East West Literary Forum

Nina Kossman's East West Literary Forum is one of the most intriguing translation journals publishing award-winning writers from Russia, Ukraine, Chechnya, and beyond. Polina Zherebstovna's "Zaina" is a Chechnyan short story is a recent publication that held my attention. It was first published by a Russian-language house in Switzerland, and its author began writing what became an acclaimed diary of the war in Chechnya when she was only nine years old.

Eclectica Magazine's 30th Anniversary

 

Eclectica Magazine's 30th anniversary anthologies are taking shape.

Rick Steves's On the Hippy Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer

In the early a.m., I finished Rick Steves's On the Hippy Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer, and I'd describe it as a fun, glossy memoir or travel narrative. Others would say that it is primarily a collection of journals. In any event, the journey from Southeastern Europe through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal occurred in 1978, only a year before the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Reading it reminded me of reading several of Paul Theroux's travel narratives early in the pandemic after only having read one of his brother Alexander's novels previously. It's good to get away, and travel writers offer an opportunity to do so when we're anchored in domestic environs.

Kathmandu

 

~~ from On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves

the Poet Laureate of Generation X

"Tonight, I'm thinking that Michael Robbins is the Poet Laureate of Generation X. / I wonder if that's been said before or how often about Robbins or any other writer"

~~ Alex Kudera on Goodreads, August 16, 2026

A revised version:

"I'm thinking that Michael Robbins may be the Poet Laureate of Generation X. I wonder if that's been said before or how often about Robbins or any other writer."

~~ Alex Kudera, August 26, 2026

A second revised version:

"I'm thinking that Michael Robbins may be the Poet Laureate of Nixon babies. I wonder if that's been said before or how often about Robbins or any other writer."

~~ Alex Kudera, August 26, 2026

In India, time is like bubble gum

~~ from On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves

 

John Keene

Enjoy this engaging discussion between John Keene and host Mark de Silva. It's at various points, intellectual, intense, animated, spirited, warm, and even joyful. You won't want to miss the writing life or this show.

serious lit

Dmitriy Kogan's serious-lit published an early masterpiece.

The Guicciardini Way

Alexandra Naughton's Be About It Press published "The Guicciardini Way," an excerpt from A School of the Future.

Hugh Blanton's review of Auggie's Revenge

Hugh Blanton smiles and laughs like he enjoyed the novel, and he offers insight into the book as well. There are several ways to acquire an affordable copy as an e-book or paperback.

Michael Robbins lists deceased musicians

 

~~ "Not Fade Away" in The Second Sex, a collection of poems by Michael Robbins

they haven't ended

"But never attend / to happy endings—because if stories are happy, / they haven't ended."

~~ from "Ric's Progress" in The Back Chamber by Donald Hall

Rick Harsch, rare edition

Rick Harsch's signed second novel in "fine" or "as new" condition is a rare find.

Walkman

"You gotta make your own / spark, like those red lamps / on the ocean floor / that illuminate their prey / right before they attack."

~~ from "In Time of Plague" in Walkman by Michael Robbins

Later his leg died.

"[Daddy] had worked in a steel mill for over thirty years and had contracted emphysema. Emphysema and fits. And a brain tumor. He discovered he had a brain tumor during the course of a hospital stay because of the emphysema and the doctors wanted to operate. At first he refused. Nobody cuts my family, he insisted. But my sisters and my brother and I fussed and fussed until he finally agreed to it. They removed a tumor about the size of an orange from his brain and he was up and out of the hospital in a matter of weeks. And just the same. We saw no difference in him.

"Later his leg died. Just shriveled up and turned black and died and the doctors said that they had to amputate it or the death would spread throughout his body. And so he let them cut it off and he got a cane. He would smile and point to the empty place. Yeah, they got my leg but they didn't get me, he would boast."

~~ from Good Woman: Poetry and a Memoir 1969--1980 by Lucille Clifton

conversations with my mother and arguments with my father

"My father had been living with cancer for a while. He'd been in palliative care since August. In my mind, it was the worry of looking after him that saw off my ma. When she passed, her homecooked meals went with her. There was a stack of them in the chest freezer, labelled with cooking instructions. I remember serving my dad the last one, a lasagne, telling him 'a'ght, enjoy it because this is it.' He looked at me like he didn't believe a word of what I'd just said. The old man had always been a little peevish, but after my ma was gone he got downright irritable, the same way that a little boy gets irritable when he don't get what he wants. I'd seen him like that a few times before when he'd been drinking, which he didn't do too often. He wasn't no alcoholic like I am. He died on Valentine's Day, 2022. It was after his funeral when it first occurred to me that I literally had no one left to talk to. I used to have conversations with my mother and arguments with my father. Within a little over two months, suddenly I had neither."

