Reviews

This review was written and published for the Northeast Book Reviews in early 2009. Unfortunately, the site has shut down. However, the review is available as a PDF.

See our review by Julia Bemiss on Poetic Diversity August 2007 Volume 5, Number 2

Poetic Diversity
August 2007
Julia Bemiss
Silent Voices Vol. III: A Creative Mosaic of Fiction

From the Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards---Judges Comments and Praise:

Writer’s Digest 14th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards
Editor: Peter A. Balaskas
Title: Silent Voices Volume One
Category: Mainstream/Literary Fiction

Judge’s Commentary

This book is an anthology of short stories; the best of which are Switchyard by Sheila Lamb-Onton and When Grief Was a Country by Tamar Love.

Switchyard is a snapshot of a young Estonian boy and his parents who are rounded up by the Nazis during World War II and dispatched on a train, destination unknown. A terrific case of “Be careful what you wish for,” as the family hopes to be sent to Germany, the mother fears being sent to Moscow or the camps in Siberia. The final conversation between the boy and his father sums up the story very succinctly.

“Why do Jews get to go to Germany, where it is safe?” I ask Papa. He sighs and pauses before he answers.

“It is war-time,” Papa says finally, “No one is safe.”

The character development was terrific. The tone and pace of the story had the rhythm of a train, speeding up more and more, as it moved down the tracks. The tension escalated throughout the story, as the reader knows the outcome for the train travelers, based on their destinations.

When Grief Was a Country consists of selected readings from a young woman’s diary. Reminiscent of Bridget Jones’ Diary, it follows the ups and downs of the writer’s romantic/dating life. Realistically written, it is an interesting read with a great synopsis at the end:

“Twenty-eight is not that old. You are in no hurry. There is still time.”

Final Comments

The fun of anthologies is never knowing what you will discover---Volume I fulfills that promise.

Writer’s Digest 15th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards
Author: Peter A. Balaskas
Title: Silent Voices Volume Two
Category: Mainstream/Literary Fiction

Judge’s Commentary

This book is an anthology of short stories; the best of which is Where We Go by Rebecca Epstein. The author researched the topics of anorexia and bulimia and the resulting affects on those who suffer from these maladies. She is not too removed age-wise from the characters in her story, and her writing reflects that truth in its tone and nuances.

Writer’s Digest 16th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards
Author: Peter A. Balaskas
Title: Silent Voices Volume Three
Category: Mainstream/Literary Fiction

Judge’s Commentary

A really good collection of short fiction. Balaskas, the editor, is correct to suggest that nearly all of the pieces do seem to revolve around some notion of home, whether literal or metaphysical. Several of the pieces are really terrific, such as Murray Dunlap’s “Nightswimming: A Song for Andrew” (with its lovely references to the R.E.M. song) and Balaskas’s own “Duet,” with its interesting style. Multi-author collections aren’t so common in this category, so this was a refreshing change

See our review by Adam Peltz from Literary Magazine Review, Vol. 24 Nos. 3 & 4, Fall and Winter (www.uwrf.edu/lmr; Jenny Brantley, Editor; Brian Fitch Assistant Editor; Jaci Horwart Editorial Assistant; G. W. Clift and Grant Tracey Contributing Editors)

Silent Voices
Spring 2006
Volume 2

Peter A. Balaskas, Editor; Mark D’Anna and Tanya Salvini, Associate Editors; Ex Machina Press, LLC, 2006; 132 pgs; perfect bound; 7x10; website: www.exmachinapress.com; submit to: Peter A. Balaskas, Editor, Exmachinapab@aol.com, PO Box 11180, Glendale, CA, 91226.

Creating a Quiet, Community Forum for Narration, and the Inner Struggle to Be Heard

I glance over at Katie, sleeping with an arm draped over her eye, and imagine all of the things that had to occur between that moment and this, each raw action building on another like a ball of snow gathering weight as it is rolled around a yard, becoming so big that eventually you can’t move it alone. — Jessica Mehr’s “Astronomy, For the Lost”

In Silent Voices, the editor’s note may, for a moment, start the journal off a bit too loudly or overtly for the voices contained within, as if the stories will not hold their own within the sound barrier. As well, even though we, the readers, do not need the tidbits of “Whispers” (brief excerpts from each work) as a beginning glimpse of each story, in both acts editor Peter A. Balaskas confirms a cohesive vision of inclusion for new fiction. The stories support this vision of a quiet, sometimes tense narrative forum. And the website offers further support of these goals, for writers and their soundless grappling, for the necessary link between writers and their audiences, and for the readers, themselves, to discover and sit with new works of fiction, the semblance of ideas, emotions, experiences, and stories.

In all, the material in Volume Two of Silent Voices joins together with the common characteristic of a dark dialogue between speaker and psyche (sometimes commenting on the nature of the creative process), connecting to the reader. This is evident in the subtle cover, one that contrasts the editor’s less than subtle opening note. “Birth,” a multimedia-drawn sensual silhouette of a woman, by Kevin Hayes, fits the editors’ red background in size and in such a way that the viewer must come closer, and so, enter the journal.

