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At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

New Books :: Containing History

Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US-Russia Relations by Stephen P. Friot book cover image

Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US-Russia Relations by Stephen P. Friot
The University of Oklahoma Press, June 2023

Cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural in its scope, Containing History employs the tools and insights of history, political science, and international relations to explain how twenty-first-century public attitudes in Russia are the product of a thousand years of history, including searing experiences in the twentieth century that have no counterparts in U.S. history. At the same time, Friot explores how—in ways incomprehensible to Russians—U.S. politics are driven by American society’s ethnic and religious diversity and by the robust political competition that often, for better or worse, puts international issues to work in the service of domestic political gain. Looking at history, culture, and politics in both the United States and Russia, Friot shows how the forty-five years of the Cold War and the seventy years of the Soviet era have shaped both the Russia we know in the twenty-first century and American attitudes toward Russia—in ways that drive social and political behavior, with profound consequences for the post–Cold War world.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Rise above the River

Rise Above the River: Poems by Kelly Rowe book cover image

Rise above the River: Poems by Kelly Rowe
Able Muse Press, May 2023

In Kelly Rowe’s Rise above the River, we find a sister powerless to redress her brother’s fall from grace after the trauma of his childhood sexual abuse by a female authority figure. Rise above the River interrogates in a quest for answer, meaning, reason, justice, and mercy—along the way, exploring the conceit of the fallen angel with ekphrases on artwork such as Alexandre Cabanel’s L’ange déchu and Hugo Simberg’s The Wounded Angel. This powerful and emotionally charged collection is the winner of the 2021 Able Muse Book Award.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: The Boxer of Quirinal

The Boxer of Quirnial: Poems by John Barr book cover image

The Boxer of Quirnial: Poems by John Barr
Red Hen Press, June 2023

All animals struggle to survive. In John Barr’s The Boxer of Quirinal poems, the success of the heron hunting, the albatross breeding, and the inchworm spinning give proof of life. But for us, that struggle includes the eternal presence of war. Does the fall of Rome, the Battle of Shiloh, the Normandy Landings – and today’s wars – give proof of life or only of the struggle? Poet John Barr grew up in a rural township outside Chicago. An honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, he served on Navy destroyers for five years, including three tours to Vietnam. His poems have appeared in the New York Times, Poetry, and Flaunt Magazine among many periodicals and anthologies. He was president of the Poetry Foundation and publisher of Poetry magazine for its first decade. The Boxer of Quirinal is his tenth to be published over the past thirty years.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: House Parties by Lynn Levin

House Parties by Lynn Levin book cover image

Guest Post by Joy Stocke

In Lynn Levin’s expert hands, House Parties, a collection of twenty beautifully crafted short stories, the mundane actions of daily life are upended and enter the realm of myth. Family relationships, work relationships, and love in its many forms are woven into a narrative laced with pop culture, literary references, wisdom, and wry humor. On a hike in Yosemite, a young man caring for his ailing mother encourages his friends to seek an elusive waterfall and encounters a raven who leads the way. In a nod to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and turning the Jewish myth of the Golem on its head, a woman yearning for companionship fashions a meatloaf into a living being. Students rebel against their professors. A young woman perfects the art of grifting, while a millennial couple seeks to rekindle their love in a new housing development. On a remote beach in Puerto Rico, an awkward teenager encounters a band of monkeys. The natural world permeates the collection and illuminates the mysteries that exist just beyond our grasp. For Levin and her rich tapestry of characters, that very mystery offers and delivers the opportunity for transcendence.


House Parties by Lynn Levin. Spuyten Duyvill Press, May 2023.

Reviewer bio: Joy E. Stocke is the author of numerous books and articles. She has edited and published works of fiction for more than 30 years.

New Book :: A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir by Will Betke-Brunswick book cover image

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir by Will Betke-Brunswick
Tin House Books, November 2022

During Will Betke-Brunswick’s sophomore year of college, their beloved mother, Elizabeth, is diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. They only have ten more months together, which Will documents in evocative two-color illustrations. But as we follow Will and their mom through chemo and hospital visits, their time together is buoyed by laughter, jigsaw puzzles, modern art, and vegan BLTs. In a delightful twist, Will portrays their family as penguins, and their friends are cast as a menagerie of birds. In between therapy and bedside chats, they navigate uniquely human challenges, as Will prepares for math exams, comes out as genderqueer, and negotiates familial tension.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Where to Submit Roundup: May 5, 2023

53 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.

Where to Submit Roundup 2023

Happy May! With the start of a new month comes a burst of new submission opportunities. Let NewPages help you meet your submission goals with our Weekly Roundup.

