Latest Publications

 "Like Hummingbirds," X-R-A-Y (2020)

"Acorns Of Memories," Truffle Literary Magazine (2020)

"Kinetic Electrons," The Art Of Everyone (2020)

"Future Memories Of Love," The Art Of Everyone (2020)

"m • a," The Art Of Everyone (2020)

"Candles And Petals," Bull (2020)

"Rickshaw Wrench And Spoke," The Remnant Archive (2020)

"$1000 To Lose," (mac)ro(mic) (2020)

"Remember Nothing," New Sinews (2020)

"The Magnus Effect," Stymie (2020)

"Photospheric Magnifications," Crack The Spine (2020)

"Wild Wild Wild," Clover & White (2020)

Latest Publications

"Musica Universalis And The Pythagorean Love Song," Terse (2020)

"We Walk Away Like Nothing," Emerge Literary Journal (2020)

"River Streams," Emerge Literary Journal (2020)










"Path Of The Petals," Atlas And Alice (2020)

"Wander Throughout," Parentheses Journal (2020)

"The Eroding Iron Of Memories Replenished," The McNeese Review: Boudin Online (2020)

"Know No Better," Citron Review (2020)

"Bones," Citron Review (2020)

"The Only Way We Know," Cypress: A Poetry Journal (2020)










"Chapel Of Ghosts," Tiny Molecules (2020)









"Except For The Laughing Mouse," Trouvaille Review (2020)

Latest Publications

Latest Publications

"Gabriel García Márquez's Notes From Mardi Gras," McSweeney's Internet Tendency (2019)

"Upon A Sunny Day At Noon," Milk Candy Review (2019)

"Pancakes And Light," Milk Candy Review (2019)

"The Learning Game," Jellyfish Review (2019)

"Elliott Smith," The Big Other (Drawings, 2019)

"Molly Gaudry's Desire: A Haunting," Necessary Fiction (Book Review, 2019)

"Harnessed Above The Earth," Menacing Hedge (2019)

"The Rabbit's Entrance," Menacing Hedge (2019)

Recent Book Publications: Pretend I Am Someone You Like | Mute

Pretend I Am Someone You Like (University of West Alabama's Livingston Press, 2018)

Mute (Tolsun Books, 2018)

Finding Magic In Kolkata: An Interview With The Current Magazine

Took part in an interview with The Current Magazine, where I write about my time spent in Kolkata, India, my background, Cajun culture, Langston Hughes, and their influences on my collection, Anklet And Other Stories. Please click here for the interview.

A story from the collection, "Samosa," can also be found in the same publication. Please click here for the story. Thanks to Christiaan Mader for such thoughtful questions and for writing a bit about Anklet And Other Stories.

Big Thanks To UL-Lafayette For Mentioning Anklet And Other Stories

Check out #ULalumni Shome Dasgupta’s(’03) new book Anklet & Other Stories on GoodReads. Congrats, @laughingyeti! https://t.co/bM9oNcTq9J pic.twitter.com/NJrpw1CoSq

— UL Lafayette (@ULLafayette) June 7, 2017

Anklet And Other Stories

Anklet And Other Stories (Golden Antelope Press) is now available.

Please click here for more information.

Nicole Dennis-Benn, On Reading

There’s nothing like finding a book that makes me read for hours at a time; one that I look forward to going back to after being away from it for too long, or re-read without hesitation. I have a tendency to linger in bookstores and libraries, browsing titles. While many people fall in love with covers, synopsis, and maybe authors they’re use to reading, I tend to fall in love with first sentences and paragraphs. I like to feel I’m in conversation with the author and the people they write about. More than that, reading fuels my writing, my craft. It’s the only thing that pacifies my anxieties about writing. After completing a project, I like to just relax with reading a well written book with fleshed out characters, reasonable prose, and a good plot. 