The issue bookends as follows: It begins with Marie Lecrivain’s “The Word Thief,” an interesting take on the idea of writing and ownership, followed by Stanley J. Corwin’s enigmatic “The Perfessor” and ends with Paul Major’s transformative Wolf novel excerpt followed by the George Saunder’s interview (that can be found on the website: www.exmachinapress.com), in which the author discusses his muses, the problem (for writers) of being corralled into generalized categories or stamped with labels, the relationship between teaching and writing, the idea of having something to write about ... from experience rather than academe or workshops, and ultimately, whether we will see more from this writer. (We will.) The interview is thoughtful; Saunders remains articulate and dynamic, yet, to end the journal with this particular form does not leave the reader with the most moving exit, if he has chosen to peruse from cover to cover. One of the “silent voices” in a story would make for a stronger anchor or ethereal sendoff.

The pieces that truly stand out, that kept this reader actively interested in pushing forward, sometimes effortlessly and not because this review was promised upon reading completion, are Susan E. Briggs’ “Going Under” and Rebecca Epstein’s 2006 Silent Voices Contest Winner “Where We Go,” and to a lesser extent though each has beautiful moments, Emily Rapp’s “Francesca Woodman Prepares” and Jessica Mehr’s “Astronomy, For the Lost.” The problem, if one may call it that, shows in a stack: The four stories, interestingly all written by women, appear almost consecutively in the thick of the publication (editor T.S.D. Salvini’s exploration of a new relationship in “Episodes” mixes in), when the editors could have spread them out to connect and guide the whole issue. And on a darker, quieter note, Briggs’ frozen landscape and struggling mother would have made for a powerful final piece. The title “Going Under” speaks to the end possibility, finishing the journal, life changing form, alone we are again.

* * *

Writers are taught or encouraged not to mistake the artist and her character. One of fiction’s roles remains an allowance for, in Balaska’s interpretation of Joseph Campbell (The Hero’s Journey) and Joseph M. Marshal III (The Lakota Way), the “[eventual] gain [of] a kind of divine wisdom which leads to spiritual progression” when we write about various hardships and create characters that help guide us. From those characters, we learn, and so, we discover ourselves. Therefore, fiction enables us “[to] experience . . . our numerous struggles.”

Mehr, again, a woman writer (this may be a disservice to her and in violation of Saunder’s labeling as mentioned in his interview), creates a narrative or philosophical treatise wherein the reader enters the mind of the male protagonist, who waits to be removed from his vehicle via rescue jaws after a severe wreck in a snowstorm, a blank field. He rests, trapped with his thoughts as writers often are, and sees his girlfriend Katie, a muse he has known for years but only recently discovered in a romantic role, lying motionless in the road. At this point, he may be relieved as “she is covered up to her neck with a sheet to keep her from getting cold. No one stands around her because she does not need their attention. She hasn’t a single scratch on her but is perfect, white and pristine.” But we know better, and in the moment both the character and the writer make moves, plot decisions with larger implications.

Emily Rapp’s “Francesca Woodman Prepares” offers third person insight into the inner life of an artist consumed not only by her own work and the play of light on objects, but by herself as its muse. The character’s favorite photograph of herself shows “her face hidden, her body dressed in an antique black dress unbuttoned to the waist. Between her breasts is an imaginary wound that drips down her stomach. ...” The story’s title indicates or hints where the plot will end, and the narration successfully weaves backwards and forwards in a manner that enhances the depth of the main character, of charting her preparation.

In “Going Under,” Susan E. Briggs illustrates a double tragedy on an icy lake, the stark picture of winter, and the sudden mortality and power of a mother and a son’s connection to each other and the landscape. Because of its dark content, it shows partly reminiscent of a scene from one of the shorts in Dekalog, a Polish collection of films by Krystof Kieszlowski, but there is something distinctly northern American in Briggs’ work — the names of the characters — the mother Bennie, her husband Mal, a friend Jerry; the dialogue and the approaching birthday party the day of the described event; and young Luke’s boyhood, verging on adolescence, on the nearby lake and the Palamungut River. In the end, one might say that Mother knows her son the best, and her sorrow and drive to be with him are unquenchable.

And reading smoothly throughout, Rebecca Epstein’s contest winner “Where We Go” has the descriptive yet still empty or numb teenage youth-at-risk characters it evokes in an asylum . . . perhaps calling one back to Ken Kesey’s Chief. The piece’s tone and internalization connects to a later piece, Marika Lindholm’s “Winter at Eldgarn,” the silent “interminable march of my physical prison,” recalling, roughly, Dalton Trumbo’s hollow, unheard veteran. However, Epstein’s work omits one-sided dialogue directed at the protagonist and uses different targets in the second person, sometimes addressing the reader —“You might pass her on the street...” sometimes relaying her storyteller’s and others’ positions as nurses address her in the narration: “Pull down your pants they say and they move in closer, and we back up into the corner, hiccupping and shaking our head, No, no I won’t. We can give it to you in your arm, they say..."— strangely and powerfully silent.

* * *

Finally, the function of the website www.exmachinapress.com warrants attention. Stepping out of the print form, the online resource serves to: house samples of writing to an additional audience and for potential submissions, stand as a resource to writers for discussions on the creative process and, practically, on getting published, offer an easy format for submitting to Silent Voices and its contests, maintain a book and journals shop, feature its staff’s work, and house links to other journals and sites, which have featured members of the extended Silent Voices and Ex Machina Press family.

Overall, Silent Voices successfully carries the silent room of new fiction to the reader, as per its explicitly stated editor’s mission, and, furthermore, a number of the stories resonate internally—with a dark take on the psyche and the lonely, sometimes quiet, often pained creative process of the writer. When I come across the next issue as I expect to, for Balaskas and company mean to continue with this project and continually improve their product, I will pause and pick up a copy and follow the cohesive vision into its maturity.