Don’t forget that NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Roundup: May 5, 2023”

New Book :: The Third Renunciation

The Third Renunciation: Poems by Matthew E. Henry book cover image

The Third Renunciation: Poems by Matthew E. Henry
NYQ Books, June 2023

Heeding St. John Cassian’s call, the poems in Matthew E. Henry’s The Third Renunciation reject classic depictions of divinity and religious dogma to see God more fully. Each begins with a proposition (e.g. “Say God is the music we strain to hear,” “Say prayer is just a fire alarm,” “Say faith can become like lackluster sex,” “Say unarmed Black men herald His return”), or an explanation for a Biblical story (e.g. “maybe Jesus was having an off day,” “Say Jonah was right and grace is wasted,” “Say angels aren’t always trustworthy.”). Henry’s poetry offers answers to the myriad whys at the center of faith and doubt, gives voice to the notion that both singing and screaming are authentic responses to suffering, and argues that “grace is a Twinkie or a cockroach— / something that never goes bad, can survive / anything the cold world throws… / despite all our best efforts to quell it.”

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Girl Country

Girl Country: Stories by Jacqueline Vogtman book cover image

Girl Country: Stories by Jacqueline Vogtman
Dzanc Books, May 2023

Girl Country: Stories by Jacqueline Vogtman is Winner of the Dzanc Shorty Story Collection Prize with stories that feature a near-future farmer battling environmental crises who takes in a mysterious girl he finds on the roadside. A bus driver navigates through treacherous weather and memories of her tragic past as she races to save children from the end of the world. A woman keeps giving birth to children from different time periods. And a woman struggles with her young daughter mysteriously transforming into something wild and unruly, confronting themes of motherhood and family. Girl Country ranges from medieval Belgium to the near future of the American Midwest, populated by mothers and monsters, mermaids and milkmaids, nuns and bus drivers—women in every walk of life, but particularly working-class women, navigating the intersection of the mundane and the magical.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: All We Could Have Been and More

All We Could Have Been and More: Stories by Joshua Shaw book cover image

All We Could Have Been and More: Stories by Joshua Shaw
Livingston Press, July 2023

Tartt First Fiction Award winner, All We Could Have Been and More by Joshua Shaw features stories about zombie ant fungus and self-conscious crash test dummies, which surely conveys to readers the dark humor focus of this collection. The author comments, “A lot of the stuff I’m publishing these days in philosophy involves defenses of pessimism and misanthropy. I credit the last few elections for inspiring this new research line.”

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: Choosing to Run by Des Linden

Choosing to Run by Des Linden book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Unlike several other memoirs from female runners that have come out in the past six months or so—Laura Fleshman’s Good for a Girl; Kara Goucher’s The Longest Race; or Running While Black by Alison Mariella Désir—Linden’s memoir is much more focused on her career in running, not significant issues surrounding the sport (gender, doping, and race, respectively) in the context of the authors’ lives and careers. She centers her story around the 2018 Boston Marathon, interspersing chapters from that race with longer chapters about how she got to that point. The first half of the book feels like necessary background information Linden needs the reader to know to set up the much more dramatic second half of the book, the time in her career when she’s nearing that appearance in Boston. As with the final 10K of the Boston Marathon course, the pace picks up at that point, as the suspense of how she ended up winning the race (no spoiler there, as it’s in the summary of the memoir) after struggling with a debilitating thyroid issue and the worst marathon preparation of her career makes readers want to push to the finish. While Linden does hint at larger concerns—unequal power in contract negotiations and doping—the focus here is on why Linden continued (and continues) to show up and choose to run.


Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

Choosing to Run by Des Linden. Dutton, April 2023.

New Book :: The Auburn Conference

The Auburn Conference: A Novel by Tom Piazza book cover image

The Auburn Conference: A Novel by Tom Piazza
University of Iowa Press, May 2023

In The Auburn Conference: A Novel by Tom Piazza, it is 1883, and America is at a crossroads. At a tiny college in Upstate New York, an idealistic young professor has managed to convince Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Confederate memoirist Forrest Taylor, and romance novelist Lucy Comstock to participate in the first (and last) Auburn Writers’ Conference for a public discussion about the future of the nation. By turns brilliantly comic and startlingly prescient, The Auburn Conference vibrates with questions as alive and urgent today as they were in 1883—the chronic American conundrums of race, class, and gender, and the fate of the democratic ideal.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: The Lioness of Boston

The Lioness of Boston: A Novel by Emily Franklin book cover image

The Lioness of Boston: A Novel by Emily Franklin
David R. Godine Publisher, April 2023

By the time Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum in 1903 to showcase her collection of old masters, antiques, and objects d’art, she was already well-known for scandalizing Boston’s polite society. But when Isabella first arrived in Boston in 1861, she was twenty years old, newly married to a wealthy trader, and unsure of herself. Puzzled by the frosty reception she received from stuffy bluebloods, she strived to fit in. After two devastating tragedies and rejection from upper-society, Isabella discovered her spirit and cast off expectations. Freed by travel, Isabella explores the world of art, ideas, and letters, meeting such kindred spirits as Henry James and Oscar Wilde. From London and Paris to Egypt and Asia, she develops a keen eye for paintings and objects, and meets feminists ready to transform nineteenth century thinking in the twentieth century. Isabella becomes an eccentric trailblazer, painted by John Singer Sargent in a portrait of daring décolletage, and fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions in the Boston Public Garden.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Lit on the Block :: Hot Pot Magazine

