I recently read Sigrid Nunez’s The Vulnerables. (2023 by Riverhead Books). Imagine being a writer in New York City early in the pandemic, wandering the streets in guilty enjoyment, not having to do your regular work, but house sitting for a pregnant friend who is unable to return home in time for her delivery. Add to this the fact that the comfortable apartment is not the only thing that needs care. There is a parrot, Eureka, living in one of the rooms, a young unhoused student with previous connection to the home arrives to stay, and in a moment of compassion you loan your own home to a doctor treating pandemic patients.

There are so many reasons to love being on the SHARK REEF editorial board! We have front row access to marvelous writing and art, and we get to support writers and artists. I imagine each story, essay, poem, and work of art as a glimmer of light in the darkness, and am reminded of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.” (Also quoted by Willy Wonka, in case you’re wondering where else you heard the sentiment.)

Here’s what SHARK REEF editors have been reading lately.

Here’s some of what SHARK REEF editors have been reading in recent weeks.

Here’s what some of SHARK REEF’s editors have been enjoying in recent weeks. Managing Editor Stephanie Barbé Hammer I am reading and loving two incredible poetry collections and a gorgeous novel. The Store-House of Wonder and Astonishment by Sherry Mossafer Rind (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2021) uses the persona poem to explore natural history from a […]

Here’s what some of SHARK REEF’s editors have been enjoying in recent weeks. Stephanie Barbé Hammer Managing Editor Stephanie just finished and loved the novel Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peers a gorgeous, moving, funny, and insightful novel about gender and she’s still savoring the beautifully devastating poems in Romaine Washington’s chapbook Purgatory Has An Address. […]

Here’s what some of SHARK REEF’s editors have been enjoying in recent weeks. Stephanie Barbé Hammer Managing Editor Stephanie just finished Natashia Deón’s ambitious multigenerational novel Grace (Counterpoint, 2017). Grace is at once a bildungsroman, a fabulist tale of hauntings, and a powerful feminist exploration of Black women’s struggles in the South before, during and […]