{Nicole Dennis-Benn is the author of the highly acclaimed debut novel,HERE COMES THE SUN (Norton/Liveright, July 2016), which has received a starred Kirkus Review and is deemed one of the best books to read this summer and beyond by New York Times, NPR, BBC, BuzzFeed, Book Riot, Bookish, Miami Herald, Elle, O Magazine, Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, Flavorwire, After Ellen, BookPage, Cosmopolitan, Brooklyn Magazine, among others. New York Times Book reviewer, Jennifer Senior describes HERE COMES THE SUN as a “lithe, artfully-plotted debut”; Pulitzer Prize finalist, Laila Lalami, as well as Booklist have deemed it a "fantastic debut"; and Man Booker Prize winner, Marlon James says “[Here Comes the Sun] is a story waiting to be told”. Dennis-Benn has also been recently nominated for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, ELLE Magazine, Electric Literature, Lenny Letter, Catapult, Red Rock Review, Kweli Literary Journal, Mosaic, Ebony, and the Feminist Wire. Nicole Dennis-Benn has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has been awarded fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook, Lambda, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Hurston/Wright, and Sewanee Writers' Conference. Dennis-Benn was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. She lives with her wife in Brooklyn, New York.}

Rien Fertel, On Reading

I am an obsessive completist reader. Which is to say I read much like a collector amasses coins or comic books or rust-covered cast iron pans. I’ll read a book, and if I more than mildly enjoy it, there’s a good chance I’ll move on to another work by the same writer. Often, I’ll even follow an author’s oeuvre in chronological order, watching her/his skills grow then fade over time. I’ll then read a biography, followed by letters and unpublished diaries (I also do this with directors/movies). Last summer I did this with Flannery O’Connor. This summer I’m afraid I’ll do the same with Carson McCullers. Sometimes I convince myself that this is a productive, healthy way to read, and maybe it is. Taking in all that remains of a writer, in a way, allows you to live the life of that writer. But often it feels like a compulsion.

I know where this drive comes from, or at least I think I do. My grandmother read not only constantly but with a similar consistency. During family visits I’d stare up at her tall bookshelves and see all of Agatha Christie, every Dick Francis, each title by James Clavell (she enjoyed breezy, British-y beach reads obviously)—all neatly arranged, like  in a real library, throughout numerous rooms of her house. One summer, after telling her how much I enjoyed reading Pudd’nhead Wilson, she bought me the complete works of Mark Twain, in these matching hardcover volumes that shined so beautiful on my childhood bookshelves. I read all of Twain that summer, from The Innocents Abroad to all the lesser Tom Sawyers. But when the first volume of Twain’s Autobiography was published in 2010 I could not bring myself to complete my collection. Obsessions fade away, often with an intensity matching the way they once burned so bright. Perhaps I’ll return to Twain someday—I might even plow through some Dick Francis!—and that old compulsion could be renewed. But I’m hoping there’s a chance that I can reread Pudd’nhead Wilson and leave it at that. 

{Rien Fertel is the author of Imagining the Creole City and, most recently, The One True Barbecue. He lives in New Orleans.}

Rob Roberge's Liar, A Memoir

Recommended Rob Roberge's memoir, Liar and wrote a review of his latest book over at The Lit Pub.

More information about Rob Roberge can be found here.

Liar is available online, including at Powell's.

Recent Reviews for The Sea Singer

Recent reviews for The Sea Singer can be found in:

Books And Things 

and

Heather Reviews.

The Sea Singer is now available in print in electronic editions through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Accent Press. 

Please See Also:

Goodreads

Facebook Page

Twitter

Cormac McCarthy -- The Orchard Keeper

"The sun was high now, all the green of the morning shot with sunlight, plankton awash in a sea of gold."

Catherine Lacey, On Reading

Writers live in reading. They're reading the odd line in the email repeatedly. They're reading the lines overheard on the street or through the wall. They're reading lyrics as they're sung. They're reading books and stories, of course, because writers write books and stories as a way to process all you've read. And if you're not reading, you're not writing. Like a sink unhooked from pipes, turn the dials all day-- nothing will happen if you don't read.

{Catherine Lacey is the author of Nobody Is Ever Missing. Her work has been recently published in The New York Times, Guernica, Granta, Adult Magazine, Buzzfeed Books and others. She has earned fellowships from NYFA, Columbia University and OMI International Arts Center. Her website can be found here.}

Wendy C. Ortiz, On Reading

I stash them in my bag. I finger their spines. I spread them open and inhale. I move them around with my hands, stack them, sort them. My eyes take them in and my central nervous system responds with just the right combinations of words. Books have always been a welcoming place to me, so I started living with them right away, shacking up with them in my bedroom, reading late into the night. We used to have so much more time together, books and me. Every stolen moment I get now involves reading. Reading books ranks as one of my favorite all-time love affairs, and the best part is it the affair never ever ends.

{Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir (Future Tense Books) and the forthcoming Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, Nov. 2014). She writes the monthly column "On the Trail of Mary Jane," about medical marijuana dispensary culture in Southern California, for McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Her work can be found in The New York Times, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, and many other journals. Visit her at www.wendyortiz.com.}

Brandon Hobson, On Reading

I read as a kid and have great memories of my mom reading to me. I didn't read very much in high school, but in college I started reading pretty heavily. This is also when I started writing fiction. I think it's obvious how important reading is in order to be a good writer. I would rather read than watch TV--in fact, other than sports on occasion, I don't watch much TV at all. I used to stay up late nights watching cable reruns of What's Happening or Dobie Gillis, but I don't do that much anymore. But it means I'm out of the loop when everyone starts talking about Breaking Bad or Mad Men or whatever. I've never watched those shows. There's so much out there I still need to read. Just knowing that is more exciting to me.

{Brandon Hobson is the author of The Levitationist (Ravenna Press) and Deep Ellum (Calamari Press). His novel Desolation of Avenues Untold is forthcoming from Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2015. His work has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, The Believer, NOON, New York Tyrant, Post Road, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. You can read more about him here.}

Anna David, On Reading

One of the greatest gifts my family gave me was a love for reading. My mom and I would lie around, side by side, reading our respective books from the time I was a little girl. Even though she was getting her PhD in English and reading 18th century literature and I was reading Judy Blume, she always told me that what I read wasn’t important so long as I had a love for reading. I did—and still do. Reading is also, I believe, one of the only ways to get better at writing. Writing classes can be great when the teacher and students are just right but in my experience, that is rarely the case. If you’re reading something you love, it’s always just right.

My biggest problem with reading is that I have to be moderately obsessed with a book to want to finish; if I’m not looking forward to picking it up again with something of a passion, I’ll sometimes just abandon it part of the way through. But I look at reading the same way I do exercise or eating well: it’s important to find what you love about it so it can remain a pleasure and not be a chore.

{Anna David is the author of Party Girl, Bought, Reality Matters, Falling For Me, By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There and True Tales of Lust and Love. Her website can be found here.}

Dancing On Glass | Susan Taylor Chehak

Dancing on Glass
by Susan Taylor Chehak

Triplines | Leonard Chang

Triplines
By Leonard Chang

Runaway Dish Culinary Journal Vol. 3

The Barbecue And Film Issue

"...just really incredible food experiences that expand, enhance, and celebrate our entire community." 

The Allen Ginsberg Project

The Mystery of the Inner Moonlight

In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods | Matt Bell

"Drown yourself away, my wife sang, and despite my want to stay I found myself again outside the house, for against the fury of her song my horror held neither strength nor will nor strategy."

--In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods by Matt Bell 

Belle Journal Volume I

With a mantra that rises from the soul of a sometimes forgotten land and a tenacity instilled by those that came before, Belle Journal emerges as a home for the voices of “alternative” southern belles. Based in Baton Rouge, La., this new literary journal features prose, poetry and visual art from women all over the South.

Runaway Dish

Runaway Dish is a private, not-for-profit organization with a mission to promote the creative culinary talents and resources that thrive in Southern Louisiana while raising funds for various local charities.

Runaway Dish Culinary Journal Vol. 2:




Runaway Dish Culinary Journal Vol. 1:

Each themed dinner will spotlight a different chef and a different charity.

Puerto del Sol | Volume 48 | Number 1

Alongside the works of:

Matt Bell,
Steven Ramirez,
Robin Lee Jordan,
James O'Brien,
Brenda Rankin,
Lisa Estus,
Sonya Huber,
Julia Cohen,
Joelle Biele,
T Kira Madden,
Jennifer Buxton,
Max Somers,
Britt Melewski,
Matthew Wimberley,
Sheryl Luna,
Dani Sandal,
Eric Morris,
George David Clark,
Noah Eli Gordon,
Myronn Hardy,
Catherine Kasper,
David Romanda,
Nora Hickey,
Sally Wen Mao,
Megan M. Wong,
Kelsie Hahn,
Sessily Watt, and
Jeanine Deibel,

"Went The Bite" can be found in Puerto del Sol (Volume 48, Number 1).

Puerto del Sol (Volume 48, Number 1) is now available for preorder.