Robert Allen Papinchak, a former university English professor, is a freelance book critic. He has reviewed a range of fiction in newspapers, magazines, journals, and online including in The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Seattle Times, USA Today, People, The Writer, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, the National Book Review, the New York Journal of Books, the Washington Independent Review of Books, World Literature Today, Strand Magazine, Mystery Scene Magazine, Suspense Magazine, and others. He taught a Scene of the Crime course in London and was the mystery reviewer for Canadian journals. He has been a judge for Publishers Weekly’s BookLife Creative Writing Contest and the Nelson Algren Literary Prize for the Short Story. His own fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and received a STORY award. He is the author of Sherwood Anderson: A Study of the Short Fiction.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
Those Were the Days
A new book chronicles the pathbreaking film, music, and television of 1974....
How to Read an Artichoke: On George Saunders’s “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain”
Robert Allen Papinchak sits in on the master class of “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain” by George Saunders....
Mental Trauma: On Binnie Kirshenbaum’s “Rabbits for Food”
Robert Allen Papinchak reviews Binnie Kirshenbaum's new novel, "Rabbits for Food."...
Long Live 007
On “Forever and a Day,” the new James Bond novel by Anthony Horowitz....
Menace and Malice: On Dorothy B. Hughes’s Debut, “The So Blue Marble”
On “The So Blue Marble” by noir grand master Dorothy B. Hughes....
Avenues of Terror
On “Cross Her Heart” by Sarah Pinborough....
Elegies and Enduring Love in Jim Crace’s “The Melody”
Jim Crace’s “The Melody” sings a haunting refrain of enduring love....
Noir Turned on Its Side
Robert Allen Papinchak reviews “Noir” by Christopher Moore....
Love’s Languishing in the “Last Stories” of William Trevor
Robert Allen Papinchak finds William Trevor’s posthumous collection “Last Stories” impeccable....