Hot Pot Magazine logo image

Hot Pot Magazine is a new open-access online monthly lit mag of prose, poetry, and visual art as well as experimental work like comics, audio spoken word, or music files. Founder and Editor-in-Chief Emily Pedroza says she started Hot Pot Magazine because “I just wanted to create a hub for literature and art that makes people feel less alone. To amplify the stories and voices that lie within literature and art.”

Continue reading “New Lit on the Block :: Hot Pot Magazine”

New Book :: Sprawl

Sprawl by Andrew Collard book cover image

Sprawl: Poems by Andrew Collard
Ohio University Press, March 2023

Sprawl by Andrew Collard is a reconstruction of the constantly shifting landscape of metropolitan Detroit, which extends over six counties and is home to over four million people, from the perspective of a single parent raising a young child amid financial precarity. Part memoir, part invention, the book is Andrew Collard’s attempt to reconcile the tenderness and sense of purpose found in the parent-child relationship with ongoing societal crises in the empire of the automobile. Here, a mansion may contrast with a burned-out home just up the street. How does one construct a sense of place in such a landscape, where once-familiar neighborhoods turn to strip malls or empty lots and the relationships that root us dissolve? Sprawl suggests that there is solace in recognizing that when we ask this question, we are never alone in asking.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: Sky Island Journal – Spring 2023

Sky Island Journal Spring 2023 cover image

Sky Island Journal’s stunning 24th issue (Spring 2023) features poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from contributors around the globe. Accomplished, well-established authors are published—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices. Readers are provided with a powerful, focused literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. Always free to access, and always free from advertising, discover what over 125,000 readers in 145 countries and over 700 contributors already know; the finest new writing can be found where the desert meets the mountains.

Book Review :: An Apprenticeship by Clarice Lispector

An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasure by Clarice Lispector book cover image

Guest Post by Colm McKenna

Clarice Lispector’s An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures is a romantic novel, but this categorization is perhaps misleading. The story follows primary school teacher Lóri falling in love for the first time. Lóri, however, does not feel sufficiently prepared; she cannot fall into it because she does not understand how to love, nor how to live. She strives to figure out the latter so that the former might come more easily.

Lóri is “cosmically different” from other people; the act of living that seemingly comes so easily to others is simply unintelligible to her. When engaging with the real world and its social conventions, she “put[s] someone else on top of herself” so that she can at least pretend to fit in. The scenes in which she interacts with the world are full of anxieties that are invisible to those around her. Lóri is full of metaphysical questions; she fears the prospect of shirking life, worries that the process of thinking is unnatural to her, and bemoans the epistemological loneliness that keeps people apart.

An Apprenticeship is unconventional as a romantic novel, which may explain the mixed reviews it initially received. However, there are some brilliant insights about love to be found here; Lóri makes a case for common sense in love, and the futility of a forced search for pleasure. Lispector’s novel is a richly philosophical story, as well as a sharp and original commentary on love.


Reviewer bio: Colm McKenna is a second-hand bookseller based in Paris. He has published and self-published an array of short stories and articles, hoping to eventually release a collection of stories. He is mainly interested in the works of John Cowper Powys, Claude Houghton and a range of Latin American writers.

An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures by Clarice Lispector. Translated from the Portuguese by Stefan Tobler. New Directions Publishing, May 2022.

Book News :: Free YA Audio Books for Summer from Sync

AudiobookSYNC 2023 logo

AudiobookSYNC is a summer program of FREE audiobooks for teens 13+. Two thematically paired audiobooks are available each week through the Sora reading app from April 27 – August 2, 2023. Participants sign up for free and download the Sora student reading app. Anyone can actually sign up for the program, not just teens, but the titles are all geared toward teen readers 13+. The cool thing is that the books are “borrowed” and stay in the Sora app until you return them, with a loan time of 35,999 days. So, basically, the books are to keep unless someone purposefully returns them. The titles available each week are ONLY available to borrow for that week, so if you miss a week, then you miss out on those books. Visit SYNC via AudioFile and get started today – and spread the word to your teen readers and YA fans.

New & Noted Lit & Alt Mags – April 2023

NewPages receives many wonderful literary magazine and alternative magazine titles each month to share with our readers. You can read more about some of these titles by clicking on the “New Mag Issues” under NewPages Blog or Mags. Find out more about many of these titles with our Guide to Literary Magazines and our Big List of Literary Magazines and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed here or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay the most up-to-date on all things literary!

