A LINE OF CUTTING WOMEN

paper 0-934971-62-5 Thirty-seven stories, drawn from two decades— worth of issues of CALYX: A Journal of Art and Literature By Women, demonstrate both how important a role the journal has played in providing a venue for both unknown and well-established writers, and how sharp its editorial eyes have been. There are superb tales here by such familiar figures as Julia Alvarez (the affecting “Now World”), Linda Hogan (“Crow”), and Alicia Ostriker (“Esther, or The World Turned Upside Down”), as well as stunning work by less well-known writers, including M. Evelina Galang’s —Her Wild American Self— and Hollis Seamon’s —Gypsies in the Place of Pain.— The volume takes its title from a fierce, sad tale by Rita Marie Nibasa, about the ways in which love and violence often mingle. Because the stories are by women from a number of cultures, and because the tales embrace so many kinds of narrative views (from the grimly documentary to magic realism), the collection provides a useful overview of the large, diverse, often angry and usually vital work being produced by a new, and markedly varied, generation of women writers. First-rate short fiction.