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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review
@thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
250 followers 2 following 74 posts
Collected Works in Contemporary Prose and Art https://thebrusselsreview.com https://thebrusselsreview.com/submissions https://shop.thebrusselsreview.com #TBR #poetry #fiction #nonfiction #art #photography
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 9
Set in Northern Thailand, this immersive narrative explores a young traveler’s descent into Muay Thai training, where through violence and the discipline of repetition, a bruised body and restless mind find unexpected clarity.
#TBR #Thailand #MuayThai
thebrusselsreview.com/micaela-edel...
Unleashing Rage By Micaela Edelson
A raw journey through Muay Thai, rage, and fleeting healing in Northern Thailand—where violence becomes both discipline and catharsis.
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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 8
First episode of Call to the Editor
We speak with Ximena Maldonado Sánchez, a Mexican artist whose desert-inspired landscapes burn with memory and heat. From Brussels to Athens, her work resists easy reading—it watches you back.
#calltotheeditor
#art #ximenamaldonadosánchez #mexicanart #brussels
Ximena Maldonado Sánchez
Call to the editor · Episode
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 8
Two poems trace the quiet collision of inner and outer worlds: one through the sensory hush of a child's late-summer retreat, the other through the philosophical pull of erasure and ancient language.

#poetry #childhood #nature #memory #TBR thebrusselsreview.com/daniel-sofae...
Uprooting Cubit By Daniel Sofaer
A tender meditation on memory, wilderness, and estrangement, where childhood longing and ancient language entwine.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 7
Through a cascading series of lyrical inversions, Never too Late explores the mutable borders between sorrow and strength, fear and awakening, memory and rebirth.

#TBR #poetry #resilience #spirituality #transformation

thebrusselsreview.com/ramzi-albert...
Never Too Late By Ramzi Albert Rihani
When fear stretches itself and awakens our strength / When noise stretches itself, and you start listening / and the beast stretches itself to become human / It is never too late to remember, wish, an...
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 6
#Ximena_Maldonado_Sánchez’s landscapes are not depictions but emanations—deserts that remember heat, speak in glare, and shimmer with chemical memory. Hallucinogenic and radioactive.
#TBR #painting #contemporaryart #LatinAmericanart #landscape
thebrusselsreview.com/dritan-kici/...
The Paintings Of Ximena Maldonado Sánchez. Hot! By Dritan Kiçi
The desert in Ximena Maldonado Sánchez’s paintings is not a place but a pulsing, radioactive body remembering heat, exile, and hallucination.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 5
In this sharp and uncanny parable of the afterlife, a man’s casual dismissal of medical advice turns metaphysical when he dies of a heart attack—and wakes to a cosmic guide cloaked in familiar forms.
#fiction #magicalrealism #afterlife #workingclass #TBR
thebrusselsreview.com/jonathan-d-s...
A Grain Of Salt By Jonathan D. Scott
“You’ve just come from hell, Frankie. Only you’re not Frankie anymore.”
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 3
A quiet witness behind glass, the speaker captures a world of both tenderness and brutality.
#TBR #poetry #urbanlife #existentialism #observationaldrawing

thebrusselsreview.com/ifunanya-geo...
Spectator By Ifunanya Georgia Ezeano
A quiet observer at a window reflects on the disarray, tenderness, and violence of everyday life—torn between distance and immersion.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Jun 2
TBR Dark, edited by Femke van Son, gathers literary fiction that veers into the uncanny and speculative. These stories explore fractured identity, mechanized memory, and psychological rupture.
#TBR #literaryfiction #speculativefiction #TBRDarkhttps://thebrusselsreview.com/admin/introducing-tbr-dark
Introducing TBR Dark By The Brussels Review
What binds these stories together is not genre, but mood: an atmosphere of hesitation, rupture, and epistemological drift... They ask what remains of the human when its constructs—identity, memory, ev...
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 31
#HopeJoseph writes against extinction—of butterflies, of soil, of fireflies, of youth itself. Rooted in the textures of #Ekiti, this lyrical essay gathers records of life before they fade.
#TBR #essays #nostalgia #climatechange #Nigeria #Memory
thebrusselsreview.com/hope-joseph/...
Read And Be Young Again By Hope Joseph
“I want a portal I can walk through to a place where people aren't permitted to visit twice: youth. I want my parent's laughter crackling through my ears half a century from now as fresh and alive.”
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 27
If writing a standard bio feels awkward and you crave some poetry in it, write it in the first person. Speaking of yourself in the third person makes you sound like Trump. #bio #writingabio
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 25
Ghayath Almadhoun’s I Have Brought You a Severed Hand is a searing poetic indictment of war, exile, and complicity. @dritankici.bsky.social #TBR #poetry #translation #Syria #Europe thebrusselsreview.com/dritan-kici/...
Ghayath Almadhoun: Europe, We Love Your Art And Hate Your Bombs By Dritan Kiçi
A furious, unrelenting poetry of rupture—Almadhoun’s verses indict, mourn, and resist with devastating force.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 24
📢 Writers: A non-temporary bio is not a promo.
✅ Name, origin, languages, profession, education, major publications.
🚫 No blurbs, no “explores identity,” no “my latest book…”
Keep it timeless. Think passport, not pitch.
thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 18
This is the framework by which we evaluate the submissions. It never fails to see beyond the well-crafted boring writing.
thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 18
You are an inspired writer Colleen.
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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 18
Atomic legacy meets personal reckoning in a collection that speaks through pain, memory, and the quiet defiance of survival. #TBR #poetry #war #Oppenheimer #redemption #motherhood
Cover art by Mia Felić
thebrusselsreview.com/colleen-s-ha...
Ash Psalms By Colleen S. Harris
Power is not in melted Buicks, not in making angels cower and sing your name in fear. There is no godhood for you, who have only sealed your name in dust.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 18
Televised absurdity, Eurovision is revealed as both camp spectacle and geopolitical masquerade. From Australia's "migrating" to Europe to the politics of absence. Hills are... Was that a man?

