Hayden's Ferry Review

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Contributor Spotlight: B.J. Hollars

When I began writing “The Year of the Great Forgetting,” I didn’t yet know the cause of my son’s ailment. We were still in the thick of it then, still held captive by the uncertainty of the mystery we could not solve. What, after all, was the cause of his continuous low-grade fever? Was it cancerous, infectious, or merely a misstep courtesy of a couple of overprotective parents?

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A Cup of Coffee With Dexter L. Booth (Interview by Kevin Hanlon)

Dexter L. Booth showed up late, frazzled, and having just come from the preparation committee meeting for a friend’s surprise birthday party. He apologized, and we laughed. Planning surprise birthday parties alone would be enough work for most people, but Booth keeps busy and uses every second of the day to his advantage.

A couple of years ago, Booth was still polishing his manuscript and hard at work getting his writing published. “I entered it into a bunch of contests,” he says, “That’s kind of what you do. You enter, you wait, and you just hope someone likes your stuff.”

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Where Are They Now: An Interview with Past Contributors (Part 2)

With fifty-three issues published, nearly twenty-five hundred contributors accepted and tens of thousands of submissions read, we start to wonder where our previous contributors have run off to. Fortunately, I was able to catch up with a few of them, and we were able to go through a round-table discussion of questions and answers in order to find out what some of them have been up to!

Here's part two of our interview, featuring: Anthony Varallo, a fiction contributor in Issue 47; Hugh Sheehy, a fiction contributor in Issue 36; and Liz Prato, a nonfiction contributor in Issue 50. Check out part 1 here!

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Where Are They Now: An Interview with Past Contributors (Part 1)

With fifty-three issues published, nearly twenty-five hundred contributors accepted and tens of thousands of submissions read, we start to wonder where our previous contributors have run off to. Fortunately, I was able to catch up with a few of them, and we were able to go through a round-table discussion of questions and answers in order to find out what some of them have been up to!

Anthony Varallo is a fiction contributor in Issue 47; Hugh Sheehy is a fiction contributor in Issue 36; and Liz Prato is a nonfiction contributor in Issue 50.

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This Week in History and Fiction: The Iraq War Novel Emerges

Perhaps beginning this weekly installment with a topic so close to heart and home is a bit intense, but as I researched it, I realized that is was the perfect example of why we should care how world events, history and fiction are related.

On March 20, 2003, America invaded Iraq and the Iraq War began. A few books on the invasion began to appear that same year, and by 2005, the glossy dust covers of Iraq war hardcover non-fiction reflected the lights of bookstores all over America.  

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