805, 9.1
Apple Valley Review, Spring 2023
Bellevue Literary Review, 44
Birmingham Poetry Review, Spring 2023
Blue Collar Review, Winter 2022-23
Brink, Spring 2023
Cleaver, 41
Club Plum, 4.2
Cutleaf, 3.5 3.6 3.7
The First Line, Spring 2023
Free Inquiry, April/May 2023
The Greensboro Review, Spring 2023

Continue reading “New & Noted Lit & Alt Mags – April 2023”

New Book :: Poppy and Mary Ellen Deliver the Goods

Poppy and Mary Ellen Deliver the Goods book cover image

Poppy and Mary Ellen Deliver the Goods by Roz Weedman and Susan Todd
Chapter Illustrations by Lane Trabalka
Mission Point Press, April 2023

In Book One of the Frankenmuth Murder Mysteries, the Stanley family gathers in the number one tourist town in Michigan—Frankenmuth. Known for its historically accurate, Bavarian-style architecture and famous chicken dinners, the festive, fun town experiences the murder of the Stanley family matriarch followed by the murder of another resident. The solution, though, isn’t obvious since there are plenty of suspects to consider: nieces, nephews, a disgruntled caterer, a carriage driver. Maybe it was someone else entirely or multiple killers with completely different motives! The local police step in to investigate under the spotlight of an unrelenting press. How long will it be before tourists are enjoying their chicken dinners again without looking over their shoulders? Meanwhile, local private eyes Mary Ellen and Poppy—best known for finding lost dogs, catching errant husbands, and playing a mean game of mah-jongg—find themselves in a daunting role. Hired by an out-of-state lawyer to find a missing heir, the local police welcome their inside information to help bring a killer (or killers?) to justice. Even Poppy’s Boston terrier, Babycakes, has a role in helping solve the case.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Where to Submit Roundup: April 28, 2023

56 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.

Where to Submit Roundup 2023

Welcome to the last submission roundup of April 2023! That also means to expect some new opportunities next week with the arrival of May on Monday. Speaking of May, stop by our Big List of Writing Contests for a list of upcoming deadlines!

Don’t forget that NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Roundup: April 28, 2023”

Magazine Stand :: World Literature Today – May 2023

World Literature Today May 2023 cover image

With 16 bonus pages, the May 2023 issue of World Literature Today ponders “The Future of the Book,” featuring a marquee interview with Azar Nafisi and contributions by 15 other writers on the subject of books and book culture. Additional highlights include an interview with Marilyn Luper Hildreth, the daughter of civil rights legend Clara Luper; Nawal Nasrallah’s recipe for Iraqi turnip and Swiss chard chowder; and a Filipino dagli by Stefani J. Alvarez. The book review section rounds up the best new books from around the world, and additional interviews, poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction, culture essays, a postcard from the former Yugoslavia, and an outpost from Berlin make the May issue your perfect summer reading companion.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Gauntlet in the Gulf

Gauntlet in the Gulf edited by Claude Clayton Smith book cover image

Gauntlet in the Gulf: The 1925 Marine Log and Mexican Prison Journal of William F. Lorenz, MD edited by Claude Clayton Smith
Shanti Arts Publishing, March 2023

Lorenz Hall at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, is named for William F. Lorenz, the man who first observed, in 1916, that chemistry could treat the mentally ill. Professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Lorenz developed the fledgling Psychiatry Department while engaged in his ground-breaking research. In 1925, seeking a much-needed respite, he signed on with the Ruth, a fishing smack out of Pensacola, Florida, for a working vacation in the Gulf of Mexico. The Ruth struck a reef, the ship was abandoned, and the crew was rescued from perilous seas by a Mexican Navy vessel, only to be imprisoned as spies, smugglers, gun-runners, and for fishing in illegal waters. Dr. Lorenz’s diary details their ordeal.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Outside the Frame

Outside the Frame Catherine Pritchard Childress book cover image

Outside the Frame Catherine Pritchard Childress
EastOver Press, April 2023

The poetry in Outside the Frame by Catherine Pritchard Childress gives full-throated voice to those who are historically silenced, while bearing witness to a complex culture that both perpetuates that silence and cries out to be heard and to be seen. Seeking to subvert tradition in the pursuit of truth, these poems move seamlessly between worlds—the biblical and the contemporary, the mythical and the uncomfortably real. The speakers here reflect not the poet, but any woman, all women, from Lot’s wife to housewife—unnamed, unheard, yet unrelenting.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: Humana Obscura – Spring/Summer 2023

