The Word for Light
Tonight, when I strike a match in my kitchen and say, lehadlik ner shel Chanukkah— the word for light catches in my throat like a bone. Blessed are You— You…
Amanda RůžičkováAuthor of 65 Articles
Poet in Prague, Midwest-born, fluent in reinvention. Living with stage IV lung cancer and too many unread books. Writing with love and uncertainty—chasing meaning and the everyday beauty that survives
The Missing Room
I'm writing because I cannot leave. The front door opens—I've tried— but when I step through I wake in the cellar, neck stiff, knees bruised,…
The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran
Content Warnings: death, murder, violence, blood, vampirism, suicide, loneliness and social isolation, aging and elderly characters, queer longing and unfulfilled desire, grief, period-typical homophobia (1980s flashbacks), emotional manipulation At its core, this is a book about the kind of loneliness that persists even in a life filled with relationships. I read it on honeymoon—almost a year late because of cancer treatments—and understood immediately what Cheon Seon-Ran's vampires were hunti…
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
First, the reviewer's bare minimum: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is one of the best books I've read this year. It's Stephen Graham Jones at his most ambitious—a 448-page historical horror novel that uses the vampire as a lens to examine genocide and survival.…
Storm Leave
When the clouds gather in their covens, when the rain drums its feral rhythm, when lightning scrawls its sigils on the dark— the storm calls. You would choose the stale-air…
Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
It takes every lie, every slick manipulation, and turns them to tools—dismantling her life with a butcher's systematic attention to the joints. It's *The Ring* with receipts, and the bottom line is brutal.…