Such literary drawbacks are notably absent in Jim Beane’s debut novel, The Deadening, which features the return from …
Nonfiction
New Nonfiction by Jen Dreizehn: Anticipation
As a reserve unit we had a different family dynamic than the regular army. Since there were only three platoons in ou…
New Nonfiction from Jerad W. Alexander: An Elegy for Videotape
Scott found the videotapes in his garage and brought them into the kitchen. We stacked the VHS in a wine box and the …
New Review by Adrian Bonenberger: Fury, The Tank, and Forgiveness
One of the first things I published on Wrath-Bearing Tree was a negative review of the movie Fury, based entirely on …
New Nonfiction by Blake Rondeau: Smile
I remember the smell of the plastic blue gym mats under my face as I grappled another Marine in the hanger bay of the…
New Review by Larry Abbott: Surviving the Long Wars
Surviving the Long Wars: Creative Rebellion at the Ends of Empire. Chicago: Bridge Books, 2024. The 4-day 2023 Vetera…
New Nonfiction: The Footsteps of Giants by David James
All this is to say that pilgrimage is not for religious journeys alone, but for any act of traveling that takes us to…
New Nonfiction: Interview with Adam Kovac
So that’s what I did. I sat down and attempted to write The Great American War Novel. I wouldn’t have sen…
New Review by Travis Klempan: Adam Kovac’s The Surge
Whether we wanted it or not, America was – up until this very moment, perhaps – truly the indispensable nation.
…
New Nonfiction by Karie Fugett: Excerpt from Alive Day
Dillon crawled in circles on the carpet, the TV behind him glowing with reports of destruction and death. Though it h…
New Interview with Karie Fugett
I think at the time I was just kind of following my orders. And then, by the time I was thinking something’s wr…
Review of Sheila Dietz’s The Berry and the Bee
Her poetry is rarely sentimental or wildly emotional, but rather steady, wise, and quietly observational.
…
New Review and Interview by Larry Abbott: James Wells’ Because
He was 39 years old at the time of his death, and left a wife, Betty and three children, Ora, Kathleen, and the young…
New Interview with Kevin M. Kearney
But on a personal level, I don’t think there is an easy way out. I think the real answer is you need to go the other …
New Nonfiction by Matt Eidson: Binge
Sometimes I’d imagine that compressing the areas of fat would break apart the tissue and allow it to dissolve into my…
New Nonfiction by Evan Balkan: In Praise of Awe
It’s hard to define, awe. But certainly we know when we feel it. It’s a rare thing, buried under the onslaught of dai…
Hope and Heartbreak in Kyle Seibel’s “Hey You Assholes”
About four years ago I first encountered Kyle Seibel’s work while volunteering with this publication (Wrath-Bearing T…
New Interview with Matthew James Jones
Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures (PR&DC) is unafraid to be funny about serious subjects. Can you tell us…
New Nonfiction by J. Malcolm Garcia: And This Is No Matter What
The temperature on this Tuesday morning in Grants Pass, Oregon, is edging up to ninety degrees as Helen Cruz and Just…
New Nonfiction by Fred Cheney: Tracers
I’ve changed all the names in this story except my own. They’re all dead, but … that afterlife thing just might be tr…
New Review: Michael Carson on Kevin Honold’s Our Lady of Good Voyage
CROATOAN: A Review of Kevin Honold’s Our Lady of Good Voyage (Orison Books, 2024). Kevin Honold’s Our Lady of Good Vo…
New Nonfiction by Jennifer Crystal: An Excerpt from One Tick Stopped the Clock
Chapter 12 of One Tick Stopped the Clock Published by Legacy Book Press Excerpted from ONE TICK STOPPED THE CLOCK Cop…
New Nonfiction by Adrian Bonenberger: “An Alternate View of Moral Injury”
An Alternate View of Moral Injury Introductory note: I originally composed this essay between 2022-23. I’ve gone back…
New Nonfiction by Kyle Abbott Smith: The Superman Fight
Fights within the infantry were common enough that their variations came to be source material for a dark form of in-…
New Interview by Larry Abbott: Doug Rawlings
Doug Rawlings had his life planned out: graduate school, business school, eventual law school, and a career in busin…
New Nonfiction from Per-Olof Odman: “Mystery Mountain”
In the remote and forgotten northwestern corner of Vietnam looms the vast, rugged and rain-drenched Hoang Lien Mounta…
New Nonfiction by Avory Schanfelter: “Condition Black”
