JOHN MADERA—Writer, Editor, Publisher

Big thanks to Wendy J. Fox for reviewing Nervosities in her excellent column at Electric Literature! She writes: “Nervosities explores the boundaries of the short story in a way that nods to intellectualism but cares more about the heart. Unique and surprising.”

Read the rest of the review HERE!

Big thanks to Daniel Green for reviewing Nervosities, my debut collection of short fiction!

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

More controlled than Bernhard’s headlong expository monologues, less obsessively focused on surprising verbal devices than Lutz (although evoking each of these strategies), Madera’s style isn’t simply the vehicle for relating character and event, and doesn’t serve as the kind of verbal decoration that often passes for “good writing.” Language in most of these stories doesn’t serve their conventional elements at all but instead makes manifest something like the reverse: plot, character, setting are a function of the use of language, its particular qualities invoking the illusions of plot or character in a particular way. This is actually true of all works of fiction, but Madera’s stories are most unconventional in their rejection of the usual attempts to conceal the artifice of language, to make language transparent to the needs of narrative. [….] There is no sentimentality in Nervosities: the stories concern characters who are damaged by reality, but they don’t make excuses for the characters. They just register the damage in Madera’s kinetically alert language. [….] Through reminding us that the reimagining of reality through the devices of language is the essence of literary art, Madera’s stories both heighten our impression of the disenchanted lives they portray and challenge our passive reading habits.

Read the rest of Green’s review HERE!

Big thanks to Joseph Schreiber for reviewing Nervosities, my debut collection of experimental fiction!

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

The range of themes, voices, and settings packed into this collection is wide—each piece heads into fresh territory and even those that may touch on familiar ground […] are approached from original angles. Together, the stories gathered in Nervosities offer slices of contemporary American life and culture reflected in a cracked funhouse mirror, frequently dark but always honest.

Read the rest of Schreiber’s review HERE!

Big thanks to Tobias Carroll for featuring Nervosities in the May 2024 edition of Volume 1 Brooklyn’s “Books of the Month” column!

Carroll writes: “For his debut collection, Big Other editor John Madera has brought together a host of his short fiction—genre-spanning and formally inventive work throughout. Here’s what Brian Evenson had to say: ‘What I love about these stories is how they couple a commitment to language and maximalist literary endeavor with a sensibility that is politically aware, engaged, and radical.’”

Featured alongside books by Pemi Aguda, Kaliane Bradley, Mauro Javier Cárdenas, Ashley Honeysett, George Pelecanos, Katharine Coldiron, Alison Hart, David Leo Rice, and Gertrude Trevelyan, so Nervosities is in great company.