“Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties [she did] and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations. Our bright natures fight in us with this yeasty darkness, and neither part is commonly quite victorious, for we are divided against ourselves.”
Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
When does a presence become a force to be reckoned with? A few years ago, I became aware of Stephanie Dickinson because her name often appeared in literary magazines. She was a prolific writer, popping up in many places. I’d read a few of her flash pieces, which were strong in imagery, but I’d never read an entire book of her work until now. Her latest collection of short stories, Flashlight Girls Run (
At first I liked the fact that readers could find every one of my books on the shelf at one place. I liked the way Amazon bought directly from the publisher, cutting out Ingram book distributor, which had become a monopoly. But I always wondered how Amazon could sell books so cheap. Now that they’ve put other booksellers out of business and are getting into publishing themselves, Amazon can begin to eliminate less-than-best-selling inventory. 
Some time back I wrote a review of The Conductor, by a writer from New Zealand, Sarah Quigley—the review is available 
Dactyl Review 