Fall 2025 | Global Reads | Shelf Unbound Magazine

STORIES THAT CONNECT US:

INDIE FICTION FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE

FEATURING: GLOBAL VOICES IN INDIE PUBLISHING: AUTHORS WHO BREAK BOUNDARIES

EDITOR’S SELECTIONS: MUSTREADS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

WHAT TO READ NEXT IN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING

OUR STORY

SHELF UNBOUND MAGAZINE

All we wanted was a really good magazine. About books. That was full of the really great stuff. So we made it. And we really like it. And we hope you do, too. Because we’re just getting started.

Shelf Unbound Staff.

PRESIDENT, EDITOR IN CHIEF

Sarah Kloth

PARTNER, PUBLISHER

Debra Pandak

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Corinna Kloth

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Christina Consolino

Michele Mathews

V. Jolene Miller

Chrissy Brown

Corinna Kloth

FINANCE MANAGER

Jane Miller

For Advertising Inquiries: e-mail sarah@shelfmediagroup.com

For editorial inquiries: e-mail media@shelfmediagroup.com

THE THANJAVUR INCIDENT

Commander Aarav Cheran—a renowned nuclear physicist and Indian Naval analyst—is thrust into a crisis that no war game ever imagined. As two nuclear nations edge toward catastrophe, Aarav must navigate a fractured landscape of political power plays, military brinkmanship, and catastrophic technological failure. The fate of millions may rest on his ability to outmaneuver forces poised to plunge the world into chaos.

Nolan Emerson, PhD, is a brilliant young theoretical and experimental physicist who is a professor at the University of Geneva, and the lead scientist at the CERN particle accelerator. He is a leader in the areas of general relativity and quantum mechanics. Dr. Emerson devises an experiment so radical and revolutionary that it seeks to unlock the astounding, complex, and mysterious secrets of Einstein’s space-time. Ultimately, his work challenges the fundamental notions of consciousness and of the concept of reality itself.

1918: THE GREAT PANDEMIC

Major Edward Nobel’s mission, as a physician, is to help protect American troops from infectious ailments during the First World War. However, his unique vantage point in Boston allows him to detect an emerging influenza strain that is an unprecedented global threat. Eventually, the 1918 influenza pandemic killed up to 100 million people, and became the worst natural disaster in human history.

1877: A NORTHERN PHYSICIAN IN SOUTHERN UNGOVERNED SPACES

Colonel Charles Noble is a US Civil War veteran, and an Army surgeon reservist. Extreme violence in the former Confederacy, in anticipation of a national election, has caused President Grant to send additional federal troops to the Southern states. Terrorists are determined to counter Noble’s good intentions, as they threaten the civil rights, and the very lives, of all who oppose them.

1980: THE EMERGENCE OF HIV

Dr. Arthur Noble is a brilliant first-year medical resident in San Francisco. Noble encounters a strange new ailment that seemingly appears out of nowhere, and delivers its victims a most horrible merciless death. Dr. Noble struggles to find answers to the medical mystery, even as many researchers and society refuse to believe that it is a serious public health hazard, or that it even exists.

IN THIS ISSUE

FEATURES

20 Translation Nation: 10 Indie Presses Bringing the World to Your Bookshelf By Sarah Kloth

34 Interview with Will Vanderhyden, Translator of Gloria by Andrés Felipe Solano By Michele Mathews

40 New Release Roundup: Translated Edition By Corinna Kloth

57 Interview: Milo Todd, The Lilac People By Corinna Kloth

66 Shorter Is Stronger: The Rise of Novellas & Short Fiction in Translation By Sarah Kloth

86 Interview: Sarah Aziza, The Hollow Half By Corinna Kloth

102 Interview: Fredrik DeBoer, The Mind Reels By Sarah Kloth

112 Interview: Harold Phifer, Author of My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift By Sarah Kloth

BY SARAH KLOTH, PUBLISHER

In prep for this issue, I finally picked up The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, a novel that’s been sitting on my shelf for a while. It’s a powerful piece of translated fiction from Japan that explores a world where memories are slowly erased, and the characters fight to hold on to what’s disappearing. The more I read, the more I realized how much we rely on our memories to shape who we are—and how easily they can fade away.

What struck me most was how Ogawa’s novel captured something so deeply human: the way we hold onto the stories of our lives, even when the world around us changes. It’s a story of loss, yes, but also of resilience—of people trying to preserve the parts of themselves that are most important. And the fact that this novel made its way

Global Voices.

from Japan to readers across the globe reminded me how stories can cross borders and languages, and still find a place in our hearts.

That’s what makes this issue of Global Voices so special. It’s not just about the books or the authors; it’s about the journey these stories take as they travel from one culture to another, creating new connections with every reader they encounter. As you turn these pages, you’ll find stories from across the world—many of them translated— that offer a glimpse into lives, struggles, and joys that may be different from your own, but are still familiar in the most human way.

I hope these global voices in this issue resonate with you, leaving you with something that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.

Enjoy the issue!

Gerry's latest potboiler even involves the White House—can you believe it? If you haven't joined the author's bandwagon yet, check out what reviewers have been saying about him.

"A great piece of literary work featuring well-crafted stories, focused scenes, and unpredictable endings.” - Kim Calderon, The Book Commentary

"He has a well-furnished mind, with an ingenuity dedicated to making readers laugh.” - Joe Kilgore, U.S. Review

"The Ladies from Long Island is one of the year’s best thrillers." - BestThrillers.com

Don't Miss These Other Bestsellers by Gerry Burke

Explore his other gripping novels that have captivated readers everywhere.

SECRETS OF A NUN

A 40-Year Journey to Self-Discovery Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the First Edition Publication Secrets of a Nun is a revealing, uncompromisingly honest, and deeply moving memoir that explores the soul of a former nun.

A true story of desire, courage, and faith in finding her authentic self.

After leaving behind her dreams of Olympic glory, Elizabeth entered the convent at the age of 15, where she spent 21 years struggling with celibacy, devotion, and self-identity. This memoir is a testament to her resilience and her journey to reclaim her life and her truth.

“A story of remarkable courage and spiritual awakening — a memoir of profound honesty.”

— Reader’s Favorite

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK, EBOOK, AND AUDIOBOOK FORMATS

The Unicorn Mouse wasn’t like other mice. She had pink paisley fur and a furry fluffy tail. Most special of all, she had her unicorn horn. When she was little, she kept the horn hidden under her pink hat. But as her horn grows, the Unicorn Mouse knows one day she will have to share her secret with her entire kingdom.

Will she have the strength to be who she is, no matter what other mice might say? Could her unicorn horn change the hearts of everyone forever? Will you stand with her?

A story filled with the power of love, friendship, and self-discovery, The Unicorn Mouse is a new fairy tale for children and adults to treasure.

Visit TheUnicornMouse.com for more info!

Peter Plew is a Midwestern author and musician living with his family in Wisconsin, where he loves the muse of all four seasons. Peter attended the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and studied English and Creative Writing at Marquette University. His quest in writing is to take the reader on a journey of the heart into fantasy worlds where self-discovery, healing, and positive imagery win the day! The Unicorn Mouse is Peter’s first book in the series with illustrator Hannah Vale.

“The Unicorn Mouse draws in readers with colorful illustrations and an enduring message that we are all different, yet just the same. This new classic is a tender tale of kindness and love for ourselves and others.”

—Karen Condit, author of Turtle on the Track and Turkey in the Tunnel

“Join the Unicorn Mouse on her journey to joy, love, and self-acceptance!”

—Amy Sazama, author of Fleetwood Dreams: Climbing a Mountain After a Landslide

“Unicorn Mouse shares a lovely message of self acceptance and the courage to be different. It is beautifully illustrated and told on an appropriate level for young children. It encourages kindness and the virtues of friendship and the importance of self love. It is a great story for young readers learning about the power that their words can have on others.”

—Mary

Beth Turchick, author of My Butterfly Garden with Grandma

“A bright and uplifting story that conveys an important message. The art and text combine to create an immersive, fantastic, yet realistic world for young readers!”

—Sean Michael Malone, author of The ABCs of Battle

INDIE IN THE NEWS

Top News in Independent Publishing

The indie publishing world is buzzing with exciting updates! From rising indie publishers expanding into new territories to indie authors making their mark with major book deals, the landscape is evolving faster than ever.

Here’s a roundup of the latest and greatest happenings in the world of independent publishing:

Indie Publishers Launch Collaborative Translation Initiatives

Independent publishers are joining forces to create collaborative translation initiatives aimed at expanding the reach of global literature. New partnerships between presses in Europe, Asia, and Latin America are facilitating

the translation of lesser-known works, making them accessible to wider audiences. This movement not only enriches the literary landscape but also strengthens the cross-cultural exchange between authors and readers worldwide.

Indie Publishers Champion Translated Works

Independent publishers are increasingly focusing on acquiring and publishing translated works, recognizing the value of diverse narratives. Imprints like Deep Vellum Publishing and Transit Books are leading the charge, offering readers access to international literature that might otherwise remain inaccessible. These publishers are not only expanding their catalogs but also fostering a deeper understanding of different cultures through literature.

Literary Festivals Spotlight

Translated Fiction

Events such as the "Translated By, Bristol" festival are celebrating the art of translation and the richness of global literature. Cofounded by author and translator Polly Barton, the festival features discussions with International Booker Prize-nominated translators and showcases works from underrepresented languages and regions, including Cameroon, Slovakia, and Latin America. This initiative underscores the growing interest in translated fiction and the importance of making diverse literary voices heard.

Awards Recognize

Excellence in Translation

The 2025 International Booker Prize highlighted the significance of translated works, with Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, winning the prestigious award. This marks the first time a shortstory collection and a Kannada translation have received this

honor, emphasizing the increasing recognition of Indian literature in the global literary community.

Independent Publishers Drive Change

A recent study by the University of Exeter reveals that independent publishers are transforming the sector, with the "Big Five" increasingly being sidelined in favor of smaller presses. This shift is particularly evident in the longlists for prestigious international literature prizes, where independent publishers are gaining prominence for their diverse and innovative offerings.

Wrapping Up

The independent publishing sector is experiencing a renaissance, with translated fiction playing a pivotal role in broadening literary horizons. Through their commitment to diverse voices and innovative storytelling, independent publishers are reshaping the literary landscape and ensuring that global narratives find their place in the English-speaking world.

Finalist: Next Generation Indie Book Awards

A Town on the Brink. A Janitor with a Past. A Reckoning Begins.

“A gripping, action-packed ride. Fans of Deliverance and The Godfather will love it.”

- Kirkus Reviews

The Philadelphia mob wants Twin River. But standing in their way is Gene Brooks—a Vietnam veteran, a high school janitor, and a man with nothing to lose. When the town’s darkest history begins to repeat itself— kidnappings, murders, and a school hostage crisis—justice can’t wait for the law.

A relentless thriller in the tradition of Dirty Harry, First Blood, and Death Wish, Twin River is a bloody salute to vigilante justice.

“This grisly thriller will sink its teeth right in you.”

- Kirkus Reviews

“Twin River II is ideal for those who prefer a dose of reflection and depth of character along with swiftly moving action and lurid confrontations” - Clarion Review

“Thrilling, action-packed, and captivating—leaves you eager for the next installment.” - Readers’ Favorite

His name is Palladin— as in pallbearer.

Wesley Palladin was raised to be a killer. Trained by his father and hardened by the Philadelphia mob, he perfected his deadly craft. But when a contract goes wrong, he vanishes— reappearing in Twin River as a quiet security guard.

Then he meets Matt Henry, a violent teen on the brink of destruction. As Matt battles extreme bullying, a brutal juvenile institution, and a dark hunger for revenge, Palladin becomes his mentor. But in a town plagued by kidnappings, human trafficking, and unchecked brutality, redemption comes at a deadly cost.

The Saga of Twin River Continues… and the Stakes Have Never Been Deadlier.

“Readers who love classic gritty crime novels like The Godfather will love Twin River III.” – Pacific Book Review

Twin River III: A Death at One Thousand Steps

When Twin River students Heather Wainwright and Alice Byrd are abducted into a twisted underground video ring, they have no idea of the horror awaiting them. Meanwhile, a violent confrontation brews as mobsters, mercenaries, and vigilantes collide at the sinister Happy Hollow Hunt Club, a fortress guarded by electrified fences, ruthless enforcers, and monstrous wild hogs.

