Footnote #4: A Literary Journal of History

Literature & Fiction

Allen, Arthur

Bellinger, DeMisty D.

Fox, Mike

Pelky, Rebecca

McDonald, Kindra

Sippl, Roger

Goluboff, Benjamin

Bassen, L. Shapley

Ezra, Linnet

Literary

Alternating Current

An evil teddy bear, a mermaid, a robot daughter, a ghost child. A mother surrendering her baby to the crows. A child consumed by lice from the inside out. A father sending his selkie daughter back to the sea. These flash stories and essays explore the whispered side of parenting—the loss, fear, vulnerability, and deep, deep love that lurks underneath our day-to-day lives as mothers and fathers. One glimpse into And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing, and you’ll never look at parenting in quite the same way again.

And If That Mockingbird Don't Sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative

Campbell, Olivia

Pokrass, Meg

Fortmeyer, Kendra

Hirsch, Aubrey

Figg, Melanie

Grieco, Hannah

Burges, Audrey

Stanfill, Laura

Lin, Jami Nakamura

Short Stories & Anthologies

Review\n“DeMisty D. Bellinger writes authentic, compelling voices from rural America. In New to Liberty, Bellinger reframes the familiar ‘can you go home again?’ question with the urgency of how the journey recalibrates personal and family histories. In this debut, Bellinger joins the ranks of epic, intimate family stories like John Steinbeck’s East of Eden for its tale of truth and justice and Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres for humanity’s capacity for good and evil; New to Liberty is a contemporary voice for our historical heartland.” —Melissa Scholes Young, author of The Hive\n"Moving back through the summers of 1966, 1947, and 1933, DeMisty Bellinger’s New To Liberty gorgeously traces the long shadow of trauma lingering over the American Midwest from the scourge of the Dust Bowl to racism and violence toward women to the fleeting beauty of forbidden love. With vibrant and restrained prose, Bellinger has achieved the seemingly impossible: written an American epic in under two hundred pages." —John Copenhaver, award-winning author of The Savage Kind\n“The narrative voices in New to Liberty bridge eras and personal isolation, resonating like intimate friends you've somehow always known. The novel's imagery, whether steeped in beauty, horror, love, or terror, stitches itself into your own fabric, becoming a part of you long after you've turned the last page.” —Chris Harding Thornton, author of Pickard County Atlas\n“New to Liberty is a moving, heartbreaking, and uplifting novel of racial injustice, innocence lost, and the safety of women in one another’s company, as well as a dissection of the stubborn Midwest and all the discrimination and prejudice that roils through that hard land like a dust storm.” —Leah Angstman, author of Out Front the Following Sea\n"With deft, insightful prose and great compassion, DeMisty D. Bellinger beautifully captures the private longings, struggles, and complex moments of bliss of three women in rural Kansas. The characters in New to Liberty are so richly drawn, their voices and inner lives so intimate and real, I felt like these women were sharing their secrets just with me, and I wanted to hear the stories of all the women who ever passed through Liberty, Kansas. I loved this book." —Elizabeth Crane, author of The History of Great Things\n"New to Liberty is a marvel. I was enraptured by DeMisty Bellinger’s portrait of a gothic, gritty countryside. This atmospheric novel traces, with great sincerity, sensitivity, and crystal-clear prose, the dynamics of love and courtship, even as it explores lives lived in the haunting aftermath of violence. Bellinger’s is a major, exciting new voice in fiction." —Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief\nOne of BuzzFeed's Most Anticipated Books of 2022: "Watch for this book on every 'best of' list for 2022."\nThree women, decades apart from each other, fight for love and agency in a rural Kansas community seemingly frozen in time:\n1966: Sissily is driving cross-country with a much older man called Ezzy. On their way to California to begin a life together, he insists on stopping at his family ranch outside Liberty, Kansas visit his mother, Mrs. Svoboda. This family reunion is a painful reminder for Sissily of the rumors about the scandal that led to her running away from home, but while Mrs. Svoboda is a domineering figure, Sissily sees a woman who harbors secrets of her own.\n1947: Nella's family relocates to Liberty from Milwaukee, and during the summer before her senior year, begins an interracial relationship with a white man called Lucky. They can only meet in secret, or as Lucky is in a wheelchair sometimes Nella pretends to be his nurse. When three white men stumble upon "Nurse Nella" one catastrophic afternoon, the violence of a racist society forces Nella to face the harsh reality of her love affair.\n1933: Greta finds love with a woman from the neighboring farm during the height of the Dust Bowl and brutal jackrabbit round

New to Liberty

United States

The Unnamed Press

Poetry. African & African American Studies. Women's Studies. The shock of American violence and hate shouldn't be shocking at all. This is our peculiar heritage from an ugly institution. Still; we are not without resistance and PECULIAR HERITAGE; a collection of imagery and rhythm-heavy poems; is a resistance narrative to the present political climate and a regime in the U.S. that rejects culture and inclusion. Bellinger's poetic style is heavy on imagery and rhythm. Combining love poems--of self; of nature and life--with heavier; weight of responsibility narratives and poems; PECULIAR HERITAGE explores how we live in a country built on freedom; individualism; and exceptionalism; but only for the ruling class.

Peculiar Heritage

Poetry

Mason Jar Press

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Books by Bellinger, DeMisty D.