Published work

I welcome writing gigs great and small, and creative collaborations of all sorts. Contact me at wbiggins2 at gmail dot com.

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BOOK

Walter Biggins and Daniel Couch, Workbook (Bloomsbury, 2017).

CRITICISM

Book review: “If I Had Two Wings: Stories by Randall Kenan,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (17 August 2020).

Book review: “Pride of Eden by Taylor Brown,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6 March 2020).

Book review: “The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5 July 2019).

Book review: “Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story by Jacob Tobia,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (28 February 2019).

Book review: “Money Rock: A Family’s Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South by Pam Kelley,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5 December 2018).

Book review: “Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (18 October 2018).

Book review: “After the Winter by Guadalupe Nettel” The Quarterly Conversation (no. 53, Fall 2018).

Book review: “Issac Bailey’s My Brother Moochie: Regaining Dignity in the Face of Crime, Poverty, and Racism in the American South,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (14 July 2018).

Book review: “Kevin Powers’s A Shout in the Ruins,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12 May 2018).

Book review: “Leesa Cross-Smith’s Whiskey & Ribbons,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7 April 2018).

Book review: “Peter McDade’s The Weight of Sound,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (29 August 2017.

Book review: “The Child Poet by Homero Aridjis,” The Quarterly Conversation (no. 44, Summer 2016).

Book review: “The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel,” The Quarterly Conversation (no. 42, Winter 2016).

Song review: D’Angelo’s “Really Love,” Glide Magazine (16 December 2014).

Book review: “Tove Jansson’s The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories,” Bookslut (November 2014).

Book review: “Brian Doyle’s Children & Other Wild Animals,” Bookslut (November 2014).

Book review: “Tom Williams’s Don’t Start Me Talkin’,” The Clarion-Ledger [Jackson, MS], 5 July 2014.

Book review: “Megan Abbott’s The Fever,” Bookslut (June 2014).

Book review: “Jim Harrison’s Brown Dog: Novellas,” Bookslut (January 2014). Reprinted in The Black Lamb Review of Books XIII (July 2015).

Comics review: “The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror,” The Comics Journal [online edition], 20 September 2013.

Book review: “Austin Grossman’s You,” Bookslut (June 2013).

Book review: “Gertrude Stein’s Paris France,” Bookslut (June 2013).

Book review: “Jenny Davidson’s The Magic Circle,” Bookslut (March 2013).

Book review: “Adam Phillips’s Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life,” Bookslut (January 2013).

Book review: “Joan Fry’s How To Cook a Tapir: A Memoir of Belize,” Bookslut (January 2013).

Book review: “Kevin Guilfoile’s A Drive into the Gap,” Bookslut (December 2012).

Book review: “bell hooks’s Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice,” Bookslut (November 2012).

Book review: “Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories,” Bookslut (October 2012).

Book review: “Steve Stern’s The Book of Mischief: New and Selected Stories,” Bookslut (September 2012).

Book review: “Samuel R. Delany’s Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction,” Bookslut (August 2012).

50-word album reviews for melophobe (March-July 2012): Ace Hood, Alabama Shakes, Bear in Heaven, Big K.R.I.T., Black Mountain, Bruce Springsteen, Children of the Night, Death Grips, El-P, Islands, Killer Mike, Miike Snow, Plug 1 & Plug 2, Santigold, Spiritualized, Tanlines, Yamantaka/Sonic Titan

“Cracking a Marriage,” Jackson Free Press (7 September 2011). Book review of Robert Olen Butler’s novel, A Small Hotel. [PDF]

“Chris Ware for Kids,” Hymnal (May 2010). Comics review of Eleanor Davis’s The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook.

“Beyond the chain-mail bra,” PopMatters.com (November 10, 2009). Review of Linda Medley’s comics series Castle Waiting. [PDF]

“Coffee Table Mice,” PopMatters.com (September 29, 2009). Review of David Petersen’s graphic novel Mouse Guard: Winter 1152. [PDF]

“Big, Gay, and Christian,” Jackson Free Press (July 15-21, 2009). Book review of James Hannaham’s novel God Says No. [PDF]

“Eclipsing Slave History,” Jackson Free Press (April 16-22, 2009). A book review of Sana Butler’s Sugar of the Crop: My Journey to Find the Children of Slaves. [PDF]

“Cataloging the Blues,” Jackson Free Press (February 19-25, 2009). Book review of Ted Gioia’s Delta Blues. [PDF]

“Class Definition,” Jackson Free Press (January 29-February 4, 2009). Book review of Amanda Boyden’s novel Babylon Rolling. [PDF]

“Freaky and Bloody,” Jackson Free Press (November 6-13, 2008). Book review of Darryl Wimberley’s novel Kaleidoscope. [PDF]

ESSAYS. LECTURES, INTERVIEWS, ETC.

“Everyone’s Favorite Academic Service: The How and Why of Serving on a University Press Editorial Board,” Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications, H-Net Book Channel (16 July 2025)

“Editorial Boards, the Unsung Ride-or-Dies of the UP World,” Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications, H-Net Book Channel (16 October 2024).

“Working with Your Editor: Previously Published Material in Your Manuscript,” Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications, H-Net Book Channel (15 July 2020).

“Digable Planets’ Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) (1993),” in The 33 1/3 B-sides: New Essays by 33 1/3 Authors on Beloved and Underrated Albums (Bloomsbury, 2019)

“Jackson’s St. Paddy’s Day Parade,” in A Year in Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi, 2017)

“Behind the Book: Charleston Syllabus,” Inside UGA Press (newsletter, no. 16, Spring/Summer 2016).

“Q&A with author Matthew Dessem: The Gag Man: Clyde Bruckman and the Birth of Film Comedy,” The Keaton Chronicle (vol. 23, issue 4, Autumn 2015).

“No Good Deed Goes Unpublished: Sherman Alexie, ‘Yi-Fen Chou,’ and The Best American Poetry 2015,” University of Georgia Press blog (10 September 2015).

“D’Angelo Brings It All Together with the Long-Awaited Black Messiah,” Glide Magazine (18 December 2014).

“A Tribute to Jessa Crispin,” Bookslut blog (8 August 2014)

“Re-Reviews: Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication,” Glide Magazine (31 July 2014).

“The Stripped South,” lecture, Millsaps College (29 April 2014). [transcript] [slides]

“In Defense of Armond White,” RogerEbert.com (14 January 2014).

“A Writer of Silences: Reading Natalia Ginzburg,” Bookslut (September 2013).

“An Interview with Rebecca Solnit,” Bookslut (June 2013).

“Between the Bars: De La Soul,” This Creative Life (25 July 2011). Essay. [PDF]

“Hello, Win Column!,” The Baseball Chronicle (November 2010). Essay. [PDF]

Contribution to Matt Zoller Seitz’s edited slide show, “The movie experience I can’t forget,” Salon.com (July 23, 2010). My piece is #10, on Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. [PDF]

“Days of Plastic and Sunshine,” The Baseball Chronicle (April 20, 2009). Essay. [PDF]

FICTION

“Done with Skateboarding,” Valley Voices: A Literary Review (vol. 11, #2, Fall 2011). Short story.

“At the Greengrocer,” Lost Battles (April 2011). Short story.

MISC.

“Global Discovery Series: The Philadelphia Negro, 125 Years Later,” moderator of interview with Tukufu Zuberi (9 March 2023)

“Behind the Book with Penn Press: A Right to Lie?“, moderator of interview with Catherine Ross and Sigal Ben-Porath (21 April 2022)

Jeet Heer, “An Interview with Walter Biggins,” The Comics Journal (18 March 2013).