Vietnam veteran Gene Brooks and young Matt Henry refuse to let evil reign in their town. With a team of unlikely heroes, they take the fight to the mob in a battle of grit, survival, and vengeance— culminating in a heart-stopping showdown at the historic One Thousand Steps.

“The latest visit to Twin River becomes an exhilarating exercise in sustained, multipronged tension” - Kirkus Reviews

“Intense, sinister, and thrilling, Michael Fields has finished the Twin River Series with a powerful ending” - Readers’ Favorite

Twin River IV: C U When U Get There

The final book in the Twin River series, C U When U Get There, delivers an explosive conclusion filled with terror, survival, and vengeance.

Resurrected in Death Valley, Cain Towers embraces his brutal nature. With his ruthless uncle Abel, he returns to Twin River, Pennsylvania, seeking revenge against Vietnam veteran Gene Brooks and the town that betrayed him. But their deadly path collides with three vulnerable teens— Stanley Banks, Niles Wilson, and Amber Crawford—who must fight to survive.

Inspired by real-life crimes, Fields delivers a relentless, pulse-pounding thriller. From the scorching desert to a town on edge, Twin River IV is an electrifying finale that will leave readers breathless.

“What you read in her collection of articles is what happens when a Black journalist does not compromise their identity to do their job.”

- Sonya Green, journalistpected Journalist, essays by Reagan Jackson

Through this collection of essays, author and activist Reagan Jackson, chronicles her journey into the world of journalism. Art, cinema, social justice, feminism, Black reparations, health & reproductive rights, dance, education—while Jackson’s subjects range far and wide, her writing brings an intimacy & immediacy to all.

“Emotions roar off the pages, pure, raw, and bristling. Long, meandering sentences lead the way, doubling back, bounding forward, and experimenting with language. Conversations run without punctuation or tags; different consciousnesses bleed together.”

- Elaine Chiew, Forward Reviews

Three Alarm Fire is a collection that presses into the most important concerns of our time. With a diverse set of characters and experiences, Juan Carlos Reyes’s debut fiction collection examines the range of grief and healing we navigate as Americans. Reyes explores themes of immigration, identity, family legacy, sexuality, trauma, and what belonging means, as well as the cultural tensions between us that can be downright explosive.

“A heartfelt story that took me back to the ‘inbetween’ chapter of my own life—an experience many other readers will relate to as well. I was sorry to see my time end with Joann and her crew.” - Maggie Carr, Co-founder, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle

At The Sylvan, a small Seattle luxury hotel, Joann finds herself caught between late-night confessions, love affairs, and friendships while trying to figure out her future. As the 90s roll on, a deepening connection with a teammate forces Joann to confront the bittersweet adventure of growing up, all while navigating the quirky, electric world of the hotel’s swing shift.

VIEW MORE TITLES AT HINTON PUBLISHING

My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift

Harold Phifer

Discover Resilience in the Face of an Unlikely Relationship

In My Bully, My Aunt, and Her Final Gift, Hal confronts the bittersweet memories of his childhood, shaped by his aunt’s unpredictable and often cruel influence. As he plans her memorial—a gathering no one seems eager to attend—Hal is pulled back into a world of twisted philosophies and emotional turbulence.

But amid the chaos, he discovers unexpected lessons that lead to healing, self-discovery, and redemption. Through laugh-out-loud moments and heartfelt revelations, this memoir reveals how even the darkest

Translation Nation:

10 Indie Presses Bringing the World to Your Bookshelf

BY CORINNA KLOTH

Translated fiction opens doors to voices, landscapes, and storytelling traditions that might otherwise remain out of reach. While the giants of publishing occasionally spotlight works in translation, it’s the small presses that consistently take risks, nurture new literary bridges, and expand what we can access in English. From the bold experiments of Deep Vellum to the elegant global catalog of Europa Editions, the mission-driven catalog of Open Letter, and the vibrant storytelling of Charco Press, these publishers are at the heart of a cultural exchange that feels both urgent and timeless. Here, we spotlight four presses and a standout title from each—books that remind us why translation matters.

1. Deep Vellum

(Dallas, TX)

Founded in 2013, Deep Vellum has become the largest U.S. publisher devoted to literary translation, operating several imprints like Phoneme Media, A Strange Object, and La Reunion. Its catalog spans over 1,000 titles from more than 60 languages and 75 countries— often emphasizing social justice and cultural diversity in fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. The press has won major awards such as the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and Big Other Book Award in Fiction, and its founder was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France in 2024.

STANDOUT TITLE:

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu (translator Sean Cotter), a mind-bending, philosophical novel set in communist Bucharest that received the €100,000 Dublin Literary Award in 2024, praised for its lyrical inventiveness and existential depth.

2. Europa Editions (New

York, USA)

Established in 2005, Europa Editions rapidly gained global recognition by launching high-impact literary international titles— most famously Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment and the Neapolitan series, which became global phenomena. Their editorial ethos blends literary elegance with broader accessibility. Europa consistently brings best-selling, acclaimed authors from Europe, Latin America, and beyond to English-language readers.

STANDOUT TITLE:

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante ( translator Ann Goldstein)—an emotionally seismic novel that established both Ferrante’s career and Europa’s reputation on the international stage.

3. Open Letter Books (Rochester,

NY)

Since 2007, Open Letter has focused on a tightly curated annual list (around ten titles), prioritizing literary risk-takers and works of high artistic merit. In March 2025, it joined Deep Vellum officially to strengthen its distribution and reach. Open Letter is especially known for publishing prize-nominated and award-winning fiction in translation.

STANDOUT TITLE:

Melvill by Rodrigo Fresán (transl. Willanderhyden), which won the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize, representing the press’s commitment to experimental, boundary-crossing narratives.

4. Charco Press (Edinburgh,

UK)

Founded in 2016, Charco Press has quickly established itself as a vital publisher of contemporary Latin American fiction in English translation. With a sharp focus on bringing bold, socially engaged narratives to anglophone readers, Charco has introduced a range of innovative voices—from debut novelists to prizewinners—often from underrepresented countries and regions. The press has garnered multiple accolades, including International Booker Prize shortlistings and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and was named Scotland’s Small Press of the Year in both 2021 and 2023.

STANDOUT TITLE:

Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia (transl. Zoë Perry). This stark, powerful novella centers on a slaughterhouse inspector navigating cycles of violence, labor, and masculinity in rural Brazil.

5. Archipelago Books (Brooklyn, NY)

Archipelago is a nonprofit press founded in 2003, devoted to bringing both contemporary and classic world literature in translation to English-language readers. They publish a beautifully curated list of fiction, poetry, and essays from a wide range of countries and languages—often championing pioneering or overlooked translations. Their editions are known for striking design and literary rigor, and their roster includes authors like Elias Khoury, Julio Cortázar, Mircea Cărtărescu, and Karl Ove Knausgaard.

STANDOUT TITLE:

Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal (transl. Jessica Moore). Originally published in French in 2012 and translated by Archipelago in 2023, this novel follows a young Russian conscript attempting to desert across the Trans - Siberian railway.

6. New Vessel Press (New York, USA)

Founded in 2012, New Vessel Press focuses primarily on literary fiction and narrative nonfiction in translation. Their selections span global voices, with particular attention to writers exploring themes of memory, identity, and social justice. The press positions itself at the intersection of literary and intellectual inquiry, and its books often receive award recognition and deep critical reflection. The editorial ethos values translation as a form of creative collaboration.

STANDOUT TITLE:

The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel (transl. Bruna Dantas Lobato). This debut novel offers an intimate, socially engaged portrayal of poverty and literacy in Brazil. Its translational nuance and emotional clarity earned it the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

7.

Istros Books (London,

UK)

Since its founding in 2011, Istros has specialized in literature from Southeast Europe and the Balkans—regions often sidelined in anglophone publishing. They spotlight writers from countries including Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro, publishing fiction and nonfiction with cultural specificity and literary resonance. Istros has introduced numerous authors to English-speaking audiences, often ranking as the premier Balkan-focused press in translation.

STANDOUT TITLE:

Doppelgänger by Daša Drndić (transl. Celia Hawkesworth & S.D. Curtis). A dense and haunting meditation on history, identity, and atrocity, this Croatian novel weaves documentary fragments, letters, and narrative to evoke the psychic weight of war-torn memory. It remains one of Istros’ most lauded releases.

8. Les Fugitives (London,

UK)

A boutique press dedicated to francophone women writers, Les Fugitives often publishes short, genre-bending works that defy conventional categories. Essays, memoirs, and literary hybrids are brought into English with care and poetic attention. The press is known for thematic coherence, feminist insight, and thoughtful translation—often spotlighting voices from Côte d’Ivoire to France who have not been previously published in English.

STANDOUT TITLE:

Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger (transl. Natasha Lehrer & Cécile Menon). A lyrical and layered meditation on the actress-filmmaker Barbara Loden, this book interweaves film theory, biography, and personal reflection. Praised for its originality and emotional depth, it won the Scott Moncrieff Prize.

9. Two Lines Press (Oakland,

CA)

Two Lines specializes in literary fiction and nonfiction in translation from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The press champions culturally specific voices, often tackling themes of tradition, resistance, and desire within their regional contexts. While they have a relatively small list, their editorial focus favors urgency, representation, and craftsmanship—especially from queer and women writers as part of their Calico series and beyond

STANDOUT TITLE:

Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong (transl. Natascha Bruce). A collection of nine powerful short stories from Malaysian writer Ho Sok Fong, this volume illuminates the emotional and social lives of women grappling with tradition, identity, and intimacy.

10. Bullaun Press (Dublin, Ireland)

Founded in 2021 by Bridget Farrell, Bullaun Press is dedicated to literary translation—particularly politically engaged and formally dynamic works from francophone authors and beyond. Its name draws from Irish folklore (bullán stones with hollow reverence), signaling a small press rooted in place yet oriented outwardly toward global conversation. Despite its youth, Bullaun has already earned major recognition in the UK–Irish small-press scene.

STANDOUT TITLE:

There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem (transl. Karen Fleetwood & Laëtitia Saint-Loubert). A debut picaresque satire set in 1980s Réunion Island, this novel blends dark humor, postcolonial critique, and familial drama. It won the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

Small presses remind us that some of the most powerful literary exchanges don’t come from the mainstream, but from dedicated publishers working on the margins with vision and heart. By championing translated fiction, these presses make room for voices that challenge assumptions, celebrate difference, and connect readers across borders. Every book on their lists carries not only the story of its author, but the cultural context and history of the place it comes from—transformed yet preserved through the art of translation.

For readers, supporting these publishers is more than adding a great book to the shelf. It’s an act of participation in a global conversation. Each purchase, each recommendation, each moment spent inside a translated novel helps sustain the ecosystem that allows new stories to reach us. Translators, editors, and small press teams work tirelessly, often with limited resources, to ensure that these books don’t just exist but thrive in a crowded publishing landscape. Their work is a reminder that literature isn’t just entertainment; it’s a bridge.

As you explore the standout titles from Deep Vellum, Europa Editions, Open Letter, and Charco Press, consider them an invitation. An invitation to step into unfamiliar worlds, to listen to voices shaped by different languages and lived experiences, and to recognize the common threads that connect us all. The more we read across borders, the more we see that literature is not bound by geography—it’s a universal language of its own. 

S T AGR

BOO K S T ARGA M

BOOKSTAGRAM

Each issue we feature a new bookstagrammer highlighting some of their amazing work.

@EverythingSophieReads

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOU.

Sophie: I’m a year old bookstagrammer from Northern Ireland! I live with my partner, our two Siberian Forest cats, Arlo and Fiadh, as well as our Cocker Spaniel puppy, Fen. I work in IT and spend my evenings walking the dog, reading and I’ve recently discovered that I love to bake!

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR BOOKSTAGRAM ACCOUNT AND HOW IT GOT STARTED.

Sophie: I’ve always loved reading but took a big break after finishing my MA in English Literature and started my bookstagram when I started to get back into it a couple of years back. I’ve met so many amazing people and had conversations with new friends from all over the world thanks to our love of fictional worlds!

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE INDIE/SMALL PRESS AUTHOR AND WHY?

Sophie: Callie Hart! I read her self-published novel Quicksilver before it was picked up and traditionally published and I LOVED IT!

ALLTIME FAVORITE INDIE BOOK?

Sophie: Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon! This series is so much fun and spicy, as well as tackling some really tough issues. I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything this author has written.

