How to Make Paper When the World is Ending Book Cover

Review

How to Make Paper When the World is Ending

by Dallas Woodburn

Koehler Books
ISBN: 978-1646637034

Review by Keith J. Powell

In her new collection of short stories, How to Make Paper When the World is Ending, author Dallas Woodburn pairs intimate stories with clever structures to explore grief, ghosts, and how to make do with the pieces still available to us.

Woodburn’s characters are all struggling with loss in one form or another. For some, that loss is fresh. For others, it’s a dull ache that refuses to resolve. Some are prepared to take action, others are nowhere near ready to turn the corner. For example, in the title story, a woman struggles to build a new and satisfying life from the scraps of the old after her world is quite literally washed away in a tsunami.

This is in contrast to “Goosepimples,” in which a father labors to put his scandal-stained life behind him, wrestling with the notion that exoneration is not the same thing as innocence. In both stories, the reader understands there is no going back, but do the characters? That tension keeps the reader engaged and prevents the stories from feeling repetitive. Yes, everyone’s mourning, but no two characters are mourning in quite the same way. 

It’s not just the characters that keep the collection feeling fresh. It’s Woodburn’s clever craft work as well. In addition to being a writer, she’s also a book coach, and it shows here. This is a truly writerly collection, and it’s hard not to appreciate the careful construction at work. In the opening tale, “Story to Tell Around a Campfire,” a narrator uses storytelling itself as a device to explore the thin line between sinister and sweet. In “How to Make Spinach-Artichoke Lasagna Three Weeks After Your Best Friend’s Funeral,” cooking instructions provide an unexpected but effective frame for processing the loss of a loved one. Creative narrative structures such as these, pepper the collection.

If How to Make Paper When the World is Ending sounds gimmicky or cold, it’s not. Far from it, in fact. Woodburn’s creative scaffoldings are the perfect vehicles for characters and stories that might otherwise feel messy or incomplete. There is thoughtful heart on every page, and because of that, I can easily see writing instructors using How to Make Paper in craft workshops in years to come.

About the Author

Keith J. Powell writes fiction, CNF, reviews, and plays. He is the managing editor of Your Impossible Voice and occasionally tweets @KeithJ_Powell.

Related Reviews
The Hyakunin Isshu: A Hundred Poems by A Hundred Poets

Kokoro and the Endurance of the Human Spirit: The Hyakunin Isshu

By Wally Swist

The Hyakunin Isshu can be translated as “one hundred poets (or people), one poem.” It is one of the several venerable anthologies of Japanese poetry. The Hyakunin was compiled by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), and the first full-color edition was published in 1775.

Review: Lillie was a goddess, Lillie was a whore

By Daniel Shank Cruz Penelope Scambly Schott’s sixth full-length poetry collection, Lillie was a goddess, Lillie was a whore, examines prostitution throughout history. The title character appears in different manifestations throughout the book and is named after the...
Win Me Something cover art

Review: Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu

Review by Isabella Nugent

Kyle Lucia Wu’s debut novel Win Me Something is a rare book that centers biracial Asian experience. It asks: What happens when you fit in nowhere?

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This