Time in a combat zone passes strangely. When you are surrounded by the incredible, the human mind has a tendency to d…
New Nonfiction by Michael Jerome Plunkett: “Four Letter Words: A Meditation on Fuck”
The most versatile piece of equipment an infantryman carries is a four-letter word. It can be used in almost every co…
New Review by Maggie Gamberton: Nancy Stroer’s Playing Army
A Game of Soldiers – A Review of Playing Army by Nancy Stroer LT Minerva Mills is a hot mess. Literally. We mee…
New Nonfiction from Patty Prewitt: “Missing Amy”
Missouri inmate Patty Prewitt has been in prison for almost 40 years. She is serving a life sentence for the murder o…
New Nonfiction from Tom Keating: “The Lobby”
I am careful with the coffee tray. It holds four coffees and one tea for my guys in the VA hospital lobby. Everyone w…
New Interview from Larry Abbott: “The Visual Diary of Danish Soldier Henrik Andersen”
Art After War: The Visual Diary of Danish Soldier Henrik Andersen As the memory of U.S. participation in the Afghanis…
New Nonfiction by Krista Puttler: “Traversing the Gate of Tears”
Dubai is one gigantic, grey strip mall. “Does anyone know why they call this place Dubai?” I look away from my bus wi…
New Fiction from Steve Bills: “Bombing Pearl Harbor”
29 April 1971 From: Naval Science Department To: Midshipmen Second Class, Navigation and Piloting 301 (NAV 301) Subje…
New Nonfiction from Kevin Honold: “The People of Cain”
But vnto Kain and to his offering he had no regarde: wherefore Kain was exceeding wroth, and his countenance f…
New Nonfiction by Dean Hosni: “The Cartoon War”
October 6, 1973. Los Angeles. The stack of newspapers sat in front of me on the brown shag carpet, and next to it was…
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: The Clock Strikes Twelve
My year-long run as guest-columnist for The Wrath-Bearing Tree comes to an end this month. I’m not sure if WBT founde…
New Nonfiction by Larry Abbott: The Photographic Self-Portraits of Ron Whitehead
There Is No Such Thing as an Unwounded Soldier Ron Whitehead works in a variety of photographic series: Eye of the S…
So Say We All and Wrath-Bearing Tree Collaborate!
In collaboration with So Say We All‘s Veterans Writing Division, founder Justin Hudnall and The Wrath-Bearing T…
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: The Great Contemporary War-Writing Quiz
30 questions; let’s see who knows their stuff. Answers below. 27-30 Correct: Expert 23-26: Sharpshooter 19-22:…
New Nonfiction from Ciel Downing: “Burn Baby Burn”
“Fire in the belly!” “Be all you can be!” “Get fired up!” Slogans to incite, ignite, excite and encourage living on …
New Fiction by R.L. Peterson: “Rules of Dying”
Every work day morning at 8 o’clock sharp, me, Juan, Marcus, and Willard stand at attention with hands over our heart…
Wild Delights: Patrick Hicks Interviews Brian Turner
Patrick Hicks: Brian Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and taught English in South Korea for …
Peter Molin’s Strike “Through the Mask!”: Three Vignettes
Memoirs written by soldiers and Marines who fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq and the Korengal Valley i…
New Review from Larry Abbott: “Corn, Coal & Yellow Ribbons” and “Midnight Cargo”
Corn, Coal & Yellow Ribbons. Poems by Kevin Basl and Nathan Lewis. Trumansburg, NY: Out of Step Press, 2021. Mid…
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: Fallujah-Korengal/Korengal-Fallujah
In my blog Time Now: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Art, Film, and Literature I rarely reviewed memoir and non-f…
New Review by Michael Gruber: “The Myth of the Clean Air War”
A review of Kimberly K. Dougherty’s Airpower in Literature: Interrogating the Clean War, 1915-2015 One of war’s most …
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: Memory and Memoir in Afghanistan
The opening of this month’s column repeats much of a Time Now: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Art, Film, and Lit…
New Nonfiction from Michael Gruber: Review of J. Malcolm Garcia’s “Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful: Stories from Afghanistan”
Humanity in Afghanistan For the average American G.I. who served in Afghanistan, the country was of a different world…
New Fiction from Chris Daly: “The Rothko Report”
“My father’s work takes you to the edge of the abyss and invites you to look.” -Son of Rothko …