NAME: SOPHIE

FAVORITE GENRE: IT’S A MIX-UP OF HISTORICAL FICTION, THRILLERS, FANTASY AND SCI-FI.

BOOKS READ PER YEAR: USUALLY AT LEAST 100 - I TRY TO BEAT MY PREVIOUS YEARS GOAL! THIS YEAR I’M AIMING FOR 120.

FAVORITE BOOK: MY FAVOURITE BOOK OF ALLTIME IS PROJECT HAIL MARY BY ANDY WEIR - I REREAD IT EVERY YEAR!

TELL US A BIT ABOUT WHY THE BOOKSTAGRAM COMMUNITY IS IMPORTANT TO YOU.

Sophie: Reading has always been something i’ve enjoyed, especially as a child. I can totally fall into fictional worlds and forget about any worries or stress I might have/be feeling that day. It’s the ultimate escapism! As far as bookstagram goes, it’s been so much fun chatting with other readers about the books we love (or didn’t enjoy!) and the buzz around big publishing dates (Onyx Storm By Rebecca Yarros for example) is just the best! I feel part of a really positive community and I love getting book recommedations too!

@EVERYTHINGSOPHIEREADS

SEE MORE BOOK ADVENTURES ON INSTAGRAM

Interview with Will Vanderhyden. Translator

of Gloria by Andrés

Felipe Solano

BY MICHELE MATHEWS

Andrés Felipe Solano’s Gloria is a layered, intimate novel brought into English by longtime collaborator and translator Will Vanderhyden. In this interview, Vanderhyden shares what drew him to the book, the challenges of capturing its unique perspective, and what he hopes readers will take away.

What initially drew you to Gloria, and how did you come to translate this particular novel?

WV: I’ve known Andrés Felipe Solano and have been a big fan of his work for more than a decade. Over the years I’ve translated samples of several of his books, which his agent would subsequently pitch to different publishers, hoping to find a home for his work in English. Gloria is his most recent novel, and so, like with his previous books, I translated a sample that his agent sent to publishers in the U.S. and U.K. And Dan López, a great editor at Counterpoint Press, ended up acquiring the rights, and he contracted me to do the translation.

What drew me to Gloria and to all of Andres’s work is his unique sensibility as a writer: he has an elegant and understated style, where not a word is wasted and everything is layered with meaning; a journalist’s eye for descriptive detail and an uncanny sense of pacing that allow him to efficiently construct character, mood, and atmosphere; and an interest in crafting intricate narrative structures that refract the specific and

personal into the timeless and universal. This sensibility is present throughout Andrés’s work, but I think Gloria is its most distilled and accomplished expression to date.

What were some of the biggest linguistic or stylistic challenges you encountered in translating Gloria?

WV: Getting the narrative perspective to feel right was one of the bigger challenges. The story is told in a close third-person, from the perspective of Gloria’s son, self-reflectively using a day in his mother’s life as a prism to try to understand her by turning her into a character and telling her story.

Andrés makes inhabiting that perspective seem effortless, zooming in and zooming out, jumping around in time, moving fluidly from Gloria’s interiority to subtle details that evoke her particular time and place in history to meta comments on aspects of the story he’s constructing as he’s constructing it. And he does all of this in a way that’s both intensely grounded and mysterious—there’s no hand-holding, no superfluous exposition.

It’s a lot to balance, but getting it right was fundamental to making the book work, so I spent a lot of time thinking about that POV and did my best—over the course of multiple revisions—to make it come alive in English.

Were there any particular passages or moments in the book that were especially rewarding—or maddening—to translate?

WV: Nothing that was especially maddening. There were many rewarding moments— beautiful lines, insights, impressive narrative maneuvers—but without context, without over-explaining or spoiling elements of the story, it’s hard to be specific.

I guess I can say that I really love the beginning, how, within a few pages, Andrés is able to evoke Gloria’s tumultuous inner life and the heightened tension of the day when we meet her, to ground us in a particular time and place, and to introduce the narrative conceit of the POV mentioned previously.

Here’s the opening passage:

“Getting that feeling dialed in in English was very rewarding and gave me a strong sense for how to spproach the rest of the book.”

“She has never smoked and may never light up a cigarette, but today, which I decide to imagine bright and bustling,

she should, she should take advantage of her boyfriend being late to slowly inhale the smoke, aware of how her lipstick is leaving a mark on the filter, the nervous pressure of her lips giving it a slightly oval shape. Inside that silvery blue cloud of smoke, the wait is less agonizing, more bearable, as they say of certain afflictions, because that’s what it is, a disquiet she discovered upon waking that morning, earlier than usual, when the light slipped softly in through her room’s window and she couldn’t yet hear animals knocking over bottles on that street corner in Queens. When she first opened her eyes, she’d even felt hopeful, reentering the world without fear. It usually takes her a little while to come to terms with what it is to be alive and awake, a few minutes to tentatively break the waters of sleep, but today is different, because today is a day that should last forever—that is, if Tigre ever bothers to show up.”

Getting that feeling dialed in in English was very rewarding and gave me a strong sense for how to approach the rest of the book.

How

do you approach preserving an author’s voice,

especially one as distinctive as Solano’s while still creating a fluid reading experience in English?

WV: When I’m translating, I think a lot about trying to make the feeling I get when I read the text that I’m writing in English mimic the feeling I get when I read the Spanish text, to use the tools of English and whatever skills I have as a writer to create an analogous experience that’s ultimately subjective, but that I hope will play on other readers’ nerve endings the way it plays on mine.

So, for me, it’s less about preserving the author’s voice and more about finding a way to recreate my own version of it. My process generally involves, in early drafts, following my intuition and letting myself make the choices that feel right in the moment, and then going back and putting the text through a pretty intense process of revision. And it’s usually through that process that I’m able to hone in on and fine-tune my English version of the author’s voice.

What was your working relationship like with Andrés

Felipe Solano during the translation process?

WV: Like I said, I’ve known Andrés for a long time and we’ve worked together on multiple projects, so we have a very comfortable and affable working

relationship. Typically, the process involves me getting to a place where I’m pretty happy with the translation and then turning it over to Andrés with a list of questions. He goes through the text and answers my questions and offers edits where appropriate. His English is quite good and he’s a translator himself, so we have a lot of trust in and respect for each other, which makes the process easy and fun and enlightening.

Gloria is known for its layered, introspective, and at times disorienting narrative. How did you balance clarity with fidelity to that complexity in English?

WV: I think this gets back to what I was saying about the POV. And so I guess I’ll refer back to that previous answer and just add that getting the POV to feel right is how I was able to strike the balance you mention in my translation. And the way I was able to get the POV to feel right was through revision.

How do you deal with ambiguity in the original text— do you try to clarify or preserve it?

WV: If something is ambiguous in the original text, I generally try to preserve that ambiguity. I try not to introduce ambiguity that isn’t there in the original, if I can avoid it. But generally, I trust that readers are smart and that ambiguity is part of what makes fiction great.

Do you see yourself more as an interpreter, a co-creator, or something else entirely when translating fiction?

WV: I don’t really buy into one particular metaphor for what I’m doing when I’m translating fiction. I think they’re all useful and inadequate in different ways. As I’ve said, for me, translating is about trying to recreate the feeling that I have while reading the Spanish when I read my English version. This is necessarily a subjective experience, and I can only hope that what feels right to me resonates with Englishlanguage readers.

HOW DO YOU NAVIGATE THE LINE BETWEEN STAYING TRUE TO THE ORIGINAL AND ENSURING THE TRANSLATED VERSION READS SMOOTHLY TO AN ENGLISH-SPEAKING AUDIENCE?

WV: Every translation is different and makes different demands of the translator and finding that balance you mention is always key, but I think, for me, again, the answer here is revision. For me, there’s usually a moment in the process of revision (sometimes it comes quickly and other times it’s more hard won), where things start falling into place and really clicking and the text starts to come alive in English. For me, it’s the most gratifying and creatively stimulating aspect of being

a translator and probably the reason why I do it.

Are there particular things you hope readers take away from this translation?

WV: I hope that all the things I’ve mentioned about Andres’s style and sensibility come across in the translation and that readers enjoy the book and find it beautiful and moving and deep.

How do you choose which books to translate? What do you look for in a project?

WV: Generally, I look to translate books that I love to read and want to write. So, I follow my tastes as a reader and my interests as a writer. Of course, this “job” is always a hustle, so, when presented with an opportunity that might not seem a natural fit at first blush, usually I’m grateful for the opportunity and happy to take a stab at it anyway.

Are you currently working on translating any other works by Solano—or other authors you’re excited about?

WV: I’m not currently translating anything by Andrés, but I know he has a new project he’s working on, which I can’t wait to check out whenever he’s finished.

I just finished translating a book by Rodrigo Fresán called Mantra, and I’m

in the middle of translating Fernando Arumburu’s El niño. This is the sixth novel of Fresán’s I’ve translated and the first of Arumburu’s. I’m pretty excited about both books and authors.

Through Will Vanderhyden’s translation, Gloria becomes not just a story of one woman’s life, but a testament to the delicate, intricate art of carrying a writer’s vision across languages. Vanderhyden’s deep respect for Andrés Felipe Solano’s sensibility— his precision, atmosphere, and layered

narrative—shines in his thoughtful approach to voice, perspective, and ambiguity. As Gloria reaches new readers in English, the novel invites us into its richly intimate world, while also reminding us of the translator’s quiet but essential role: bridging distances so that literature may resonate universally.

Centered around a real-life, historic concert at Madison Square Garden, this wide-ranging and nostalgic novel spans two continents and five decades as it charts the interlaced lives of a mother and son in New York City.

It is a bright spring Saturday: April 11, 1970. The famous Argentine singer Sandro is about to become the first Latin American to perform at Madison Square Garden, and Gloria will be one of the lucky attendees at what will be a legendary concert. At just twenty years old, the young woman walks through the electric streets of New York City full of hope and possibility. The disturbing images she recently encountered at her job at a photographic laboratory, the trauma of a father who was murdered when she was a child, and even the long-term prospects of her relationship with Tigre, her irascible boyfriend, are problems for another day. This day should be perfect and should last forever. Which it will, in surprising and unexpected ways.

New Release Roundup: Fall 2025.

A Compilation of Translated Literature.

BY CORINNA KLOTH

VI KHI NAO & LILY HOANG

Vi Khi Nào is the author of many books and is known for her work spanning poetry, fiction, theatre, film, and interdisciplinary collaborations, most recently The Italy Letters (Melville House) and The Six Tones of Water, coauthored with Sun Yung Shin (Ricochet). Lily Hoang is the author of five books, including A Bestiary (finalist for a PEN USA Nonfiction Book Award) and Changing (recipient of a PEN Open Books Award).

TIMBER & LUA

Timber & Lụa exists in duality as both original, innovative collaboration between Lily Hoàng and Vi Khi Nào and their primarily selftranslations of said work. Comprised of ten short experimental stories, Timber & Lụa is written in three different languages: Vietlish, Vietnamese, and English. Similar to Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov, who translated their own work (from English to French and from Russian to English, respectively), Hoàng and Nào extend that makeshift “tradition” by hybridizing their translation to graft the genetic material of one language (English) and the genetic material of another language (Vietnamese) to produce a new literary diasporic genre. From love story to the speculative to fairy tale, these ten stories accentuate Hoàng and Nào’s dynamic, eccentric range. Timber & Lụa coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon (1975–2025), as a diasporic literary contribution and commemorative celebration.

MY HEAVENLY FAVORITE

TRANSLATED BY MICHELE HUTCHISON

A confession, a lament, a mad gush of grief and obsession, My Heavenly Favorite is the remarkable and chilling successor to Lucas Rijneveld’s international sensation, The Discomfort of Evening. It tells the story of a veterinarian who visits a farm in the Dutch countryside where he becomes enraptured by his “Favorite”—the farmer’s daughter. She hovers on the precipice of adolescence, and longs to have a boy’s body. The veterinarian seems to be a tantalizing possible path out from the constrictions of her conservative rural life.

Narrated after the veterinarian has been punished for his crimes, Rijneveld’s audacious, profane novel is powered by the paradoxical beauty of its prose, which holds the reader fast to the page. Rijneveld refracts the contours of the Lolita story with a kind of perverse glee, taking the reader into otherwise unimaginable spaces. An unflinching depiction of abjection and a pointed excavation of taboos and social norms, My Heavenly Favorite “confirms Rijneveld’s singular, deeply discomforting talent” (Financial Times UK).

