A Writing Tip by Nathaniel Popkin STAY IN THE NOW My editor and dear friend Ann de Forest knows my writing better than I do—especially when I’m being imprecise, obtuse, or long-winded. She straightens my metaphors, shortens my sentences, and…
A Writing Tip by Autumn Konopka IN DEFENSE OF IMPERFECTION Beside my desk, I have a collage made from rejection emails I’ve received over the years. No, thank you. We’re unable to accept your work at this time. This just…
Fiction reviewed by Danielle Henson The Nature of Humans and Other Beings in Dave Housley’s ALIENS ATTACK! (Mason Jar Press) If you’ve ever watched an apocalypse sci-fi movie, you’ve likely also tried to picture yourself in the characters’ positions. Maybe…
A Writing Tip by Alan S. Kolok NESTED FOLDERS: A PRACTICAL APPROACH FOR IMPULSIVE SUBMITTERS When I write flash fiction, I get impulsive. I can write a piece in a few hours, then, while it is still fresh and exciting,…
Interview by Benjamin Woodard A CONVERSATION WITH MELANIE PAPPADIS FARANELLO, AUTHOR OF EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMETHING (University of Georgia Press) Melanie Pappadis Faranello’s debut story collection, Everybody Needs Something, winner of the 2025 Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, is…
A Writing Tip by Michael Hardin CHART YOUR OWN PATH About forty years ago, the poet Cynthia McDonald told me I was a much better reader than writer. I think she meant it as a compliment, but it’s been one…
Nonfiction by Jeannine A. Cook, reviewed by Jo Ann Zimmerman SHUT UP AND READ: A MEMOIR FROM HARRIETT’S BOOKSHOP (Amistad Books) In March of 2020, Walmart workers became essential, toilet paper disappeared, and we all forgot to unmute ourselves on…
A Writing Tip by Sharon White IT’S OKAY TO CHOOSE WELL-BEING OVER BRANDING For me writing is not a business. It’s an adventure and should be fun along with everything else. I suppose I made a decision when I was…
Interview by Joy Manning A CONVERSATION WITH NATHANIEL POPKIN, AUTHOR OF PARTLY STRONG, PARTLY BROKEN (New Door Books) In Nathaniel Popkin’s fourth novel, Partly Strong, Partly Broken, a progressive rabbi tries to hold her community together in the month leading…
A Writing Tip by Cathy Adams PRUNE YOUR WRITING HABITS After winter, new life emerges, fully cognizant of the mistakes of the previous season. That’s a distinct advantage—to carry the slate of the past with the freedom to erase the…
Interview by Anne Anthony A CONVERSATION WITH FIONA MCKAY, AUTHOR OF THE LIVES OF THE DEAD (Ad Hoc Fiction) Based in Dublin, Ireland, Fiona McKay is a lawyer-turned-author who has become a prolific writer of flash fiction over the past…
A Writing Tip by Autumn Konopka GET THEE TO A LIBRARY I still remember the smell of my childhood library: a mix of old paper, compulsory quiet, and possibility. I was a kid who loved to read—but I also had…
Poetry by Fred Dale, reviewed by Andres Rojas SAY, SAID (Driftwood Press) To the casual observer, the Mississippi River flows past New Orleans as peaceful and composed as a queen in her progress, yet its currents move surprisingly fast for…
A Writing Tip by Gin Coleman POLLINATE YOUR PROSE Mississippians joke that we only have two seasons down here. Summer and More Summer. Just when we think we’re having Winter, it is sun-surface hot again. But that is not necessarily…
Inside The Wire Nonfiction by Heather Sweeney, reviewed by Krista Puttler CAMOUFLAGE: HOW I EMERGED FROM THE SHADOWS OF A MILITARY MARRIAGE (Knox Press) The word camouflage can be traced back to the 14th century Italian word camuffare, which means…
A Writing Tip by Valerie Berton BUILDING YOUR BEST BIO Every writer needs a good bio. I’d argue you need a great bio. Pretty much every literary magazine requests a contributor bio, and most editors really do want to know…
APRIL FOOLS!!! Cleaver going to fully AI “literature”? NOT A CHANCE! We’re committed to publishing the finest, cutting-edge literature, but we DO NOT consider AI-generated or AI-assisted work. Cleaver is here for the fully diverse spectrum of fully HUMAN voices.…