Humana Obscura Spring/Summer 2023 cover image

The Spring/Summer 2023 issue of Humana Obscura is here and features work by 77 new, emerging, and established contributors from around the globe. Contributors include Sarah Verardo, C.X. Turner, Natalya Khorover, Vian Borchert, Phil Lemley, Luke Levi, Hugh Hughes, petro c. k., Shelly Reed Thieman, Tom Farr, Nick Olah, William Ross, Rebecca Williams, Ali Saperstein, Gaylord Brewer, John Vukmirovich, Michael Romano, Christopher Buckley, Kelly Schulze, Kristin Davis, Mary Christine Delea, Annie Holdren, Heather Kern, Adele Webster, Mel Adams, Ewa Matyja, and more. Humana Obscura is an independent literary magazine that seeks to publish nature-focused poetry, prose, and art by new, emerging, and established writers and artists from around the world. Connect with them on Facebook, Instagram @humanaobscura, and Twitter @humanaobscura.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Lit on the Block :: Ergi Press

Ergi Press logo image

Hailing from the UK, say hello to Ergi Press! Publishing zines and anthologies twice a year, they promote themselves as “a down-to-earth DIY press publishing art, poetry and prose from LGBTQIA+ creators from all over.” With a rolling submissions window, reading periods and publications go with the flow, and deadline details for each issue are communicated via their website and social media outlets. Once ready to share, Ergi Press publications are available in both digital and print formats, with zines accessible via BigCartel and anthologies via Amazon.

Editor Imogen says, “Our love for different genres knows no bounds. We accept unpublished work from LGBTQ+ identifying creators on any theme, subject, or topic – this means innovative contributions from poetry to prose and everything in between. Art, photography, and visual poetry, we do it all!”

Continue reading “New Lit on the Block :: Ergi Press”

New Book :: Wild Liar

Wild Liar by Deborah Pope book cover image

Wild Liar by Deborah Pope
Carnegie Mellon University Press, February 2023

The poems of Deborah Pope’s Wild Liar emerge from a fundamental engagement with the nature of memory—its shifting constructions and needs, its equilibriums and disquiets. Refracted through language rich with Pope’s distinctive lyricism and acute eye for detail, the poems plumb the experience of the passing of parents, the departure of children, the weathers of a long marriage, and an acknowledgment of mortality. Whether writing with sly humor or emotional directness, her voice compels attention—it is clear-eyed and assessing, poignant and wise.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Independent Bookstore Day 2023

Indie Bookstore Day 2023 banner

Independent Bookstore Day takes place the last Saturday in April every year. For 2023 that makes it April 29. Indie bookstores across the country participate with special events and so much more. This year is the 10th anniversary of this special day to support stores that offer so much more than good books to our communities.

Want to find a bookstore near you and support them this weekend or see what fun events they may be hosting? Stop by our Guide to Indie Bookstores in the US & Canada (we just finished up a round of adding and updating more bookstores, too). It’s the perfect place to plan an indie bookstore tour of stores near you.

Magazine Stand :: Blue Collar Review – Winter 2022-23

Blue Collar Review Winter 2022-23 cover image

The Winter 2022-23 issue of Blue Collar Review: Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature opens with the editorial comments, “This winter has seen our working class and our earth under continuous attack. The crimes of commerce and the insane barbarity of war cannot be disconnected.” The poems featured within its pages speak to “the bleak realities of life for our laboring, and post-laboring class” and close with “a post-pandemic wake-up call for many of us who have been stunned into depressed isolation by the pandemic, by the growing threat of impending nuclear annihilation, and by an unfolding climate catastrophe.” The Blue Collar Review website features poems from the issue by Ed Block, Dan Sicoli, TK O’Rourke, Stewart Acuff, Livio Farallo, Joel Savishinski, Roibeárd, and Bill Ayres. Cover art: Uvalde by Roberto Marquez.

New Book :: In Deep

In Deep by Judith Sanders book cover image

In Deep by Judith Sanders
Kelsay Books, July 2022

In Deep, Judith Sanders’ debut poetry collection shifts deftly among registers of language, from satirical to heartfelt to laugh-out-loud funny. Many of her poems delight in flights of imagination. Her observations are accurate, musical, and precise. Her politics are expressed slyly, elliptically; there’s a feminist strain, too. Her voice is unpretentiously real, whether probing everyday experiences or ultimate cosmic paradoxes. Wherever these wide-ranging poems travel, they plunge in deep.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Where Sunday Used to Be

Where Sunday Used to Be by Daniel Klawitter book cover image

Where Sunday Used to Be by Daniel Klawitter
Wipf and Stock Publishers, November 2022

The poems in Daniel Klawitter’s Where Sunday Used to Be display a masterful and contemporary twist on a beloved poetic tradition that carefully employs the tools of meter, rhyme, and rhythm. Readers will find these poems to be both accessible and thought-provoking. It is rare to encounter a poet capable of such range in tone and subject matter: from the humorous to the tragic, the divine to the devilish, the author expertly blurs the lines between our notions of the sacred and the secular.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Sacred Spells

