicates,” translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson and Esperanza Hope Snyder
72 pages | ISBN-13: 978-1803091662 | Seagull Books | Publication Date: June 2023 Many idioms are untranslatable from language to language. “Don't air our dirty laundry” or “La ropa sucia se lava en casa” travels across many boundaries. The common idiom is also a...
A Story About the Body
By Joanna Acevedo Pouring sugar on a cut will make it heal faster, the sugar granules soaking up the moisture that the bacteria would have fed on. I learned from a young age that a man wants nothing more than a woman to listen to him speak, like an empty receptacle he...
Writing and Stuff
THIS IS PROBABLY THE WORST TIME- to launch a Substack. We have three new poetry titles at our fresh squeezed lemonade stand and also Ashley Cowger's wild collection of short stories On the Plus Side. And we're warming the wax to bind three others by Matthew...
Moments of Disruption and Recognition: A Review of Mary Lynn Reed’s Phantom Advances
Review By Alyssa Greene, as featured in Lambda Literary In the title story of Phantom Advances, Mary Lynn Reed’s debut short story collection, the teenage narrator looks at her mother through the viewfinder of a manual camera as her mother drives. They’ve just...
LSD & Zen by Rue Matthiessen
In 2010, I went with my father to a memorial service at St. Annes, in Bridgehampton. I noticed how confidently he sang the hymns, knowing every cadence, every word. For him they were second nature. I was touched by the quaintness of this. Before, I had only seen him...
A Lil Sumthin’ by Jennifer Keith
The trapper takes $475 to get squirrels out of our attic.It's the first summer of the pandemic, and the squirrels have invaded the roof above the second floor through a gap the soffit. I've heard them running back and forth in the ceiling for days. I look for a...
The Suitcase by Steve Denehan
At the end of our road was a streambeside the stream ran a paththat became dirt and lonelyif followed we were especially aimlessone dull summer daywalking the pathfurther than we had walked before until we came upon a suitcasesitting in the middle of the pathas though...
Will I Forget — by Evalyn Lee
It is your birthday, my birthday, your name,my name, you, my everloving, whatsyourname? Is it inevitable, will I say, as you do, as your motherdid, it is so terrible of me, can you believe it, I forgot it was his birthday? Then, will someone you love,or I love, or he...
Why Does This Not Seem Beautiful?
Because it aches, you say, and the ache is weighty,weighed down, wings stuck in mud. And not just any mud, but mud of late winter, when the film of ice stillfastens and fetters - this something that doesn't seem beautiful. But gorgeous, yes? That sunlit field...
About Me
Free State Review is a literary journal that comes out every 8 months. Want to know what we're into? Peruse our site and/or order a copy, then hit us up!Recent Issue
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Issue 16 $10.61