Blog / Working Titles Excerpts

Bird Girl (Working Title Vol 6.1)

March 25, 2021 - By Avital Balwit

The Massachusetts Review presents the newest e-book in our Working Titles series: Bird Girl by Avital Balwit. Available now!

"It was August, and the days came damp and hot. The morning air shone so that you knew the afternoon would swelter. Sasha had AC, but kept her windows open anyways to let in the mild nights. It was 8 a.m. and time to close them. A faint buzz caught her attention, “11:48 p.m., Selby Street and 10th, 547XD1IY,” less than a mile away. She clicked accept and checked the map again. It looked like she’d be off-roading. She found her hiking boots in the closet and set out.

The job worked with her hours. She could do it early in the morning, or she could do it in the middle of the night. The light made...

Cape Cod, Revisited (Working Titles Volume 5.2)

September 9, 2020 - By Michael Thurston

The Massachusetts Review presents the newest e-book in our Working Titles series: Cape Cod, Revisited by Michael Thurston, with an introduction by Russ Rymer. Available now!

"Cape Cod begins with a shipwreck.

On October 9, 1849, Henry David Thoreau and William Ellery Channing traveled together to Cape Cod. Having planned to take the steamer from Boston to Provincetown but learning upon arrival in Boston that the boat had been delayed by a storm and that, in the same storm, the St. John had run aground just off Cohasset (“Death!” read the handbill they noticed in the streets: “one hundred and forty five lives lost at Cohasset”), they changed course. Thoreau and Channing opted instead for the...

Silence Like Blood (Working Titles Volume 5.1)

March 3, 2020 - By Marie-Célie Agnant

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: Silence Like Blood, a novella by Marie-Célie Agnant, translated and with an introduction by Dawn Fulton. Available now!

"My Dear Claire,

If I’m writing to you, it’s only out of respect for the promise I made, not, as you asked, to tell you everything I see. For I can only see what is shown. This letter will likely be incoherent and very long. I can’t help that. But I will try to put...

AMOUR: Fields of Battle, Fields of Love (Working Titles 4.2)

October 3, 2019 - By Véronique Tadjo, translated by Carolyn Shread

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: AMOUR: FIELDS OF BATTLE, FIELDS OF LOVE, a novella by Véronique Tadjo, translated and with an introduction by Carolyn Shread. Available now!
 

"One anonymous night he found himself in a tidy village. The bus came to a stop at the end of a long road that stretched out into the dark. He clambered down with his bag in one hand. His feet hit the ground with a painful thud. His swollen ankles ached.

The village was asleep. He stood there for a moment as the bus roared off. Already he wanted to leave. Then the thought crossed his mind, what’s the point? He had to stop somewhere.

It was so much easier on the bus. Trees streamed past, towns and villages sped by...

Night Hands (Working Title 4.1)

July 11, 2019 - By Jen Cross

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: NIGHT HANDS a story by Jen Cross, with an introduction by Elizabeth Harries- available this week!

"As the first rays of sun pierced the night in the surrounding wood, Old Mother Ganz raised the double-headed axe. “Now, my daughter,” said the old witch, “we will give these hands back to the night.” Silence for the pause of a breath, the span of a century, a fragmentary turn of the earth. A shard of sun spliced the top lip of the axe. Gnarled hands tightened about the handle and let the blade fall.

The hands in their pretty boxes, that sweet reckoning of pale yellow skin against velvet against the dark exterior. They stay youthful. They stay...