LUCAS RIJNEVELD

Lucas Rijneveld grew up in a Reformed farming family in North Brabant before moving to Utrecht. He is the author of The Discomfort of Evening, which was the first Dutch book to win the International Booker Prize, as well as three poetry collections.

DANTE ALIGHIERI

Mary Jo Bang has published eight poetry collections, including A Doll for Throwing and Elegy, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and new translations of Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio. She teaches at Washington University in Saint Louis.

PARADISO

TRANSLATED BY MARY JO BANG

Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Paradiso completes her groundbreaking new version of Dante’s masterpiece, begun with Inferno and continued with Purgatorio. In Paradiso, Dante has been purified by his climb up the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory, and now, led by the luminous Beatrice, he begins his ascent through the nine celestial spheres of heaven toward the Empyrean, the mind of God. Along the way, we meet the souls of the blessed—those at various proximities to God, but all existing within the bliss of heaven’s perfect order. Philosophically rich, spiritually resonant, Paradiso is a reckoning with justice and morality from a time of ethical questioning and political division much like our own.

I GAVE YOU EYES AND YOU LOOKED TOWARDS DARKNESS

TRANSLATED BY MARA FAYE LETHEM

Dawn is breaking over the Guilleries, a rugged mountain range in Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, brigands, deserters, race-car drivers, ghosts, and demons. In a remote farmhouse called Mas Clavell, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed. Family and caretakers drift in and out. Meanwhile, all the women who have lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party. As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of stories unspool, and the house reverberates with raucous laughter, pungent feasts, and piercing cries of pleasure and pain. It all begins with Joana, Mas Clavell’s matriarch, who once longed for a husband—“a full man,” perhaps even “an heir with a patch of land and a roof over his head.” She summoned the devil to fulfill her wish and struck a deal: a man in exchange for her soul. But when, on her wedding day, Joana discovered that her husband was missing a toe (eaten by wolves), she exploited a loophole in her agreement, heedless of what consequences might follow.

IRENE SOLA

Irene Solà is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of the novels The Dams, When I Sing, Mountains Dance, and I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness, and Beast, a poetry collection.

ELISA LEVI

Elisa Levi is the author of a poetry collection and two novels. She specialized in playwriting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her short stories have been anthologized, and she has translated several books from English to Spanish.

THAT’S ALL I KNOW TRANSLATED BY CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY

Nineteen-year-old Little Lea lives in a rural town where life ends at the edge of the forest.

When a stranger loses his dog on the first day after the end of the world, Little Lea warns him not to follow it into the forest, that people who enter never come out. Over a shared joint, she tells him about the burning in her gut, winding a tale of loss, desire, and conspiracies.

Little Lea sees the world through backcountry eyes that distrust the outsiders who come but who also get to leave. When she isn’t working at her mother’s grocery store, she cares for her empty-headed younger sister, Nora, who only cries when she’s in pain. Meanwhile, her friend Catalina does nothing but cry. Little Lea wants Javier to love her, and she doesn’t want Marco, who leaves weed and his best potatoes on her doorstep. As the town prepares for their end-of-the-world festival, she faces her intensifying desire to leave, that burning that unsettles her life—she wants to be useful somewhere else, even if it means being unloved, unwanted, unable to return. That’s all she knows.disillusionment, and a clear-eyed examination of the passions that rule our lives and make history.

THE BOOK OF HOMES

TRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH HARRIS

The Book of Homes is the story of a man and his friendships, his upbringing, his discovery of sex and poetry, his detachment from a self-destructive family, and his liberation from the furniture that has followed him through 20 years of moves. His story jumps from home to home, upstairs to downstairs, each home a piece of the puzzle of his life. In its extraordinary, ambitious architecture, this novel brings to light all the stories hidden in the silence of domestic spaces.

ANDREA BAJANI

Andrea Bajani was born in Rome in 1975. He is the author of many award-winning novels, including, in English translation, If You Kept A Record of Sins (Archipelago, 2021) and Every Promise (Maclehose Press, 2013). He is currently a writer in residence at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

LEIF HOGHUAG

Giulio Mozzi has published twenty-six books—as fiction writer, poet, and editor. He is primarily known for his story collections, especially This Is the Garden, which won the Premio Mondello. “The Apprentice” (included in this collection) appears in an anthology of the top Italian stories of the twentieth century. He has even created an imaginary artist, Carlo Dalcielo, whose work has appeared in public exhibitions and books, like Dalkey Archive Press’s Best European Fiction 2010.

THE CALF

TRANSLATED BY DAVID M. SMITH

On violence, crime, guilt and atonement. We meet our narrator in an underground office where he sharpens pencils, shreds paper, makes coffee for the other employees and thinks over and over about a late night that he has been trying to forget for a long time. In between the meaningless work, he manages to scratch down some names and phrases, and conjures up a dream from 1980s Hadeland. In this saga, Hadeland is a shadow home where spooks, ghosts, angels and robot-like creatures are just as natural as animals and flesh and blood humans. But what happened that late summer night? What is it that the narrator has tried to forget? And who is this Calf, who was “killed to death”? Our narrator takes readers in circles through different events, times and places; a whirlwind in which the calf and other characters are like prisoners in a tornado from Dante’s Inferno.

THE INVISIBLE YEARS

TRANSLATED BY LILY MEYER

Andrea and Julián haven’t seen one another in twenty-one years—not since that tragic, fateful night their senior year of high school that marked their group of friends forever. A shocking phone call brings the two together again in Houston, where they begin to unravel the truth of that year, picking open long scabbed-over wounds from their upper-class adolescence in 1990s Bolivia and the scandal that ripped them apart.

A writer unhappy in his career and his marriage, Julián has been novelizing the past for his next book, trying to make meaning out of the events that changed the course of their lives forever. “I’d thought that writing about that time would free me, relieve the burden of the invisible years,” he writes, “but often it seems that it’s done the reverse.”

Juxtaposing the naïve invincibility of adolescence with the grasping uncertainties of adulthood, The Invisible Years deftly weaves a coming-of-age tale that leaves the reader hanging on every word, even as they know how the cards fall in the end.

RODRIGO HASBUN

Rodrigo Hasbún is a Bolivian writer and screenwriter. He is the author of eight works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Affections (Simon & Schuster), which received an English PEN Award and has been translated into twelve languages. Named one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists in 2010, Hasbún’s short stories have appeared in Granta, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. He lives and works in Houston.

YE HUI

Ye Hui is an acclaimed Chinese metaphysical poet who lives in Nanjing. His poems in Dong Li’s English translation have appeared or are forthcoming in 128 Lit, The Arkansas International, Asymptote, Bennington Review, Blackbird, Cincinnati Review, Circumference, Copihue Poetry, Guernica, Kenyon Review, Lana Turner, Nashville Review, POETRY, Poetry Northwest, and Zocálo Public Square.

THE RUINS TRANSLATED BY DONG

LI

Here’s a witch poet walking backward into the future. There’s an architect dispelling illusions and inviting us into communal living. The poems collected in The Ruins rise from a primordial wisdom that resists the quarrels of the marketplace, that keeps company under a leaky authoritarian roof and rubs off its burn, that carves out its own impossible freedom. In Dong Li’s luminous translation of Ye’s first fulllength collection, each poem braids myth and mystery, inviting the reader into a liminal space where “echoes of the ancient, the imagined, and the ‘now’ sound off each other” on the page (The Cincinnati Review).

(TH)INGS AND (TH)OUGHTS

TRANSLATED BY ELINA ALTER

From a rising star of Russian literature, a collection of short stories that straddles the line between delight and horror.

Twisting the art of the fairytale into something entirely her own, Alla Gorbunova’s (Th)ings and (Th)oughts is an endlessly inventive collection of thematically-linked short prose. Divided by subject—romance, philosophy, fate—the stories in this collection turn a magical lens to bitter realities.

ALLA GORBUNOVA

Alla Gorbunova was born in Leningrad in 1985 and studied philosophy at St. Petersburg State University. She is a poet and the author of several books of prose. Her book, It’s the End of the World, My Love, became Russia’s most discussed literary publication in 2020 and received The New Literature Prize 2020.

LEYLA ERBIL

One of the most influential Turkish writers of the 20th century, Leylâ Erbil was an innovative literary stylist who tackled issues at the heart of what it means to be human, in mind and body. Erbil ventured where few writers dared to tread, turning her lens to the tides of social norms and the shaping of identities, focusing intently on emotional conflict, and plumbing the depths of history and psyche.

WHAT REMAINS

TRANSLATED BY ALEV ERSAN, MARK DAVID WYERS, AND AMY MARIE SPANGLER

An experimental collection of “proems” from poet and author Leylâ Erbil, the first Turkish woman to ever be nominated for the Nobel.

These poems recount the history and present of the Turkish state, from the Byzantine Empire through the twentieth-century Turkey of Erbil’s experience. Now available for the first time in translation, What Remains is a fearless, deeply felt collection from one of the most influential Turkish writers in recent history.

THE ANIMAL ON THE ROCK

TRANSLATED BY LIZZIE DAVIS AND KEVIN GERRY DUNN

After the death of her mother, Irma decides to take a plane and hole up on a faraway beach. Through the course of her grief, the protagonist’s body, her instincts, and her perception, begin to experience a transformation as unexpected as it is natural. The skin over her joints become thick and scaly, her eyes take on a yellow gleam, and she spends more and more time bathing in the hot sun.

In these pages, Tarazona manages to address the perennial literary theme of metamorphosis, without relying on simple fantasy or didactic symbolism. More than a fable or a supernatural diversion, The Animal on the Rock is a profoundly biological and introspective novel with universal resonances.

DANIELA TARAZONA

Daniela Tarazona (Mexico City, 1975) is the author of Divided Island, winner of the prestigious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize and published by Deep Vellum in 2024. In 2012, she published the novel El beso de la liebre (Alfaguara), which was shortlisted for the Las Américas Prize in 2013. In 2020, the book Clarice Lispector: La mirada en el jardín (Lumen) was published, co-written by Tarazona and Nuria Mel. Her work has been translated into English and French. She has been a fellow of Mexico’s Young Artists program and is currently a member of the FONCA fund’s National Network of Artists.

PACO CERDA

Paco Cerdà is a journalist and writer. He is the author of multiple award-winning books. The Pawn is the first book of his to be translated into English.

THE PAWN

TRANSLATED BYKEVIN BERRY DUNN

In this gripping historical saga, award-winning Spanish writer Paco Cerdà explores early Cold War anxieties through the lens of a famous chess match.

Stockholm, 1962. Spain’s first chess grandmaster, Arturito Pomar, faces off against eighteen-yearold American prodigy Bobby Fischer in a match that will become the stuff of legend, not so much for how it ends but for what it symbolizes. Shuttling back and forth across decades between the United States, Spain, the Soviet Union, and beyond, The Pawn tracks the careers of the two chess masters, expertly examining the geopolitical anxieties that pervaded the 1960s and went on to shape these men’s lives.propulsive, even more compelling.

WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO FOR A PERSON TO WAKE UP ONE MORNING THIS SIDE OF THE NEW MILLENIUM

TRANSLATED BY RANDI WARD

The rhetorical title of this collection posits the crisis that is underway. Simonsen asks: as a species among species, all composed of the matter of the universe, how has our compulsion to classify everything hierarchically estranged us from ourselves, each other, and Earth’s ecosystems? Simonsen challenges our anthropocentric pursuit of knowledge, exploring humankind’s relationship with itself as an element of the natural world. What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium follows the struggles of its narrator as he reckons with intensifying estrangement from his fellow organisms, gradually turning to the greater kinship of matter to find continuity, connection, and solace.

KIM SIMONSEN

Kim Simonsen is a Faroese writer and publisher. He is the author of seven books, as well as numerous essays and academic articles. In 2014, Simonsen won the Faroe Islands’ National Book Award for his poetry collection What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium. His newest poetry collection was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2024.

GISELA HEFFES

Gisela Heffes is a Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at Johns Hopkins University as well as a writer, ecocritic, and public intellectual with a particular focus on literature, media, and the environment in Latin America. She is the author of several novels, including Ischia (Deep Vellum, 2023). She currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland.