A Writing Prompt by Sarah Freligh WHAT CONDITION MY CONDITION WAS IN The conditional tense—sometimes called the conditional mood—is a wonderful way to explore and convey the great big holy “if” of a character’s life in both fiction and nonfiction.…
A Writing Tip by Eileen Toomey PREP WORK It’s spring, which means it’s time to repaint the fence—again. I couldn’t bring myself to do it last year; there’s the scraping, the bleach solution for the mold that crept in over…
Poetry by Zoë Ryder White, reviewed by Eleanor Ball THE VISIBLE FIELD (River River Books) Zoë Ryder White’s poetry is like when you push open a window, lean against the sill, and a breeze rustles in. As it plays with…
Interview by Joy Manning A CONVERSATION WITH CHLOE N. CLARK, AUTHOR OF EVERY GALAXY A CIRCLE (JackLeg Press) In the short story collection Every Galaxy a Circle (JackLeg Press), Chloe N. Clark’s characters encounter memory-erasure programs, zombie pandemics, time-travel tourism,…
A Writing Tip by Rebecca Entel ADD A MONKEY Award-winning writer and artist Lynda Barry tells us, “When I start feeling too concerned that all the words I write be very smart and about something worthwhile, I find my urge…
Diana Friedman & Valerie Berton USING THE HERMIT CRAB FORM FOR DIFFICULT MATERIAL Hermit crabs don’t naturally have shells, so they spend their lives seeking vacated shells as they grow, then make them their own to protect their soft and…
Jen Mathy GIVE THEM YOUR BEST SHOT The dreaded author photo. For many of us, it’s a hassle, a distraction, even a conceit. Writing your bio, taking an author photo…those acts lay bare your ambition, if to no one else…
Fiction by Cristina Rivera Garza translated by Christina MacSweeney, reviewed by Dylan Cook AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COTTON (Graywolf Press) Years ago, my grandmother showed me a dried out twig studded with fluffy, white bolls of cotton. She explained how she used…
Krista Puttler A LITTLE SECRET Sometimes the first draft is… the one. Okay, before you throw your red pens at me (you still print out your drafts and edit by hand, don’t you?), hear me out. Obviously, the first draft…
Nonfiction by Kate Zambreno, reviewed by Anthony Brown ANIMAL STORIES (Transit Books) Somewhere between the latest Crumbl cookie line-up and a bombed-out building, I pause my scroll to look at Moo Deng, the plump pygmy hippo that first went viral…
Sawyer Lovett FOUR WRITING TIPS IT’S SAFE TO IGNORE Write every day. Who has the time in late stage capitalism? There are a myriad of reasons this might not be possible for everyone, especially for marginalized people, parents, and people…
Autumn Konopka A PROMPT FOR THE REST OF US A few years ago, Cleaver’s Newsletter Editor Layla Murphy offered a prompt for those among us who aren’t necessarily inspired by the holiday season. This year, I’ve decided to steal inspiration…
Nonfiction edited by Mirha-Soleil Ross, reviewed by Willow CampbellGENDERTRASH FROM HELL (LittlePuss Press) From 1993 to 1995, four issues of the zine Gendertrash From Hell were assembled and distributed by genderpress, a project of Canadian activists Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra…
A Writing Tip by Polly Walker Blakemore CLEAN THE HOUSE. CLEAR AWAY WRITER’S BLOCK. I loathe being creatively blocked, but I have a few strategies for dealing with it. Sometimes the most effective is doing something that has nothing to…
Interview by Julian Shendelman A CONVERSATION WITH WARREN R. BASLA, Author of The Blade of Milan (Winged Victory) The Blade of Milan, set in 13th-century Italy, follows Rebecca Guarna as she carves her way free of a gritty past and…
Sharon White THINK LIKE AN ARCHITECT I’ve been thinking about architecture a lot lately. Probably because I’ve been watching Grand Designs on BritBox to wind down after dinner. The houses are amazing inventions that jut out over gullies, or along…
Fiction by Anu Kandikuppa, reviewed by Emily Webber THE CONFINES (Veliz Books) I was initially drawn to Anu Kandikuppa’s debut, The Confines—a short story collection about women in India and the U.S. facing cultural restrictions and a male-dominated hierarchy—because I…