Sacred Spells: Collected Works by Assotto Saint book cover image

Sacred Spells: Collected Works by Assotto Saint
Nightboat Books, August 2023

In this timely collection of poetry, plays, fiction, and performance texts, Assotto Saint draws upon music and incantation, his Haitian heritage, and a politics of liberation to weaves together a tapestry of literature that celebrates life in the face of death. Influential to contemporary writers such as Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs, and Melvin Dixon, Sacred Spells is Saint’s crucial legacy–five hundred incandescent pages of painful, lyric writing that exemplifies the visceral, spiritual dimensions of an artistic practice that’s integral to Black and trans activist movements in the United States, both historic and present.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: The Apple Valley Review – Spring 2023

Apple Valley Review Spring 2023 cover image

The spring 2023 issue of Apple Valley Review online journal of contemporary literature features short fiction by Marianna Vitale (translated from the Italian by Laura Venita Green), Nico Montoya, Anita Harag (translated from the Hungarian by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess), Sohana Manzoor, and Kristian Radford; a lyric essay by Amy Ash; poetry in prose by Yves Bonnefoy (translated from the French by Hoyt Rogers); and poetry by Ashish Kumar Singh, Susan Johnson, Laura Goldin, George HS Singer, and Liza Moore. Cover image by Tunisian photographer Houcine Ncib.

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Where to Submit Roundup: April 21, 2023

53 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.

Where to Submit Roundup 2023

The mid-month submission rush is over. Now it’s time to start preparing for the end of month submission rush. NewPages is here to help you find a home for your work with our Where to Submit Roundup for the week of April 21.

Don’t forget that NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.

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New Book :: Approximate Body

Approximate Body by Danielle Pieratti book cover image

Approximate Body by Danielle Pieratti
Carnegie Mellon University Press, February 2023

The poetry in Danielle Pieratti’s Approximate Body reflects upon the dramas of domestic life with equal parts cynicism, nostalgia, and grief. Richly narrative, fragmented, and featuring a variety of landscapes suburban, tropical, and ancient, these poems affirm an intricate mix of guilt and longing, proclaiming that “if I’ve loved / anything it has not been / enough.”

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Magazine Stand :: West Trade Review – Volume 14

West Trade Review Spring 2023 issue cover

The Spring 2023 issue of West Trade Review is their annual print edition and features fiction by Emily Hall, Nick Gregorio, and Maria Alvarez; poetry by Robert Wood Lynn, Rogan Kelly, Kimberly Ann Priest, Anthony DiPietro, Bree Bailey, Max Parker, and Megan Merchant; CNF by Haley Notter, Lily Levin, and Katherine Grasso; visual art by Nika Novich; interviews with Emily Hall, Robert Wood Lynn, and Nika Novich. West Trade Review‘s mission is to perpetuate the work of artists both well-known and yet-to-be-known, reflecting diversity in style, content, and perspective throughout prose, poetry, photography, and other artwork.

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Book Review :: Disbound by Hajar Hussaini

Disbound poetry by Hajar Hussaini published by University of Iowa Press book cover image

Guest Post by Jami Macarty

Imagine a book’s binding has dissolved. Now consider what it means when a country loses its binding: “each house / to grieve a long list / of mourners / who had no procession.” Now, dear reader, you are in the “tenacious presence” of Disbound, Afghan poet and translator Hajar Hussaini’s debut. Disbound’s inquiry: What binds self, family, and nation after war? The nation: Afghanistan, where “the state of affairs chauffeurs the thousands / out of place.”

The poems of Disbound offer “an inventory / / of memories” and the demographics of immigration: “four in ten would leave given the opportunity.” The lives of citizens are pitted against papers and files: “shake an immigrant / and scraps of paper fall out of reality”; “father may die before the files are processed.”

Gestures of dismantling contribute to Disbound’s aesthetics. According to the end notes, several of the collection’s poems “are made of found language borrowed from” various Afghan media sources. This repurposing seems to allow the poet to subvert ideological messages while highlighting a “new gen continuum” and privileging artistic expression: “a slaughterhouse / was renovated / an art production built /… / … / against forgetting.”

Similarly, expression of female sexuality and desire “in gendered halls” is brought forward: “in this language the body / is both / alive and not.” The “manifestation of… immeasurable needs” is perhaps a disbounding from Afghan national norms, and in that way, a “gain,” if there is such a thing, from disbounding. In a book, written out of profound disconnection, Hussaini’s willingness to reconnect with language and the body “is a post-traumatic act,” is a radical act to rebound and rebind after disbound.


Disbound by Hajar Hussaini. University of Iowa Press, November 2022.

Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Concision Poetry Journal, Interim, Redivider, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poems appear. More at https://jamimacarty.com/

New Book :: Dear Outsiders

Dear Outsiders by Jenny Sadre-Orafai book cover image

Dear Outsiders by Jenny Sadre-Orafai
University of Akron Press, March 2023

The prose poems in Dear Outsiders by Jenny Sadre-Orafai explore how we are part of and stranger to our environments and to our families and how identities form by where and who we come from. Told through two siblings’ perspectives of the loss of their parents, the book is a map of isolation, longing, and what it means to be deserted and alive. Sadre-Orafai is an Iranian Mexican American poet and writer. She is the co-author of Book of Levitations and the author of Malak and Paper, Cotton, Leather. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous literary magazines. She co-founded Josephine Quarterly and teaches creative writing at Kennesaw State University.

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New Book :: String

String by Matthew Thorburn book cover image

String by Matthew Thorburn
Louisiana State University Press, March 2023

A book-length sequence of poems, Matthew Thorburn’s String tells the story of a teenage boy’s experiences in a time of war and its aftermath. He loses his family and friends, his home and the life he knew, but survives to tell his story. Written in the boy’s fractured, echoing voice—in lines that are frequently enjambed and use almost no punctuation—String embodies his trauma and confusion in a poetic sequence that is part lullaby, part nightmare, but always a music that is uniquely his. Thorburn is the author of eight poetry collections, including The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and the book-length poem Dear Almost, which won the Lascaux Prize.

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Magazine Stand :: Terrain.org – April 2023

Terrain.org new logo

In celebration of National Poetry Month April 2023, Terrain.org offers readers poetry with a summer flavor by Pattiann Rogers and Judy Halebsky, a video poem by Forrest Gander, Alison Hawthorne Deming’s interview with poet David Baker, a review of poet Erin Coughlin Hollowell’s Corvus and Crater, plus nonfiction by Sharon Kirsch and fiction by Marilyn Abildskov. Terrain.org also has an upcoming reading featuring poets Pattiann Rogers, Andrew C. Gottlieb, and Kamella Cruz in honor of National Poetry Month and Earth Day. Poetry editor Derek Sheffield hosts. Visit their website for more information.

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New Book :: The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories

The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories, 2023: Writers of Color edited by Keith Pilapil Lesmeister book cover image

The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories, 2023: Writers of Color edited by Keith Pilapil Lesmeister
EastOver Press, March 2023

The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories, 2023: Writers of Color is a collection of short fiction from deep in the heart of America’s rural spaces. In this inaugural volume’s introduction, series editor Keith Pilapil Lesmeister points out that “people living in communities like mine aren’t simply thinking about the urban-rural divide, we’re living it.” He adds, “Pundits, political pollsters, politicians themselves all want to know…what’s going on out here in the sticks? What’s important to rural folks? What do we have foremost on our minds?”

The writers in this collection—all people of color—offer diverse answers. Their unique takes will, in many cases, startle readers who cling to stereotypical views of folks who live in rural America: Jinwoo Chong, Risë Kevalshar Collins, Jamie Figueroa, Libby Flores, Jane Hammons, Mark L. Keats, Laura Lee Lucas, Jennifer Morales, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, Jeanette Weaskus, and Erika T. Wurth.

Magazine Stand :: Club Plum – 4.2

Club Plum online literary magazine logo image

Volume 4, Issue 2 of Club Plum online literary and art journal carries the weight of knowing the ones we love are often out of reach. Sometimes they are our mothers, right beside us, their mental illness having stolen them away. Sometimes they are our fathers, very old and wheelchair-bound, war-demon wrestling blocking us from what could have been. In this issue, characters and family, friends, and ghosts reside in shelters and nursing homes, in laundromats and restaurants, in TVs, trees, and memories, and in all these places, there is longing. Contributors include Anna Laura Falvey, Foster Trecost, Rhiannon Chavez, Jesse Curran, Narisma, Mary Wood, Jeff Bender, Kate LaDew, King Tina, Em Townsend, Sam Moe, Jeff Bender, Elizabeth Horton, Michael Moreth, and Carolyn Schlam.

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New Book :: Sonnets with Two Torches and One Cliff

Sonnets with Two Torches and One Cliff by Robert Thomas book cover image

Sonnets with Two Torches and One Cliff by Robert Thomas
Carnegie Mellon University Press, February 2023

In Sonnets with Two Torches and One Cliff, Robert Thomas presents eighty nontraditional sonnets that explore love and jealousy—the traditional obsessions of sonnets—from nontraditional angles. Other galaxies are jealous of Earth in these heartbreaking, funny, ecstatic, profound, and never boring poems. “What if creatures in other galaxies / have a vague sense that something is missing, / but don’t know it’s Little Richard, Shakespeare, / and cornbread with plum jam?”

