Leesa Cross-Smith – Samuel Snoek-Brown

“It’s a real privilege to have talented friends”

Back in spring of 2015, I was looking for fresh material to bring into my composition classroom, and I happened to have a batch of students who were itching to break out of the essay rut and write in response to some literature. So I shared some widely-anthologized essays and some interesting editorials from major newspapers, butContinue reading ““It’s a real privilege to have talented friends””

Fiction and friends in three states

This book tour has been a wonderful whirlwind, gang, and I’m still playing catch-up on all the fun events I’ve been involved in! So allow me to take you on the fantastic finale of my tour of the Midwest, from Indiana through Kentucky and back into Ohio: After my Indianapolis gig, I drove south to NewContinue reading “Fiction and friends in three states”

Every Kiss a War, from Leesa Cross-Smith

I just bought Leesa Cross-Smith‘s debut story collection, Every Kiss a War, out from Mojave River Press. I was going to buy this book anyway, because I’m a fan of Cross-Smith’s work, both in terms of her own fiction and in terms of her fantastic literary magazine, WhiskeyPaper. (I had a story in WhiskeyPaper aContinue reading “Every Kiss a War, from Leesa Cross-Smith”