Interview by Autumn Konopka IT’LL PROBABLY GET WORSE: A Conversation with Poet Leonard Gontarek, Author of Ain’t No Angel Gonna Greet Me (BlazeVOX [books]) For more than 20 years, I’ve known Leonard Gontarek as a staple of the Philadelphia poetry…
Marnie Goodfriend THE PERMISSION TO FORGET WHEN WRITING THROUGH PERSONAL TRAUMA A few years ago, I visited Homosassa, Florida, after my mother’s death. She disappeared from my life when I was 12, so I didn’t know much about the life…
Nonfiction by Maddie Ballard, reviewed by Ellen Prentiss Campbell PATCHWORK: A SEWIST’S DIARY (Tin House) Maddie Ballard’s debut, the memoir Patchwork: A Sewist’s Diary, offers extended reflection on a significant recent period in the author’s life. Using spare first-person prose,…
A Writing Tip by Tim Weed UNLOCK NEW ENERGY WITH MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEW Point of view is one of the most important choices a novelist makes, yet many writers don’t give it the attention it deserves. The wrong choice…
Interview by Autumn Konopka YOU CAN ONLY BE ONE PERSON: A Conversation About Vulnerability vs. Pseudonyms with Memoirist Nicole Dubois Nicole DuBois considered herself “the quintessential twenty-first century liberated woman”—a successful professional, self-sufficient individual, devoted mother, committed wife. By the…
Fiction by Banu Mushtaq translated by Deepa Bhasthi, reviewed by Mehruba Chowdhury HEART LAMP (And Other Stories) As a Muslim woman, I am frequently frustrated by the way Western media perceives and portrays our lives, often obscuring the complex realities…
Farin Martinez WHEN THE PAGE GOES BLANK: HOW WALKING UNLOCKS NARRATIVE Your protagonist won’t move. Your plot problem sits immobile on the page, and despite hours of desk time, you cannot write your way through it. You’ve tried outlining. You’ve…
Poetry by Carissa Natalia Baconguis, reviewed by Adam Michael Finney SACRED AND PERISHABLE (Nine Syllables Press) In Sacred and Perishable, Carissa Natalia Baconguis, elevates queer friendship through the story of Carlos and Dian. With a non-linear narrative arc that oscillates…
Interview by Amy Beth Sisson GO ABOVE YOUR NERVE: An Interview With Linda Norton About Cloud Of Witnesses: Essays, Poems, Collages (BlazeVOX [books]) Linda Norton’s latest book, Cloud of Witnesses: Essays, Poems, Collages, contains essays about life, literature, and writing;…
Interview by Abby Alten Schwartz A CONVERSATION WITH JOCELYN JANE COX, AUTHOR OF MOTION DAZZLE (Vine Leaves Press) Motion dazzle: a form of camouflage found in nature, where high-contrast patterns, like a zebra’s stripes, confuse predators by distorting the perception…
A Writing Tip by Autumn Konopka BE A GOOD READER To be a good writer, you must first be a good reader. This advice is so ubiquitous, it’s almost trite. But what exactly does it mean to be a good…
Interview by Jamie Li A CONVERSATION WITH CORA LEWIS, AUTHOR OF INFORMATION AGE (Joyland Editions) Reading Cora Lewis’ writing made me think of the James Baldwin quote about writing “a sentence as clean as a bone.” The prose in her…
Fiction by Natalie Bakopoulos, reviewed by Ellen Prentiss Campbell ARCHIPELAGO (Tin House) Natalie Bakopoulos’s third novel Archipelago operates on one level as an ontological journey story. On another level, it’s a mystery. Above all, Archipelago is a continuous meditation on…
Nonfiction by Oliver Radclyffe, reviewed by Beth Johnston FRIGHTEN THE HORSES: A MEMOIR (Roxane Gay Books) Frighten the Horses, Oliver Radclyffe’s poised and witty memoir of gender transition, opens in a Manhattan barbershop, as he gets a shave and basks…
Fiction by Julian Zabalbeascoa, reviewed by Collin Kim WHAT WE TRIED TO BURY GROWS HERE (Two Dollar Radio) In the opening pages of Julian Zabalbeascoa’s debut novel What We Tried to Bury Grows Here, young Isidro Elejalde leaves his Basque…
Lori Miller Kase THE BEAUTY OF EMPTY SPACE In Japanese flower arrangement—ikebana—the space between flowers and branches is as important as the stems and blossoms themselves. The Japanese term for this negative space is yohaku no bi, which translates to…