CROCODILES AT NIGHT

TRANSLATED BY GRADY C. WRAY

Although the outcome of Crocodiles at Night does not remain a surprise beyond the first paragraph, it expands outwards in philosophical, heartfelt reverberations true to Heffes’s style. Crocodiles at Night explores familial ties, memories and images of places that are no longer the same, the vagaries of the medical system, and social critique in this unfeigned, excruciating view of death and how it affects all who experience it.

INTERVIEW

Interview with Milo Todd

Author of The Lilac People

BY CORINNA KLOTH

Set against the vibrant cabarets of Weimar Berlin and the shadow of Nazi and Allied persecution, The Lilac People explores queer joy, survival, and resilience through the story of Bertie, a trans man whose fragile freedom is shattered by war. In this conversation, author MT discusses the forgotten histories that sparked the novel, the balance of love and survival on the page, and the enduring relevance of queer resistance across generations.

THE LILAC PEOPLE TRANSPORTS READERS TO BERLIN’S THRIVING QUEER UNDERGROUND DURING THE WEIMAR ERA, THEN THRUSTS US INTO A POST-LIBERATION WORLD WHERE SURVIVAL IS STILL FAR FROM GUARANTEED. FOR READERS UNFAMILIAR WITH YOUR BOOK, CAN YOU SHARE WHAT DREW YOU TO TELL BERTIE’S STORY—A TRANS MAN WHO FINDS JOY AND SAFETY IN 1920S BERLIN, ONLY TO SEE IT SHATTERED BY NAZI RULE AND LATER COMPLICATED BY ALLIED OCCUPATION? WHAT WAS THE SPARK THAT SET THIS STORY IN MOTION FOR YOU?

MT: The spark was a piece of

information I came across on social media around 2016. It stated that when the Allied forces liberated the camps, they let everyone go except the queer and trans people, who they then sent to jail to start their sentences for being queer and/or trans. I looked this up to make sure it was true, and that became the multi-year research project that turned into The Lilac People. I realized that there was important information about the German queer community not just after WWII, but before Hitler’s rise to power, as well. I knew I wanted to show both ends of that timeline, and I felt the most effective way to juxtapose them was through the eyes of one character.

YOUR NOVEL PULLS FROM REAL QUEER HISTORY, FROM THE ELDORADO CLUB’S CABARET SCENE TO THE EARLY INSTITUTE OF SEXUAL SCIENCE, AND THE BRUTAL REALITY OF QUEER PERSECUTION UNDER BOTH NAZIS AND ALLIED FORCES. WHAT RESEARCH MOST CHANGED HOW YOU SAW THIS ERA, AND HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHAT FACTUAL DETAILS TO WEAVE DIRECTLY INTO THE FICTIONAL NARRATIVE OF BERTIE, SOFIE,

AND KARL?

MT: My knowledge on queer history for this particular time and place was sparse before I started researching it for this book. So I guess I could say that virtually everything I learned changed how I saw the era. I never realized there was such a vibrant queer community at the time, and how it was the capital in the colonized world for queer rights, progress, culture, gender-affirming care, etc. But I was equally surprised to learn how there was so much persecution not only by the Nazis, but by the Allied forces thereafter.

I’m someone that tries to go by facts first. I don’t truly start mapping out the plot until I feel I’ve found as much historical information as I can. Then I try to create a plot around the most important pieces. It’s impossible to balance 100% historical accuracy with a fully engaging fictionalized plot, though, so there were a select handful of times where I had to make historical changes for the sake of the story. I tried to avoid making changes whenever I could, but when I had to, I made sure to note them in the back of the book. It’s important to me for readers to understand what was real and what was changed.

AT ITS HEART, THE LILAC PEOPLE IS NOT JUST A WAR STORY, BUT A LOVE STORY ABOUT BERTIE AND SOFIE BUILDING A FRAGILE LIFE TOGETHER WHILE HIDING THEIR TRUTHS. HOW DID YOU NAVIGATE THE TENSION BETWEEN ROMANCE AND SURVIVAL—BETWEEN WRITING TENDER MOMENTS OF LOVE AND THE CONSTANT THREAT OF BETRAYAL OR CAPTURE?

MT: People’s eyes may start to glaze over as I try to explain this, but here we go. I’m a hardcore planner to the point that I not only map out every scene before I begin writing, but also put together different kinds of charts and graphs. One of them is a line graph where I map the intensity of each scene. If a scene is high in tension, it goes up higher on the graph. If it’s low in tension, it goes lower on the graph. I also include a second line on the same graph, again with highs and lows, but this time with positivity or negativity. The more upbeat a scene, the higher I place the scene on the graph. The more depressing a scene, the lower I place it on the graph.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

Looking at those two lines, especially together, helps me visualize where the story may need some work or rearranging. For example, if I have several scenes in a row that are high up on the chart, that may mean there’s too much intensity going on for too long, and it’ll likely wear out my reader. Or if several scenes in a row are low on the chart, that may mean there’s too much depressing stuff without giving the reader a break, and so I should add in something lighter or more endearing. And then there’s the whole business of how the two lines intersect with each other per scene, and you end up with various combinations of intensity and positivity/negativity that I get an odd enjoyment out of juggling.

ONE OF THE BOOK’S MOST STARTLING TURNS COMES AFTER THE WAR, WHEN “LIBERATION” IS NOT THE FREEDOM MANY IMAGINED, ESPECIALLY FOR QUEER PEOPLE. THE ARRIVAL OF KARL, A YOUNG TRANS PRISONER FREED FROM DACHAU, TRIGGERS NEW DANGERS UNDER ALLIED FORCES. WHY WAS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO EXPLORE THIS LESSERKNOWN HISTORY OF POST-

WAR OPPRESSION,

AND HOW DO YOU HOPE IT RESHAPES READERS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PERIOD?

MT: Once I learned about this history, I couldn’t let it go. I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Out of all the trans history I’ve researched over the years, this spoke particularly deeply to me. Despite all the attempts at erasure in all its ways, plenty of documentation had managed to survive through the sheer will of the community.

I wanted to write this book in honor of all these folks, nameless or otherwise, having survived the war or not. They were all equally important, and I felt the best way I could honor them was to get this history into the mainstream the best I could. So much of what this community did benefitted the rest of the trans community right up to the present day. I wanted to show my thanks by doing my part to make sure they were no longer forgotten. That’s ultimately what I hope readers get from this period: remembrance for these people. That, and the realization that what we think we know of history likely isn’t the whole story. Plenty of history gets coopted, erased, washed,

etc., but is nonetheless presented as the (whole) truth. I hope The Lilac People opens people’s eyes.

YOUR TITLE NODS TO DAS LILA LIED, AN EARLY 20TH-CENTURY GERMAN ANTHEM FOR SEXUAL MINORITIES. HOW DID THIS PIECE OF MUSIC INFLUENCE THE TONE OR SPIRIT OF YOUR BOOK? DO YOU SEE BERTIE AND SOFIE’S STORY AS A LYRICAL ACT OF DEFIANCE?

MT: The interesting thing about planning is no matter how much I map out my plots, they’ll always surprise me. The song wasn’t originally intended to play such a major part in the book, but rather was put in for flavor as the first known queer anthem. But as I wrote the rough draft, it took on a life of its own. Bertie, Sofie, and Karl all got into it, and I let them take the wheel. By the time I started the second draft, I wove in the song with more intention, using it as symbolism for defiance, joy, community, found family, etc. It ended up thematically doing heavy lifting for the entire story. I can’t imagine the book without it anymore.

THE BOOK MOVES BETWEEN THE ELECTRIC, VIBRANT ENERGY OF PRE-WAR BERLIN AND THE HUSHED, PERILOUS QUIET OF LIFE IN HIDING. AS A WRITER, HOW DID YOU BUILD THESE CONTRASTING WORLDS? DID YOU WRITE ONE TIMELINE FIRST OR WEAVE THEM TOGETHER AS YOU WENT?

MT: I mapped the timelines out separately to make sure they each made sense on their own, then wove them together in ways that best worked with the book’s pacing and the divulging of information. Charting things out, such as with the line graph I mentioned earlier, was particularly helpful.

In some ways, though, the juxtaposition of the two worlds wrote themselves, purely by historical accuracy. For example, the 1932/3 timeline mostly takes place in the winter, while the 1945 timeline mostly takes place in the spring. While the seasons are arguably opposites of their timelines—the happy stuff is taking place in the winter and the sad stuff is taking place in the spring—they’re indeed opposite of each other, and so

I went with this irony and played up the feel of each season to further the feeling of difference.

Once I started writing the actual rough draft, though, I wrote the scenes one after the other in the order I intended the reader to read them. This approach helped me with flow between timelines, instead of writing each timeline separately and then trying to splice them together.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

YOUR CHARACTERS GRAPPLE NOT JUST WITH EXTERNAL PERSECUTION BUT WITH INTERNALIZED FEAR, SURVIVOR’S GUILT, AND THE BURDEN OF SECRETS. WHAT WAS THE MOST EMOTIONALLY DIFFICULT SCENE FOR YOU TO WRITE, AND HOW DID YOU KEEP THE STORY AUTHENTIC WITHOUT OVERWHELMING THE READER WITH DESPAIR?

MT: Hands down, the most difficult chapter for me was what I refer to as “Karl’s Monologue.” (If you know, you know.) It’s a short chapter of maybe—I don’t know—all of four pages, but it was rough. The research for that part alone took me maybe a full year of hunting, due to the heavy amount of destroyed documentation and evidence.

Then when it came to writing the chapter, finding the balance between authenticity and readability was particularly tough. On the one hand, I wanted to truly honor what these people went through by presenting it without flinching. On the other hand, if nobody read the book because of this, exactly how was I helping honor these folks? I can get the story out there, but I also need folks to actually read it.

Since the subject matter of this chapter was particularly traumatizing, I decided to pull back on it. I didn’t lie or sugarcoat anything, but I also didn’t get graphic. Plenty of details and additional information didn’t make it in because I realized the gist was more impactful, forcing the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks. I did, however, do something deliberately mean: I removed all white space. White space gives a reader’s brain a moment to breathe, break away, and process what’s on the page. But since the people who actually endured these things didn’t get a break or relief, I decided my reader wouldn’t either. I also presented the information in a halting way, in short sentences since that’s how Karl is speaking these things as he disassociates. This worked well

because it not only is part of Karl’s personality, but also forces readers to pay particularly close attention. You can’t look away, you can’t take a break, you’re locked in.

So definitely “Karl’s Monologue.” The research was the hardest, the subject matter was the most exhausting, and the writing and editing were particularly meticulous. I was so glad when I never had to look at it again.

THOUGH SET NEARLY A CENTURY AGO, THE LILAC PEOPLE FEELS ALARMINGLY RELEVANT IN TODAY’S CLIMATE OF RISING ANTITRANS RHETORIC AND ATTACKS ON QUEER RIGHTS. HOW DO YOU HOPE READERS CONNECT BERTIE’S STORY TO CURRENT EVENTS? WERE THERE MODERN ECHOES YOU FELT COMPELLED TO UNDERLINE— OR DID THEY SURFACE NATURALLY AS YOU WROTE?

MT: The Lilac People was never meant to be timely. Back when my publisher chose my release date, we didn’t know the world it’d debut into. But that said, there’s certainly plenty

of overlap between the time period of my book and our current era. But believe it or not, those overlaps wrote themselves. I simply presented the book in its organic time and place. Any overlaps are simply our modern era’s doing.

Even though I was researching and writing this book essentially in step with the Trump era, and I often saw parallels, I deliberately didn’t write toward that fact. I wanted to present the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany in their natural forms, not only for their own sake, but also because I worried trying to deliberately reflect our current times would, well, come off like I was trying to reflect our current times. And then the book would’ve risked coming off preachy, inauthentic, and other things that went against the purpose of me writing The Lilac People. So I left well enough alone and let history itself do the talking.

All that said, plenty of readers have (understandably) been concerned about our modern times since reading The Lilac People. In response to that, I’ve recorded a free, online course called “Modern United States vs Nazi

Germany: A Comparison Guide for Wellbeing.” It’s a deep dive and more information than you could imagine, but it’s everything I collected over the years. I sincerely believe knowledge is power, so I felt the best thing to do was share what I have with the world.

(Spoiler: We’re doing way better than Nazi Germany ever did. It’s not all sunshine and butterflies in the US right now, and people have gotten hurt and will continue to get hurt, but we’ll never get to the point Nazi Germany did. If you don’t believe me, go listen to my course. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and hopefully this course helps people understand where to direct their energy for resistance.)

