A man of serendipitous luck, Michael J. Wilson’s third year of teaching at SFUAD also marks the publication of his first poetry collection A Child Of Storm. Born in England, Wilson spent his childhood moving from place to place. Along with his time at the New School in New York City, these experiences shaped the poems that would eventually constitute his first book, solidifying an already-present fascination with the life of Nikola Tesla and shifting his focus to the way people relate to each other. With only days left until the book release, Wilson spoke with Jackalope Magazine about his writing process and the themes of his poetry.
With the close of September, Anne Valente’s debut novel Our Hearts Will Burn Us Downapproaches its release date. A local school shooting leaves a St. Louis community reeling, especially high school juniors Matt, Zola, Nick, and Christina. The four main characters struggle to piece their lives back together and make sense of the tragedy while a series of fires continues to ravage the homes of victims’ families. Ultimately the story within is a stunning tale of the all-consuming nature of grief and the permanence of loss, in and of itself a statement about a society where mass violence is increasingly common.
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