#TBR #essays #Eurovision #popculture #geopolitics #satire
thebrusselsreview.com/dritan-kici/...
Eurovision: Where Nations Compete For The Right To Be Confused By Dritan Kiçi
Eurovision is what happens when musical theater and international diplomacy get drunk at the same wedding—messy, performative, and dazzlingly absurd.
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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 17
What makes a story unforgettable? Our editor articulates a triadic framework that dissects the anatomy of enduring narratives and elements that grant stories their lasting power.
#TBR #storytelling #narrativetheory #literarycriticism @dritankici.bsky.social thebrusselsreview.com/dritan-kici/...
The Three Xs Of A Great Story: Extraordinary, Exclusive, Extendable By Dritan Kiçi
Three Xs Framework—Extraordinary, Exclusive, and Extendable. A practical method for evaluating why some stories endure in cultural memory, while others, no matter how lyrical, fade fast.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 11
In this gently obsessive, unsparing account of near-meetings with Paul and Ringo, Szabolcs Benedek explores the ecstasy of fandom and the quiet grief of distance. Translated from Hungarian by Dóra Emma Esze.
#music #TheBeatles #Vienna #TBR thebrusselsreview.com/szabolcs-ben...
Day Tripper By Szabolcs Benedek
A tender, obsessive tribute to Paul McCartney, masculinity, and the fragile distance between idol and admirer.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 11
n The Only Summer and My Shell, the poet offers a quiet disassembly of beauty, longing, and self-deception. These pieces unfold with lyrical restraint, questioning meaning as artifice and love as undoing.

#Poetry #Writing #TBR thebrusselsreview.com/zilin-wu/sum...
Summer By Zilin Wu
A lyrical meditation on impermanence, illusion, and the quiet violence of longing—between self, love, and the aching shell of beauty.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 4
The failure of the Green Transition is not logistical or political, but linguistic. By framing climate action in the language of disruption—transition, sacrifice, loss—we’ve seeded public resistance. @dritankici.bsky.social
#ClimateChange #greentransition #EU thebrusselsreview.com/dritan-kici/...
Why The Green Transition Is Already Lost By Dritan Kiçi
A searing critique of the Green Transition's failure—not in policy, but in metaphor, language, and imagination.
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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 3
From glacial tea rooms to cicada-split heat, traverse the southern terrain of Tasmania in vivid, sensory layers, through memory and dreams. Cover art by #SantaZukker
#Poetry #Nature #Writing #Tasmania #TBR

thebrusselsreview.com/ben-walter/w...
Wandering By Ben Walter
An elemental cycle of weather, memory, and dream—these poems trace Tasmania’s winter and summer in stark, sensory incantations.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · May 1
From the Siege of Yorktown to the halls of Congress, an Unknown Soldier chronicles the haunting continuum of American warfare. How many more final battles can there be?
#Literature #History #Writing #Democracy #Veterans #TBR
thebrusselsreview.com/william-h-sw...
The Unknown Soldier - 1781 By William H Swartz
An Unknown Soldier of 1781 bears witness to the brutal legacy of American wars, from Yorktown to January 6th, tracing the fragile arc of democracy.
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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Apr 26
David Newkirk reflects on the quiet strength and deep beauty of introversion, honoring the unseen worlds that shape thoughtful lives.
Cover by Kathy Bruce, Beauty, collage, private collection
#TBR #Essays #Writing #Psychology #Literature thebrusselsreview.com/david-newkir...
Quiet Lives By David G. Newkirk
A moving reflection on the quiet strength, beauty, and misunderstood reality of introversion in a world shaped by extroversion.
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thebrusselsreview.bsky.social
The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Apr 26
A luminous meditation on intimacy and the quiet revelations of morning light. "Together" captures the tender nearness between bodies, the sacredness of presence, and the almost-miraculous grace found in simple gestures.
#Poetry #Literature #Writing #Reading #TBR
thebrusselsreview.com/kevin-macala...
Together By Kevin MacAlan
A tender morning vision captures love, longing, and the fragile beauty of shared intimacy.
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The Brussels Review @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social · Apr 24
Christopher Kenneally documents the slow erasure of rural Breton life with care and clarity. A stunning tribute to local resistance, cultural identity, and small communities caught in global tides.
#France #BretonLife #EUImpact #Rurallife #TBR
thebrusselsreview.com/christopher-...
Brittany, 1991: Watching The Old World Fade By Christopher Kenneally
An American expatriate in 1991 Brittany captures the twilight of rural traditions under a Europe in flux—tender, wry, and hauntingly beautiful.
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