MANY

QUEER AND TRANS STORIES FROM THIS ERA WERE ERASED FROM HISTORY. QUESTION: WHAT RESPONSIBILITY DID YOU FEEL IN GIVING VOICE TO THESE LIVES? WAS THERE A MOMENT WHERE YOU THOUGHT, “THIS STORY MUST BE TOLD, EVEN IF IT UNSETTLES PEOPLE”?

MT: I had a strong drive to give voice to these lives as soon as I learned given information. And the more information I learned, the stronger

that drive became. It was less about responsibility and more about anger. I was so angry on behalf of these folks; not just with what they endured, which would’ve been bad enough; and not even just that the Nazis tried to destroy all evidence of their crimes thereafter, which also would’ve been bad enough; but then self-described heroes such as the United States deliberately followed in the Nazis’ footsteps for cruelty toward these communities. My communities. I knew I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, play a role in continuing that coverup and silence.

But I also knew that the US population of today isn’t the same as the US population of then. Even if our government hasn’t improved much, plenty of folks in the US are open to hearing more about queer and trans identities, and I was optimistic that readers would take interest in The Lilac People.

But back to anger. I can be spiteful sometimes, and I let it shine during this whole process. Whenever I wanted to give up because of the amount of work and overwhelm this project created, I’d think about these folks, what they’d gone through, and how they’d been silenced. And then I’d get right back to

it. This was the most difficult book I’ve ever written, but they’re the ones who carried me through it.

FOR SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER HEARD OF THE LILAC PEOPLE BEFORE PICKING UP THIS INTERVIEW, WHAT DO YOU HOPE THEY FEEL OR UNDERSTAND AFTER READING BERTIE, SOFIE, AND KARL’S STORY? IF THEY REMEMBER JUST ONE IMAGE OR EMOTION FROM THE NOVEL, WHAT SHOULD IT BE?

MT: Aside from new knowledge on a particular time and place of trans history, I hope what stays with folks the most is the final imagery—which

I obviously can’t say much about here—as well as the party scenes. I hope people take away from this the fact that the trans community has had plenty of joy in the past, but also that we can endure quite a bit. Community is vital in times like these—whether Nazi Germany or the modern US or elsewhere—and it’s what will see us through. Support each other, honor each other, and do the best you can. This isn’t the first time we’ve gone through something like this. And in a way, that means we’re never enduring difficulty alone.

As my unintentional tagline has since become: The ghosts of history are watching, kissing our foreheads.

A moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies, all while protecting the ones he loves

In 1932 Berlin, a trans man named Bertie and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond. But everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The Institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.

Shorter Is Stronger: The Rise of Novellas

and Short Fiction in Translation

BY SARAH KLOTH

In a literary landscape where time feels perpetually short and attention is constantly divided, the novella and short story have reemerged not as lesser forms, but as powerhouses of storytelling. In the world of translated literature, shorter works are not just gaining traction, they are shaping the future.

Why Shorter Works Travel Well

For decades, the economics of translation have been daunting. Long novels mean higher costs: more pages to translate, more risk for publishers, more shelf space to justify. Independent presses, ever the risk takers, are increasingly finding that brevity is both sustainable and compelling. A 120-page novella is not only cheaper to translate, it is also easier for readers to take a chance on.

Editors point out that shorter projects allow them to introduce new voices from around the globe without betting an entire season’s list on a single title. A smaller investment can mean greater freedom to take chances on innovative storytelling, experimental structures, and debut authors. That spirit of discovery is what keeps translation alive, and shorter forms are helping carry it forward.

The Reader’s Advantage

On the reader side, shorter works resonate with a cultural moment where time is scarce. Novellas and short fiction collections meet the needs of readers who want intensity without the sprawl. A well-cut novella offers a sharp burst, a single evening’s read that lingers far longer than its page count suggests. For many, the short form offers a complete world

IF YOU LIKED THIS... READ THAT!

Favorites Paired with Short Works in Translation

IF YOU LIKED.....

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho:

→ Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq (India) — A luminous novella on longing and exile.

→ The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France) — A timeless, poetic fable of searching and wonder.

→ The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang (Korea) — A brief, allegorical tale of freedom and belonging.

that does not demand a month of reading time.

And in translation, brevity has another advantage: language itself. Readers encounter new rhythms, unfamiliar cadences, and fresh metaphors. In a shorter work, those differences shine brighter, making the reading experience immediate and memorable.

Standouts from the Short Form

Two recent translations capture this shift beautifully. Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp is a slim, luminous work that reads like a whispered prayer. Centered on longing and exile, it compresses a lifetime of ache into a novella barely over a hundred pages. Its strength lies in what it does not say, the silences between words.

Uketsu’s Strange Pictures proves that short fiction can hold the surreal and the unsettling with incredible precision. Each story delivers the uncanny in tight, unsettling strokes, perfectly suited to the compressed, almost cinematic pacing of contemporary life.

Both books remind us that translation is not only about language, it is about rhythm, restraint, and the art of leaving just enough unsaid.

Voices from the Editors

Editors working in translation echo the same refrain: shorter works carry outsized impact. “For readers new to international voices, a novella is less intimidating,” one told us. “It lowers the barrier of entry. And when it works, it hooks them for life.”

IF YOU LIKED.....

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood:

→ Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki (Japan) — Dystopian short stories with sharp feminist critique.

→ The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (Sweden) — A chilling novella on autonomy, aging, and state control.

→ The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz (Egypt) — A surreal take on bureaucracy and oppression.

IF

YOU LIKED.....

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri:

→ Igifu by Scholastique Mukasonga (Rwanda) — Stories of hunger, memory, and resilience.

→ Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (UK, but thematically close in brevity and intensity) paired with The Barefoot Woman by Mukasonga (Rwanda).

→ People from My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami (Japan) — Tiny stories that reveal entire lives.

Another noted that brevity allows publishers to take creative risks, discovering emerging voices, experimenting with form, and amplifying perspectives that might otherwise never make it into English. The shorter form makes translation more agile, and more accessible, for both publishers and readers.

A Tradition Reimagined

It is worth noting that the novella is not new. From Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, the form has long been a vehicle for concentrated brilliance. What is new is the way contemporary readers are reaching for these works in translation. Indie publishers are reviving the novella not as an afterthought, but as a strategy, positioning shorter works as a gateway into literature that is global, diverse, and deeply human.

The Power of Precision

In the end, shorter works thrive because they meet readers where we are: overextended, overstimulated, but still hungry for literature that moves us. In translation, that hunger is even sharper, each novella or story collection an opening into a world we may never otherwise see.

Shorter, it turns out, is not lesser. It is sharper. Stronger. And in translation, it is exactly what we need.

IF YOU LIKED.....

Coraline by Neil Gaiman:

→ Strange Pictures by Uketsu (Japan) — Surreal and unsettling, where the ordinary turns uncanny.

→ Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki (Japan) — Dystopian, eerie worlds with strange logic.

→ The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Japan) — Tender yet mysterious, blending math and memory.

IF YOU LIKED.....

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Ciseneros:

→ The White Book by Han Kang (Korea) — Fragmentary, poetic reflections on grief and rebirth.

→ Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus) — Oral histories that read like impressionistic short fiction.

→ Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (Argentina) — A brief, hypnotic novel told in fragments.

EXCERPTS

Take a bite from your next favorite book.

A Family of Good Women.

BY TEDDY JONES

Stoney

Creek Publishing Group | Sep 2025

Chapter 1 1929

I’ll admit it. Trying to live up to my mother’s example, to be a success on my own, had me at my limit. I had to either sit down and rest or fall down. I sat. But I wasn’t far from my work there on the steps outside the kitchen door. I should have been inside whittling down that pile of dirty dishes or doing any of the thousand other things that only get done if I do them. But with all the work, I was so weary that my mind was a mass of unconnected thoughts. Fatigue doesn’t only sap my muscles; it drags up bits of the past and makes them seem real and present.

Here’s one example of how the past turns up. As far as I can recall, no one in my family ever had a father. I mean none of my cousins had fathers, and neither did I. I don’t remember any of us ever discussing our lack of fathers. It was just a fact. If someone asked, we answered with a sad expression: “He passed on.” Sitting out there on that porch with my eyes half-closed, gathering my strength, I saw three girls, one I knew was my oldest cousin, Martha. I even heard us talking and could tell I was one of the other two. Martha was saying it was nobody’s business whether we had fathers around. I said, “But that’s lying.” Then Sue Ellen—I could tell from her voice—said, “Martha’s right. I’m sick of people saying our mothers are divorced or something worse.” Those girls were so real I could have touched them. At least that’s how it seemed until I opened my eyes. Then all I could see was wooden oil derricks in every

direction. They’re nothing new to me. Burkburnett was full of them. I’d known when I came to Borger it would be, too.

So, I told myself ten more minutes of rest wouldn’t hurt and leaned back against the door jamb. I knew I was imagining it, but I could see Adobe Walls from where I sat. It’s more than thirty miles north and west, but a scene of those buffalo hunters and Comanches fighting there not so long ago, fifty-five years to be exact, came to me. I studied that in college, learning Texas history so I could teach it. I didn’t try to keep my eyes open. If I went to sleep, surely falling off this step would wake me. Next thing you know, I was reliving the past three weeks, starting a few days after the Fourth of July. Around two in the afternoon—it was on a Thursday—I finished serving the noon meal and started cleaning up. Quite a crowd turned up that day. Being served meals family-style seems to increase some men’s appetites. I almost ran out of fried chicken and biscuits. That would have been a real disaster because I’ve only been in business long enough to begin acquiring some regular customers. And I need to keep them if I’m going to make it here in Borger. I have to. There’s little left of Mother’s savings and I haven’t added a bit. There’s hope that I’ll be able to, though it’s a slim hope, that when the garden produces and I get a rooster, and . . . Well, I can’t afford to think too much about all that right now. I’d just pitched the scraps out the back door to the chickens and gone inside when I heard a soft knock on the outside screen

door. For a minute, I got worried. Did I latch that door? I peeked out toward the screen door and saw a white man standing on the back step. He looked to be fairly old, maybe fifty or sixty, with stooped shoulders. I yelled, “Just a minute.”

Then I picked up my butcher knife, the one I use to cut up chicken. You can’t be too careful in Borger, Texas. Always roughnecks or gamblers stumbling around trying to get in any door they see, thinking they’ll find shelter. Or maybe it’s home they’re looking for. Or family. I can understand that.

For example, late one evening last month, a big fellow, covered with oil and dirt and sporting a black eye and a big bandage on one hand, stood out there in the back and cried and called out for his mama for about fifteen minutes before he took himself and his bottle of bootleg whiskey on down the alley. There’s no telling what that was all about. Could have been an accident on a rig or a fight in a

bar. I had to ignore him all that time like a person has to ignore a fretful baby or I would have been out there taking care of him.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m naturally quick to help others. But Mother often reminded me that one’s better impulses must be tempered by caution, particularly in regard to men. So, you can understand my hesitance and the butcher knife.

The screen door latch was on, I was glad to see. I stood in the kitchen doorway, not about to open that latch. “What can I do for you?” I asked, in my strongest voice.

Usually, the older men who come around to the back door ask for a meal. If they intended to pay, they’d come to the front door. Turning up at the back door, they’re too old or weak or maybe too lazy to work on the rigs or they hopped off a freight. It’s almost always the same. “Haven’t eaten in a long time, wonder if you could spare a little something.” And I usually do.

I didn’t unlatch the screen, just moved a little nearer the door and talked from inside. He had backed away off the steps and stood out in the sunlight. Maybe he saw the butcher knife, even though I had it under my apron.

When I got closer, I could see this one was different. The first thing out of the ordinary was that

ABOUT THE BOOK

What is the true meaning of family?

his clothes fit and didn’t look ragged, as I’d expected. The second was that he wasn’t dirty—didn’t look like a tramp. Looked like he’d shaved sometime recently. I felt my back stiffen. A woman has to watch out for the slick-looking ones. They’re either selling something or are after something you shouldn’t part with.

“Ma’am, I was wondering if you might need someone to work here, to help out with whatever you need done, in exchange for two meals a day.” Said he was new in town and gave me his name. All the time, he was looking directly at me, studying me with a tiny vertical wrinkle between his eyes. Later, I realized that name, which I promptly forgot, could have been anyone’s—or no one’s.

