On screen the audience sees an empty gravel lot behind the metal wall of a municipal sports arena. Where the crushed stone stops a line of arbor vitae protects the no-man’s-land strip of grass and the handful of buildings farther…
The Anniversary Issue (#21) is Here!
Happy Birthday to us! Issue #21 is officially our anniversary issue. Ten years of publication history and twenty-one issues! We are still standing! BIG thank you to our contributors, the BFLM community, and everyone who has supported us throughout the…
A Review of Johannes Anyuru’s They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears by Linnea Gradin
One of the biggest literary awards for Swedish literature is the August Prize (Augustpriset). It takes its name from one of Sweden’s most famous authors — the fin de siècle playwright and novelist August Strindberg (known for works such as…
Arabesques by David Massey
I have read critics who referred to Henry James’s syntax as involute and to William Faulkner’s as convolute. I do not know that there is any real distinction to be made between the two descriptions; both styles are arabesque; and…
The Sun Also Rises: An Appreciation by David Massey
An old friend of mine dismissed Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises as a period piece. Let’s examine that a bit. In the first place, all novels are period pieces. The Tale of Genji, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and…
Sappho’s Literary Visuals of the Archaic Period by Mercury-Marvin Sunderland
According to Hurwit’s features of the Archaic style, there are several common themes of this time period — “reliance on schemata,” “impulse for pattern,” “domination of surface and plane,” linearity, ornamentality, and “explicitness and impassivity.” While these are obviously traits…
A Review of George Saunder’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by David Massey
Doubtless George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life has been reviewed to a frazzle by now, but I also believe many of Black Fox’s…
Is this Novel Homeward Bound? By David Massey
I want to say a few words about what to me is a slippery subject: narrative arc. Not so much in the short story: I know what a short story is, and I am able to achieve the single effect…
Black Fox Literary Magazine Issue #20 is Here!
The Winter 2021 issue of Black Fox Literary Magazine is here at last! Thank you to our contributors and loyal readers who stuck by us as we tried to get this issue off the ground. We have a lot in…
Black Fox Literary Magazine Issue #19 is Here!
The Spring 2020 issue of Black Fox Literary Magazine has been a long time coming! We want to thank our contributors and the community that stuck behind us during our hiatus. We appreciate your immense patience as we worked to…
Formidable Force: A Review of Lee Ann Roripaugh’s tsunami vs. the fukushima 50 by Brandy Underwood
Browsing through the table of contents in Lee Ann Roripaugh’s tsunami vs. the fukushima 50, there is an unencumbered feeling of veracity. Switching between references to a tsunami like it is a feral entity and classic superheroes, the battle is…
When a Writer Feels Like Sisyphus by David Massey
It is easy for a writer to feel like Sisyphus, rolling the boulder uphill only to have it roll back down before he can reach the top. You send a story to a lit mag and they reply that your…