Barbara Krasner’s “The Newcomer”

Barbara Krasner’s “The Newcomer” masterfully tells the story of a Polish Holocaust survivor as he navigates a shy new love in America. Leo’s memories of the wife and daughters he lost to Bełżec are skillfully superimposed onto Bella, a survivor who escaped the same camp. “The Newcomer” is realistic study of small victories that is as naturally sweet as Bella’s sugarless cake. – FOLIO

Zeke Shomler’s “Velvet”

Artfully utilizing a 21st century American form created by Terrence Hayes in honor of Gwendolyn Brooks, the poet builds a scaffolding of found end words that temper the anxieties of a younger man and amplify the urgency of the century we are living through. “Velvet” meets the form, inhabits it, then shuts the poem’s door leaving just a hint of moonlight. – Majda Gama

Kamsy Anyachebelu’s “Recipe for a Gifted Child”

Anyachebelu’s work is a searing memoir of the ongoing traumas of whiteness and colonialism. The hermit crab essay and the author’s incisive prose make an ideal container for the soft underbelly of family, struggle and resistance. Using a recipe to “cook” a gifted child, Anyachebelu’s prose takes us from Lagos to Ithaca, a nuanced account of the toll to belong and the fraught markers of academic success. – Nandini Sikand

Two Masks in Paradise

Ocean Daughter

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