The possibility of having someone to at least wash dishes tempted me to say “yes” and be done with it. He could have started right then; the kitchen sink was full.

I’m stronger than most women my size, and a person twenty-three can work long hours without resting. But I have to admit, that Thursday I was wondering if taking up where my mother left off was such a good idea. Serving meals three times a day seven days a week is no small chore. I don’t know now how she did it; she was nowhere near as sturdy as I am. But sheer determination will carry a person a

long way, and she had plenty of that. My mother also never acted on impulse. So, I said to him, “Let me think about that overnight.”

“What time tomorrow should I come back?” He spoke in a pleasant voice accented like my college roommate’s. She’d lived in Texarkana where they sound like the South, not like this rough side of Texas.

“About this same time.” When he turned and left I would have bet, if I was a gambling woman, that I’d seen the last of him. I’d have laid money on his being on the next passing freight.

I didn’t let the surprise show on my face when he turned up again the next day. But I hurried so getting to the porch I forgot to pick up the butcher knife. Could be the July heat had me a little addled, and the fatigue. I’d added a sack lunch service for men working midnight tour. It makes me quite a bit of extra money, but staying up until ten o’clock every night to sell them leaves me worn out the next day.

Imogene Good finds herself wrestling with this question when, still grieving her mother’s death, she abandons a promising teaching career to open a boarding house in the near-lawless oil boomtown of Borger, Texas. Alone.

The business thrives, love arrives in the form of mysterious Texas Ranger, and Imogene takes in a stray dog and a runaway cousin from the Good family farm in East Texas. But months later, as fatigue, mounting threats, and violence against her business threatens to overwhelm her, she finds refuge in the contents of a trunk she carted to town after her mother’s death.

In it, Imogene finds secrets about the women who raised her that changes her life and her understanding of family. Can the Good women build a new life from the ashes of hardship on the inhospitable plains of the 1920s Texas Panhandle?

Backlight .

BY PIRKKO SAISIO, TRANSLATED BY MIA SPANGENBERG

Publishers Group West | June 2025

It’s 5 a.m. and the world is cast in gold.

Shimmering fog lies tangled in the willows an excavator will lift from the earth years later. Water beads on the untroubled grass, wild just moments ago.

She’s backlit by the sun. She’s crossing the meadow toward me.

In a few years a Citymarket will be built here, and the meadow will be paved so families will have a place to park their Toyotas, Datsuns, and Labrador retrievers on Saturdays.

But there’s still time until then, a little.

Now it’s 1968, Europe’s crazy year, and that crazy sum-

mer is about to begin. Vanha, the Old Student House, won’t be occupied until autumn, but there will be riots in Paris over the summer. Tanks are lining up in Moscow, the stones are shifting in the Moldau, and three Kaisers are dead and buried in Prague. There are three bullets lying in wait in Josef Bachmann’s

gun, Rudi Dutschke is laid out in his bed, and a cow lies

in the meadow she’s crossing toward me.

It’s 5 a.m. on the first day of June and the world is cast in gold.

She’s also dressed in gold, in an ethereal cloak of mist, and I can’t see her face. I recognize her by her hesitant footsteps.

She’s taken off her shoes, and I remember how the morning dew numbed her feet that had been chafed by her new shoes the previous evening.

Now she stops.

She stops to listen to the trill of an early yellowhammer. Her focused attention and her flashing eyes tell me just how aware she is of this moment and of her own listening.

She presses her hand to her heart.

A high-heeled, white plastic sandal dangles from a crooked finger.

She lowers her hand, hastily, and her hand doesn’t know what to do next. Hurt, it hangs idly in the shadow of her new creamcolored dress.

She observes herself too much, and she suffers for it. She’s desperate for approval and will forever remain famished.

But now she picks a tall blade of melic grass and quickly turns it into a sentence: The grass’s dreams are short but deep.

She’s excited by her sentence, and she sings, loud and brazen, to the grass, the songbird, and the garish yellow sky:

“No, you aren’t allowed to dare, you must always remember: Don’t walk on the grass, and don’t feed the monkeys!”

She sings with Kristiina

Hautala’s clear, ringing voice, and for a short, fateful moment she forgets the contours of her clumsy body.

She dances a few defiant steps on her sore feet and is discouraged.

She stands in front of me. She looks past me because she doesn’t see me.

I quickly step aside—I don’t want to be judged by her relentless gaze.

She looks into the distance. She sees the horizon, that’s clear. It’s roughly where the pedestrian overpass stands out against the freshly painted crosswalk in the increasingly pale early-morning light.

But that’s not what she sees, because her mind is filled with images from Lucy M. Montgomery’s dusky hollows, the swelling buds of wild apple trees, and nightin-

ABOUT THE BOOK

gales forced to sing oppressively throughout the night.

And now the sun slips into its mold.

The gold haze contracts and turns ordinary.

It coils itself into the new Bismark chain around her wrist and squeezes the fashionable aquamarine gemstone around her middle finger; it’s extinguished from her eyes, passes through the black velvet of her graduation cap, and is pressed onto her forehead in the shape of a self-important lyre.

She jumps over a ditch onto the road.

A lonely taxi breaks for her, then speeds off again.

A pair of drunken high-school graduates staggers past.

The girl, who has knotted the boy’s tie around her arm, wishes her all the best. She smiles in response—it almost lights up her face—

North Country takes place in the year 2372, a time when Earth is recovering from floods, fires, pandemics, and war. Amidst this postapocalyptic world, the pirate nation of Bosch is thriving—but not without its complications. The focus is on four fierce women who must navigate their way through both external dangers and their own personal demons.Set in the USA, Europe, and the Caribbean, the love saga takes readers on an enthralling, enigmatic, erogenous but earnest journey through their exciting lives, crossing continents and cultures, places and races, until an assassin’s bullet hits its mark. Faced with an unexpected sacrifice, Elizabeth’s formidable dilemma is how to save both the opposing Kingdoms she flabbergastingly discovers she loves equally.

and suddenly she feels tired: as heavy as lead.

She takes off her cap. It leaves a ring around her hairsprayed tresses. Her mascara has flaked into a black veil on her cheeks. She forces her aching feet into her tight shoes.

She’s almost home, but she doesn’t want to arrive in her cap because

the previous evening Father watched TV with a plastic bag on his head.

Inside was the graduation cap, the cap I didn’t care about because Father never had one, even though he was the one who truly deserved it.

Heart Lamp.

BY BEAU MUSHTAQ, TRANSLATED BY DEEPA BHASTHI

And Other Stories | April 2025

From the concrete jungle, from the flamboyant apartment buildings stacked like matchboxes to the sky, from the smoke-spewing, hornblaring vehicles that were always moving, day and night, as if constant movement was the only goal in life, then from people, people, people – people with no love for one another, no mutual trust, no harmony, no smiles of recognition even – I had desperately wanted to be free from such a suffocating environment. So, when Mujahid came with news of his transfer, I was very happy, truly.

Arey, I forgot. I should tell you all about Mujahid, no? Mujahid is my home person. Oh. That sounds odd. A wife is usually the one who stays at home, so that makes her the home person. Perhaps then Mujahid is my office person. Che! I have made a mistake again. The office is not mine, after all. How else can I say this? If I use the term yajamana and call him owner, then I will have to be a servant, as if I am an animal or a dog. I am a little educated. I have earned a degree. I do not like establishing these

owner and servant roles. So then shall I say ‘ganda’ for husband? That also is too heavy a word, as if a gandantara, a big disaster, awaits me. But why go into all this trouble? You could suggest that I use the nice word ‘pati’ for husband – then again, no woman who comes to your house introduces her husband saying ‘This is my pati’ – right? This word is not very popular colloquially. It is a very bookish word. If one uses the word pati, there comes an urge to add devaru to it, a common practice, equating one’s husband with God. I am not willing to give Mujahid such elevated status.

Come to think of it, for us, that is, for us Muslims, it is said that, other than Allah above, our pati is God on earth. Suppose there comes a situation where the husband’s body is full of sores, with pus and blood oozing out from them. It is said that even if the wife uses her tongue to lick these wounds clean, she will still not be able to completely repay the debt she owes him. If he is a drunkard or a womaniser, or if he

harasses her for dowry every day – even if all these ‘ifs’ are true, he is still the husband. No matter which religion one belongs to, it is accepted that the wife is the husband’s most obedient servant, his bonded labourer.

By now, you must have understood what my relationship with Mujahid is. At the same time, you must have understood what I think about all this. It is not my mistake; when Mujahid, that is, my life companion, got transferred, we moved into beautiful quarters at the Krishnaraja Sagara dam project. He then left me with the jackfruit and lemon trees, the dahlia, jasmine, chrysanthemum

and rose plants in the front yard, and the curry leaves, bean plants and bitter gourd creepers growing in the back. He, on the other hand, was occupied for twenty-eight out of twenty-four hours every day, either working at the office or doing research at the Karnataka Engineering Research Station.

It is the same now too. A cool breeze is tickling my body and mind. Since I don’t have anyone to talk to, I am sitting here in the middle of the garden and ranting about this so-called husband to you all. But … arey! What is this? Mujahid’s scooter, that too at this time of the day! I looked at the clock. It was only five o’clock. I raised my eyebrows; I did not move from my seat. Mujahid flashed his teeth. I imprisoned mine tightly behind my lips. He bowed down, placed the helmet on my head, pulled me up by the hand and said, ‘Hmm, quickly!

ABOUT THE BOOK

I will give you eight minutes. You have to get ready by then and come out. If you don’t … ’

Hold on a minute. Let me tell you the whole story. We are newlyweds. If I have to be specific, we have been married for ten months and thirteen days. Mujahid has tried a few gimmicks before this. One day, he tried very hard and braided my hair, sticking a hundred and eighteen pins into my head to hold it up. Satisfied that it looked very good, he even took a photo. I looked like a monkey. Another day, he tried to get me to wear trousers, but even his loosest pair burst out of their seams and he had to give up trying. Then he tried to encourage me to smoke so that people would think of him as a very social, liberal person. I get very irritated when other people smoke, so instead of blowing out the smoke, I held it in and acted like I couldn’t stop coughing and that I was

finding it hard to breathe. Poor thing. He was so upset. But all these disasters passed within three months of our wedding, and we are a very ‘normal’ couple now.

A monumental first collection in English from Banu Mushtaq: lawyer, activist, champion of Muslim women, and winner of India’s highest literary honors.

In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humor, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.

There’s A Monster Behind the Door.

BY GAËLLE BÉLEM, TRANSLATED BY KAREN FLEETWOOD & LAËTITIA SAINT-LOUBERT

Bellaun Press | October 2024

That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

While parents usually get carried away trying to explain the great mysteries of life and the why and wherefore of everything to their offspring, the Dessaintes always proved exceptionally mean when it came to explanations.

Of course, they attached a degree of importance to feeding and clothing the only child they had brought into the world, and to making her generally presentable, but never – not once –did they show any zeal for instruction, let alone education.

Their attachment to the most basic platitudes and their innate laziness when it came to answering their child’s

questions was perhaps a symptom of their resignation, of their submissive acceptance of realities beyond their understanding, of their total lack of education. Whatever the reason, they dismissed all her inquiries – those questions from a child mesmerized by the world – with the same laconic, fixed response: ‘That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

Farewell science and its complicated algorithms, farewell erudite digressions and their gang of bearded boffins! In the small town of Saint-Benoît, or to be more precise at number 21 rue René-Descartes (which they naturally misspelled as ‘René des Cartes’), the mere sight of a book was enough to make the Dessaintes’ hair stand on end,

sending them into a state of acute irritation followed by inescapable ennui.

Welcome to the island of La Réunion in the 1980s: a heap of rubble on the edge of the world where the worst human superstitions, chased out by waves of European scepticism, had finally found a welcoming harbour. Here they had been able to take root and grow, and now cast a terrible shadow over a headstrong and utterly

gullible people.

