35MM, A Musical Exhibition: A Conversation with Ryan Scott Oliver

Ryan Scott Oliver is a 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient and wrote the music and lyrics forMrs. Sharp, the song cycle Out of My Head, Quit India, and the music for Angus Oblong’s The Debbies. His new musical, 35mm (based on the photography of Matthew Murphy) premieres March 7. More at http://www.35mmTheMusical.com/tickets/. *** UFR: Your new song cycle is 35mm, a […]

Alabama Card Table: Arts and Literature from the Deep South: Episode 1.3: The Richard Yates House

This is the latest in Greg Houser’s Alabama Card Table: Arts and Literature from the Deep South. To go to the column page, please click here. Richard Yates, author of “Revolutionary Road”, lived in Tuscaloosa Alabama from 1990 until his death in 1992. Today I talk to Danilo John Thomas and Ashley Gorham about what […]

Review: If You Knew Suzy

The Reviewed: If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman The Reviewer: Judy Clement Wall *** At first I thought it was funny, and then completely appropriate, that the words I’d use to describe If You Knew Suzy don’t fit together nicely in a sentence. Words like unflinching, hilarious, detached, intimate, charming, heartbreaking. Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine […]

I Write from My Beginnings: A Conversation with Ethel Rohan

Ethel Rohan is the author of Hard to Say (PANK, 2011) and Cut Through the Bone (Dark Sky Books, 2010) the latter named a 2010 Notable Story Collection by The Story Prize.Her work has or will appear in World Literature Today, The Irish Times, The Chattahoochee Review, Los Angeles Review, Potomac Review and Southeast Review Online, among many others. She earned her MFA in fiction from Mills […]

“A Sonnet of Invented Memories” by Miles Walser

1. I told you that I was a roadway of potholes, not safe to cross. You said nothing, showed up in my driveway wearing roller-skates. 2. The first time I asked you on a date, after you hung up, I held the air between our phones against my ear and whispered, “You will fall in […]

“Stealing Bic” by Laurence Pritchard

The father drags the razor along the camber of his jaw, over the nub of his chin, and a tiny red drop pools and hangs there. The stubble is clumped on the razor, forming an ugly trough of hair. Hot water from the tap blasts the blob into the sink and he cleans his hands, […]

“Aokigahara Mistake” by Jimmy Chen



When my therapist encouraged me to draw again, for the fourth or so consecutive time, met by reluctance and deflated weariness of art in general, he didn’t think his patient’s first attempt would be of a suicide in Aokigahara, a forest in Japan also known as the “Sea of Trees,” the second most popular place […]

“Sugar Love: Dispatches from A Coming Out Party” by Judy Clement Wall

As I sit down to write this essay, Sugar’s coming out party is still a few hours away but by the time you read this, everyone will know that Sugar is Cheryl Strayed. To be honest, although I’ve known Sugar’s identity for a while, I’m not sure exactly how I feel about her coming out. […]

Katie Eisenberg’s Famous Battle Cries: “Spotted”

This is the latest in Katie Eisenberg’s Famous Battle Cries of Medieval Germany (And Other Stuff I’m Not Qualified to Talk About). To go to the column page, please click here. At that point, I helped my mother look for a dress. (“Where’d she lose it?” Ha! Ha! I’m sorry, I disgust myself sometimes.) I […]

Big Feelings in Small Moments: A Conversation with Jason Anderson

Jason Anderson is an American musician and songwriter. Formerly a member of Wolf Colonel, his recent albums include The Hopeful and the Unafraid, Life Sucks Love Sucks Dose Out, On the Street, New England, Tonight, Thug Poet and Summer Style. You can find him here and here. *** UFR: I’m wondering if you can talk about your songs a […]