~~ from A Reminder by Sam Redlark

Greetings from Rick in Slovenia

Rick Harsch's Rick & Jack in Croatia is one of five Corona\Samizdat titles I've read. The others were by Gary Amdahl, Roberto Arlt, W.C. Clarke, and João Reis.

the first person from our church to go to college

"A week before we were to move I was to leave for Washington. The church gave a reception for me, the first person from our church to go to college, and everybody brought gifts and laughed and new that I would make good. But I left Howard after two years. Lost my scholarship because I didn't study. I didn't have to, I thought. I didn't have to know about science and geography and things that I didn't want to know. I was a Dahomey woman. And so I came home to a disappointed and confused Mama and Daddy who was furious and defensive and sad."

~~ from Good Woman: Poetry and a Memoir 1969--1980 by Lucille Clifton

Rick Harsch's friends offer tribute and reflection

A good number of literary friends and acquaintances acknowledged Rick Harsch's passing: W.D. Clarke, author of two of Rick's Corona\Samizdat titles; Louis Armand, author of The Combinations and Rick's literary friend in Central Europe who broke the news for most of us; Art Winslow, former literary editor at The Nation; Tom Bowden who posted an extensive interview with Rick; Draxtor, patron and reader; avid reader and gardener Shoba at Substack; poet Bob Black; and the folks at Equus Press. 

I've read four or five Corona\Samizdat titles including Rick's slim Rick & Jack in Croatia. Rick and I were not close friends, but we had exchanged many emails, and he'd read all or substantial portions of both Fight for Your Long Day and the unpublished Spark Park: A Tale in Two Parts. He told me in one of the last emails I received from him that he was "trying to do too much"; publishing one of my books moved off the table only four to six weeks before Rick's initial serious medical event, and then Louis Armand seems to be telling us that Rick never left the room where he was recovering from the stroke and coma. He lived in that room for close to a year, but before that, he had an amazing run. He was published by traditional presses more than several times before he began producing his own books, sold the rights to The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas to Zerogram Press, and launched W.D. Clarke and others into print for the first time as novelists.

Rick Harsch was an incredibly prolific author and publisher—a genuinely dedicated man of letters. Rick & Jack in Croatia is a slim memoir that partly concerns two of the greatest literary topics of all—at least according to the famous Irishman who passed through Trieste, like Rick, on the way to literary notoriety. I'm hopeful that Louis Armand or Rick's family will be able to liberate the remaining Corona\Samizdat titles. Rick contracted with a traditional small business who printed batches of books; he was not at all keen on print-on-demand or many of the other latest publishing gimmicks and trends—so when the remaining books become available, I will be sure to post news of it here.

Rick Harsch, rest in peace

Author and publisher Rick Harsch passed on. At present, I do not have details other than that he had pneumonia but seemed to be doing well, all things considered, as he continued to recover from a stroke and various complications from the initial medical event. The books I most associate with him are The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas, America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic, and Robert Arlt's The Seven Madmen and The Flamethrowers, although Rick wrote or published many more than that. Rick Harsch, rest in peace.

a white child crying like that

"My father / fit a slim, ragged hand over the head of my newborn son / and said he sounds like a white child crying like that."

 ~~ from "Snow for Wallace Stevens" in Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

Wallace Stevens

"This song is for my foe, / the clean-shaven, gray-suited, gray patron / of Hartford, the emperor of whiteness / blue as a body made of snow."

~~ from "Snow for Wallace Stevens" in Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

Z.H. Gill's "Ladies' Night" Success

Last Wednesday evening's Zoom reading was entertaining, engaging, and extremely well attended. Readers included Lilly Merrill, Kelly Erin Gray, Alexandra Naughton, Ursula Carroll, C. Hightower, Kristin Lueke, and Carly Zoldaz.

The Poems of Jay Roberts

Grab a copy to go!