All beings in this world, all bodies must break up: Even the Teacher, peerless in the human world. The mighty Lord an…
Nonfiction
New Essay by Lauren Kay Johnson: Things Received
A portion of this essay was originally published in Cobalt Review. It came by helicopter twice a week, if weather and…
New Fiction Review: Matthew Komatsu On Matt Gallagher’s ‘Empire City’
As Avengers was wrapping up last year, I mentioned how excited I was to see the finale to a friend, who responded wit…
New Nonfiction from Charles Stromme: “The Army Profoundly Regrets”
1972 I was back from a year of flying helicopters in Vietnam. The Army gave me a make-work job at Ft. Riley, Kansas, …
Mr. Mendes’ War: Film Review, ‘1917’
“You have to construct a journey for the camera that’s every bit as interesting as the journey of the actor. What I w…
Nonfiction from Caitlin McGill: “Paved in Gold”
“Even if one does not know the history, one feels the presence of the past.” ~Peter Balakian “You have to beat the eg…
Lauren Johnson Interviews Amy Waldman, Author of ‘A Door in the Earth’
Amy Waldman’s novel, A Door in the Earth, follows Parveen, a young Afghan-American woman who returns to her war…
Representation: An interview with new literary agent Tracy Crow
Two years ago, Tracy Crow, an author, former Marine, invited me to be a part of the MilSpeak Foundation ON POINT Wome…
It Just Keeps Going
The first time I heard the phrase “Hate Train,” I was stationed in Japan with the Navy, attempting to enjoy a bowl of…
Fighting for All of Time: Katey Schultz’s Novel, ‘Still Come Home’
Still Come Home, the first novel from Flashes of War author Katey Schultz, opens in the tiny town of Imar, Afghanista…
Film Review: JOKER, by Adrian Bonenberger and Andria Williams
Andria Williams: Hey there, Adrian. Adrian Bonenberger: Hi, Andria. Williams: So, I heard you recently saw “Joker” in…
Happy Birthday, Afghanistan
October 08, 2019 The war in Afghanistan is now old enough to go to war in Afghanistan. Yesterday the war in Afghanist…
Poetry Review: Aaron Graham’s BLOOD STRIPES
1. I’m reading Aaron Graham’s war poetry. And I think violence is a volcano. How pressure builds. Between layers of r…
Knowing Your Father: DNA and Identity
“It is a wise child who knows its own father.” –Homer, The Odyssey Several women I know were stunned in l…
New Nonfiction from Andrew Clark: A Church For All
On a spring day in 1984 my grandfather, Leonard Clark, whom we all called Papaw, gathered his children, grandchildren…
New Nonfiction from Andria Williams: Reading Joan Didion in August 2019
In the summer of 1968, while starting several of the essays that would comprise her collection The White Album, Joan …
Turn On, Tune Out, Drop In: Review Essay of Ben Fountain’s Beautiful Country Burn Again
D.H. Lawrence once claimed that the “essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.” This sounds nice…
Interview: The Problem of the Hero: Peter Molin Talks with Roy Scranton
Introduction: Roy Scranton’s soon-to-be published Total Mobilization: American Literature and World War II…
“I Like the Real Stuff”—WBT Interviews Ben Fountain
Ben Fountain, the award-winning author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and, mo…
Stuck
Ozzy stuck pennies in Huey’s door, wedging it shut, and we all stood in the hallway and laughed as he tried to get ou…
No War With Iran
Nearly eighteen years. That is how long America has been at war since the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military…
Wrongful Appropriation of the Soul
In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, while all are responsible. Rabbi Abr…
A sickness of the soul: remembering Adam and Tim Davis
Correction submitted by Delta Company paratrooper: five, not four, paratroopers died from the IED. “Matthew Tay…
Book Review by Eric Chandler: IT’S MY COUNTRY, TOO
This happened in the 1980’s. Maybe it was after I joined the military or before, when I was thinking about it. In eit…
An Interview with Brooke King, author of WAR FLOWER: MY LIFE AFTER IRAQ
Andria Williams: Brooke, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with Wrath-Bearing Tree. We are all excited to fe…
Review of Jon Chopan’s Veterans Crisis Hotline
A few years ago, I had a conversation with a friend named Ted. Ted is a fellow veteran, and classmate of mine from th…
