A review of Lauren K. Watel’s collection of hybrid poetic forms.
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All articles filed in Barbette
Barbette Houser is a textile artist who relocated to Richmond, Virginia from Athens, Georgia, where she wrote about the arts for Flagpole Magazine. A recent graduate of the Queens University MFA program in Creative Writing, she now writes for The Southern Review of Books.
The Humanity and Humor of “Origin Stories”
At a lecture she gave recently at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the world-renowned curator Ronni Baers juxtaposed images of two self-portraits: one by Gerrit Dou and one by Rembrandt. In the former, the artist sits within a grand imaginary niche, elegantly clutching the tools of his trade. A rich woven carpet hangs to…
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“Half-Lives” Exalts the Middle-Aged Woman-Artist
A review of “Half-Lives” by Lynn Schmeidler.
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“Sipsworth”: A Slender, Powerful Novel
A charming, uplifting novel featuring a grief-stricken widow befriended by a mouse that even cute-averse readers cannot resist.
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Julia Ridley Smith’s “Sex Romp Gone Wrong” Doesn’t Just Tease; It Delivers
A favorite writing teacher, one particularly enamored with short stories, once told me never to approach a collection with the expectation that all, or even most, will be good. He’d said one, two tops, is all you can reasonably ask for. Not every story in “Sex Romp Gone Wrong” carries emotional heft or grace, but a surprising number of them come close and are destined to be read again and again.
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