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Magazine Stand :: Bellevue Literary Review – Issue 44

Bellevue Literary Review Issue 44 cover image

The latest issue of Bellevue Literary Review (Issue 44) features the winners of the annual 2023 BLR Literary Prizes. This year’s winners are Lara Palmqvist (fiction, selected by judge Toni Jensen), Caroline Harper New (poetry, selected by Phillip B. Williams), and Jehanne Dubrow (nonfiction, selected by Rana Awdish). Honorable mentions are Karen K. Ford, Karan Kapoor, and Sabah Parsa. The issue also features many other talented writers, including fiction by Sara Nović, Dan Pope, Joon Ae Haworth-Kaufka, and Tyriek White; nonfiction by Acamea Deadwiler, Rachel Mann, and D. Liebhart; and poetry by Martha Silano, Ellen June Wright, Rage Hezekiah, and Megan Merchant. The issue’s bright, colorful cover is by artist Alexander Gorlizki. Get your copy (or start a subscription!) by visiting the BLR website.

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New Book :: Hydra Medusa

Hydra Medusa by Brandon Shimoda book cover image

Hydra Medusa by Brandon Shimoda
Nightboat Books, June 2023

Hydra Medusa by Brandon Shimoda is part coping mechanism, part magical act, and was composed while Shimoda was working five jobs and raising a child—during bus commutes, before bed, at sunrise. Encountering the ghosts of Japanese American ancestors, friends, children, and bodies of water, it asks: What is the desert but a site where people have died, are dying; are buried, unburied, memorialized, erased. Where they are trying, against and within the energy of it all, to contend with our inherited present—and to live.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Crimes of the Tongue

Crimes of the Tongue: Essays and Stories by Alicia Gaspar de Alba book cover image

Crimes of the Tongue: Essays and Stories by Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Arte Público Press, March 2023

In Crimes of the Tongue: Essays and Stories, award-winning writer Alici Gaspar de Alba explores other “crimes of the tongue” in the essays in this volume: pochismo, or the mixing of English and Spanish, as both a family taboo and a politics of identity; the haunting memory of La Llorona, protector of undocumented immigrants and abandoned children, and her blood-curdling cry of loss and revenge; the intersection of the personal and the political in the transgressive work of Chicana/Latina artists; the sexual and linguistic rebellions of La Malinche and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; and the reverse coyotaje, or border crossing, of Chicana lesbian feminist theory translated into Spanish and visual art as a way of sneaking this counterhegemonic pocha poetic thought into Mexico. These essays and stories are always intellectually rigorous and often achingly personal.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Bark On

Bark On: A Novel by Mason Boyles book cover image

Bark On: A Novel by Mason Boyles
Driftwood Press, February 2023

In Bark On: A Novel by Mason Boyles, Ezra Fogerty is an aspiring professional triathlete training out of his ma’s trailer in the eroding North Carolina beach town of Kure. When the recently disgraced celebrity coach Benji Newton shows up at his doorstep offering to train him for the Chapel Hill Ironman, Ezra accepts eagerly. Benji’s methods prove brutal and ritualistic, and seem connected to Kure’s abruptly climbing coyote population. As Ezra begins to question the logic behind his preparation, Benji invites the orphaned prodigy Casper Swayze to train with them. The diminutive Casper one-ups Ezra in every workout until suffering a disastrous injury that coincides with Benji’s disappearance, leaving Ezra to choose between caring for Casper and completing preparations for the biggest race of his career.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

April 2023 eLitPak :: Extended deadline for Richard Snyder Prize

Screenshot of Ashland Poetry Press flyer for the 2023 Richard Snyder Prize deadline extension
click image to open full-size flyer

$1000 and publication with Ashland Poetry Press for an unpublished manuscript of original poetry. No aesthetic preference or requirements; we’re happy to publish someone’s first book or their tenth. We just want books we love. 2023 Judge: Mark Doty. Full guidelines and submission at our website.

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April 2023 eLitPak :: Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Motown Poetry Revue, Call for Submissions

Screenshot of Madville Publishing's call for submissions flyer for the Motown Poetry Revue anthology
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Deadline: June 1, 2023
We’re dancing in the street, celebrating our new poetry anthology! Help us celebrate the Motown legacy, both past and present. The crossover label made rhythm and blues the soul of American popular culture. Honor the artists connected to Hitsville, USA, and 30 years’ worth of “The Sound of Young America.” View full guidelines.

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April 2023 eLitPak :: Immerse yourself in Irish Poetry with a trip to Ireland

Screenshot of Find My Ireland's Away with Words Poetry trip
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Inspire your writing with our Irish Poetry trip to Ireland. Our immersive writing program includes classes and guided tours on the literary history of Ireland, visits to the local landscapes of famous Irish writers, workshops and one-to-one sessions to help you with your own creative work, and readings by Ireland’s top poets – including Paula Meehan, Theo Dorgan, Annemarie Ní Churreáin. Visit website to learn more.

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April 2023 eLitPak :: Apply Today to Belmont University’s MFA in Creative Writing

Screenshot of Belmont University MFA in Creative Writing flyer for 2023 application deadline
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Deadline: August 1, 2023
Hone your craft and pursue writing with your Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Belmont University. To learn more, visit the program’s website, view our flyer, or email [email protected].

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