New Nonfiction from Brooke King: “Ghosts” and “The Only Stars I’ve Seen”
Ghosts The young Iraqi girl stared back at me, her face covered over in black; only her eyes shown out from under the…
Suicide, the Soldier’s Bane
Here’s how it happens: you get a text. Or you see a cryptic post about the importance of friendship and “reaching out…
New Essay: To Honor a Hero by Claudia Hinz
It’s story time at the base library here at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, home to the 3rd Marin…
New Essay by Patrick Medema: Being Acquainted with Violence
I was in junior high the first time my friend was bullied. This was during the late 1990s, before we could maliciousl…
Writing about Our Worst Experiences: Reshaping Memories
As many artists have noted, memory underpins imagination. Creating new artistic and intellectual works depends critic…
New Essay from Jerad W. Alexander: An Exchange of Fire
I don’t know your name, but we tried to kill each other once. Do you remember it? It happened on November 5, 2005, on…
Mr. Tolkien’s War: A Review of Peter Jackson’s ‘They Shall Not Grow Old,’ by Rob Bokkon
Anyone who knows me at all well can tell you that I don’t really have a personality, per se: what I have instead is a…
New Essay from Claudia Hinz: The War at Home
Michael Florez felt called to the Marines. “No greater love than dying for your brother,” the 42-year-old Oregon resi…
The Iliad: A Poem of Force and Pity
Every fall I read the first stanza of the Iliad out loud to my students: “Sing, Goddess, the Anger of Peleus’ son Ach…
Great WWI-era Austrian Writers: Musil, Zweig, Roth
During this ongoing centenary of the First World War, I became more interested in the details of the Italian front in…
An Interview with Jennifer Orth-Veillon, Curator of the WWI Centennial Blog, by Andria Williams
Andria Wiliams: Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with Wrath-Bearing Tree. We are all huge fans…
Election Special: To Hell With Civility by Rob Bokkon
I’m so tired of re-writing this article. The drafts kept piling up and piling up and piling up, one after the other. …
The Long Road of History Impacts Today
More than one hundred years ago, nine thousand acres of fruit trees and farm land in Maryland were converted to one o…
No, Nazis were Not Leftists: Or, How to Debunk Right-Wing Propaganda
It is generally considered good practice not to “feed the trolls”— that is, not to engage in commentary with stranger…
New Nonfiction from Kiley Bense: Tell Me About My Boy
Here’s an empty grave, where a body that had been a boy became bones beneath a wooden cross. They buried him with one…
Our Personal Community by Curtis J. Graham
It was in the news. On a bright summer day in Helmand Province, Lance Corporal Wickie did his duty and killed an insu…
Shining Light on the Darkness: An Interview with Patrick Hicks
Andria Williams: Patrick, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I’ve just finished reading “Into the…
“All. art. is. political:” An interview with Roy G. Guzmán and Miguel M. Morales
Our two featured poems for the month are selections from Roy G. Guzmán and Miguel M. Morales’s anthology, Pulse…
New Essay: How does Politics affect Writing, and Vice Versa?
I recently attended the 15th International Conference on the Short Story in Lisbon, where I met many interesting writ…
New Movie Review: In “The Interpreters,” Home Is No Place At All
“The Interpreters,” a new documentary film by directors Sofian Khan and Andres Caballero, is a raw, emotionally vigor…
New Memoir: Call Me American by Abdi Nor Iftin
CALL ME AMERICAN / Abdi Nor Iftin Excerpted from Chapter Five: Arabic to English By December of 1992, the world could…
Interview with Matt Young, Author of Eat the Apple
Matt Young is a writer, teacher, and veteran. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Miami University …
Memoir by Sari Fordham: “House Arrest in Thirteen Parts”
Part I: The House, circa 1977 The house in Uganda was red brick with a metal roof, a rusted water tank, and a screene…
Go Home and Dig It: A Review of Will Mackin’s Bring Out The Dog
“Crossing the River with No Name,” the eighth story in Will Mackin’s debut collection, Bring Out the Dog, describes t…