During the day, the streets were indolent rows of houses flanked by letterboxes full of bills and other official correspondence, but come night-time, it was a tropical Hallowe en over and over. Every neighbourhood was given over to a legion of invisible tyrants: Néréides, Nazgûl and other misanthropic, carnivorous and barbarous demons who were held accountable for all the mishaps and mistakes of the day. At least, that’s what my parents, the parents of my parents, the parents of the parents

ABOUT THE BOOK

of my parents, their own great-grandparents, their friends, the friends of their enemies and the enemies of their friends swore – and the conversation ended there. Or rather, it persisted there, growing and spreading like wildfire across the island’s twentyfour municipalities, its three cirques, its savannah and its two volcanoes, until there was not a single resident left, with the exception of the Zoreils, who doubted the existence of the devil, his wanton wickedness and his control over pretty much anything and everything.

The very youngest knew not to ask too many questions, for bloodthirsty monsters were always eavesdropping at doors and, come nightfall, would like nothing more than to gobble up a nosey child!

In 1980s’ Réunion, monsters lurk beneath the surface of vibrant island life, ready to pounce at the slightest disturbance.

‘In the heat of the Tropic of Capricorn, on the flanks of an active volcano, the sharks would tear apart your favourite magazine if only they could crawl as far as your beach towel.’

Here, the naïve Dessaintes couple make a failing bid for happiness, soon growing jaded and bitter as the orange tree in their front yard – ‘the branches laden with flowers, the juicy oranges and, eventually, the nests of insatiable weaverbirds and the stench of rotten fruit.’

We Computers.

BY HAMID ISMAILOV, TRANSLATED BY SHELLEY FAIRWEATHER-VEGA

Yale University Press | August 2025

A cry comes from heaven at dawn, and I think: “Up there, they all know Hafez by heart.” —Hafez

Jon-Perse had never liked his own name. Worse, the reasons he had been given that name disgusted him. During the war, while his father Jean-Claude had been working in the local library in a village called Ozer, in the French Alps, he’d gotten his hands on a book called Anabase, by a poet called Saint-John Perse, and Jean-Claude was so quickly enraptured by that book that he decided to name his newborn son not “Jean-Pierre” or even “JohnJacques” but “Jon-Perse,” a pretentious name of his own creation.

On top of that, when JonPerse turned eighteen and was about to set off for Paris to study, hoping to escape the local children’s mockery, his father, recently retired from the library, took his long-cherished copy of Anabase from a trunk, handling it like the Holy

Book itself, and presented it to his son. “Here is the most important inheritance I can leave you!” he said, with great ceremony.

No, Jon-Perse did not tuck that book away under his seat on the bus or the train, out of sight of his traveling companions. Instead, with all the perverse excitement of an adolescent digging with a needle into a festering wound, he read the thing, and as he did, his hatred only grew for the book, and his name, and the poet who was its cause. The book was written in some fake language he’d never heard, about some druggedout things he’d never encountered, by some ghost who used the pseudonym “Saint-John Perse” instead of his own name, and it made the young man so incredibly angry that he found himself thinking, “You call that poetry? I’ll show you!” So he got off the train at the Gare de Lyon, hurried to the university residence hall in Nanterre, and scrawled out the following

poem:Passing, evenings, through this city’srailroad stations,abandoned lots,exhausted sighs,wandering the days in search of work,the nights for a fleeting resting placethat might make my returning voice rememberat the outskirts of my thoughts . . .

From that moment on, young Jon-Perse felt that he was a poet.

After he had been enrolled for some time in the new psychology program at his university in Nanterre, JonPerse was invited to work in the laboratory run by Lacan, a renowned psychologist.

But instead, putting psychology aside, he took a job in the communist commune of Ivry-sur-Seine on the opposite side of Paris, writing for Louis Aragon’s poetry journal Action Poétique, and with that, his poetic pretensions grew even more, never to shrink again. Sussing out spelling errors in certain poets’ work lit a fire in his eyes and made his hands feel powerful. Jon-Perse’s sense of self was taking shape. In Paris, this was the era of not only the great Louis Aragon and his wife Elsa Triolet; it was also the era of Sartre and Camus, Picasso and Foucault, and all their ilk, who often passed through, sometimes stopping to pay a visit, sometimes to do business, sometimes to have a conversation in the Aragons’ home. Then 1968 came, and life in Paris was turned upside down by the ideas and

ABOUT THE BOOK

stomping feet of rebellious students, transforming everything into imagination and poetry. The revolt born at Jon-Perse’s alma mater in Nanterre seeped out to the rest of Paris. Naturally, when JonPerse was ready to finish his studies and all the attention was on the protestors who were only beginning their own, Jon-Perse decided to go and have a look for himself. As he strolled along the barricades, he saw Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the rebel leader who may or may not have been French, and may have been or more likely was German, holding up two lines taken from Jon-Perse’s own poetry to serve as a revolutionary slogan:Growing a new chaos out of ancient chaosCould be the meaning of life!

Jon-Perse nearly shouted, “Hey! Those are my words!”

In the late 1980s, French poet and psychologist Jon-Perse finds himself in possession of one of the most promising inventions of the century: a computer. Enchanted by snippets of Persian poetry he learns from his Uzbek translation partner, Abdulhamid Ismail, Jon-Perse builds a computer program capable of both analyzing and generating literature. But beyond the text on his screen there are entire worlds—of history, philosophy, and maybe even of love—in the stories and people he and AI conjure.

Hamid Ismailov brings together his work as a poet, translator, and student of literature of both East and West to craft a postmodern ode to poetry across centuries and continents. Crossing the poètes maudits with beloved Sufi classics, blending absurdist dreams with the life of the famed Persian poet Hafez, moving from careful mathematical calculations to lyrical narratives, Ismailov invents an ingenious transnational poetics of love and longing for the digital age. Situated at the crossroads of a multilingual world and mediated by the unreliable sensibilities of digital intelligence, this book is a dazzling celebration of how poetry resonates across time and space.

But maybe he suddenly understood the point of the rebellion, which was to reject the capitalist concept of ownership, or, failing that, maybe he realized that no matter what he shouted, everyone’s attention would stay focused on that bandit CohnBendit and the slogan he’d stolen. Whatever the case, Jon-Perse’s head was spinning with brand new, unfamiliar feelings, and all his individuality instantly vanished, and he became one with the revolution.

The Mind Reels.

BY FREDRIK DEBOER

Coffee House Press | October 2025

Hunted, she roamed barefoot on hot Oklahoma City streets. Behind her the wolves followed, persistent but unhurried. The bars she passed were a riot of light and noise. In front of one a pack of hulking and malevolent figures stood and stumbled and shout-spoke to each other. They cackled at her as she approached. One of them reached out and pawed at her. She raked his neck with her fingernails, drawing four perfect lines of blood. He recoiled and shouted and his friends shouted and she ran until she was sure no one was following her.

Beating, beating, beating staccato out of her chest, her heart kept the same rhythm as her feet. The sky looked vast and unknowable but it attracted her gaze nonetheless; the ground held people,

stalking, seeing people. The trumpets were playing again, shrill and insistent and impossibly loud. She stumbled onward, sure that to stop was to die. All she saw on the streets around her were the gaunt and lusting faces of wicked men. She had to run. Her feet were now bleeding, thanks to the jagged detritus that littered the streets. But she had to run.

Eventually she came to the park. Its grass was soothing on her aching feet and she was drawn to the sound of the water flowing over the dam. She crept out onto the walkway and peered over. It looked inviting, and for a long moment she held herself completely still. But the sounds of footsteps reignited her animal instincts and she ran.

She circled around the

lake, which looked vast and cold. She peered into it, searching for something. She thought that she might like walking straight in better than diving onto the bare metal of the dam. She might have stayed and looked, or she might have gone in, but she did neither because of the bird, because she saw the bird. She saw the great blue heron out of the corner of her eye, then rotated to her left, achingly slowly; they

were skittish animals. The heron was moving slowly in that odd gait of theirs, moving silently on delicate stilts. And it terrified her. Not because of what it was, a fivefoot-tall bird with a sharp beak for spearing fish and rats, tall thin legs that bent backwards, dinosaur face and more feathers than one bird should reasonably possess. She was not afraid of any of that; she had seen them in this very park before. No, it was where the heron was hunting that sent a spasm shivering up her neck. It was standing at least a hundred feet from the water’s edge, on dry ground, away from its natural place but seemingly unconcerned.

ABOUT THE BOOK

And for dark distant indescribable reasons Alice saw this and felt sheer terror.

The bird stood looking at her, and she stood looking at it. She shivered in the Oklahoma heat. What was that bird to do with earth, with dry ground? What had compelled it to walk as she walked on grass where children picnicked? What secrets did it hold about her, about her future? Its alien head twitched to the right, peering at her from the other eye. Alice stood transfixed, soaking with sweat, feet bleeding, assaulted by waves of fear so palpable she could feel them pressing against her physically, materially,

corporeally. What was the bird doing on the grass? Why had its prehistoric feet chosen to walk on ground that had been plotted by the fickle needs of men? What did it know?

Then she knew what the bird knew: that she didn’t have much time left to run, that flashing red and blue lights were ahead of her, that her future was a padded room, a cell, a cage.

In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation. Thus begins an endless march of lithium, antidepressants, and Klonopin; doctors and therapists—when health insurance allows—along with overwhelmed parents and well-intentioned friends; all helpless bystanders as Alice descends deeper into chaos.

My Bully, My Aunt & Her Final Gift .

BY HAROLD PHIFER

BookBaby | February 2025

Next, the secretary advised me to take a seat while she notified the headmaster of my arrival. During those dreadful moments I did everything I could to remain calm. Nervously, I kept patting my foot to the floor and heard each and every tap.

Suddenly, shouts of extreme havoc rung out just like the other times! “Oh God no!

Jesus, please help me Lawd! I got you, Sir, I got you,” were screams filling the airwaves. The door opened and a battered female raced right past me with her hands covering her face. She kept mumbling phrases that shouldn’t be repeated by innocent lips. I couldn’t believe those disgusting words coming out of her baby-sized mouth.

Then damn, another nightmare was possibly moments away. I needed an out and fast. Fearing for my life, I formulated my plan of action.

Right before Principal Shellshock steadies his paddle, I was going to blow out all the gas I reserved in my little butt. I was never a fan of the fart game, but I was scheming like a veteran.

That’s all I had, and it was my “A game.” My intentions were to rip a good hard one that opens my belt, ruffles my pants, and sends my new shoes flying across the room. Then all options would be left to the principal. He could chance tearing into me and losing a lung or take cover and let me go. Punishing me will become a hazard to his health.

For the moment, I felt really good about that notion. I didn’t have much else to cling to, but I was dangerously packing breakfast from Aunt Kathy. Yes, I was sure my stink bomb defense would win that day. According to past reports, I would be the first and only kid at Mitchell Memorial to get on the scoreboard against the headmaster. Make that, Hal “1” and Principal Shell Shock “0.”

“Well, Aunt Kathy

implored me to settle down. She kept issuing threat after threat with such statements, “Boy, do I need to beat the black off of you,” or “Gorilla will be your name when I’m finish!” Yes, I got the message but beating my butt wasn’t going to be enough. Heck, I had been waiting for three long, long years just to join Jerry. Anything short of a bullet wasn’t going to stop me.”

“Aunt Kathy wasted no time reading me the riot act. She accused me of overstepping my bounds and showing off at church. According to her calculations, “I needed to get my ass snapped back in shape”! Then she said,

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Don’t worry, I plan to cut you a “New Ass” when we get home!”

“Yes Ma’am,” I said. It was just another day in paradise! Yes, I knew I was cooked. I was finished.”

“Once the Reverend was out of sight, Aunt Kathy eyeballed me up and down with a frown more terrifying than ugly on an ape. My life still hung in the balance. As much as I tried, I couldn’t hold my emotions any longer. She started up again, “Boy, for a minute, I was really scared for your ass! But I’m gonna let you slide this time!”

“Yes ma’am,” I said. She went even deeper, “You may have slipped through the cracks, but if I catch you taking a shit out of turn, I’m beating your ass!”

“Yes ma’am,” I said once again.

In “My Bully, My Aunt, and Her Final Gift”, Hal revisits the complicated relationship he shared with his late Aunt Kathy, a woman who stood as the antithesis of positivity in his life. Despite her domineering and often cruel behavior, her passing left Hal with an unexpected opportunity for humor, healing, and reflection. As he plans her memorial—a gathering that no one seems eager to attend—Hal’s childhood memories resurface, pulling him back into a world shaped by his aunt’s unpredictable rules and twisted philosophies. Blending heartfelt truths with laugh-out-loud moments, Hal weaves a tale of resilience, self-discovery, and ultimately, redemption. This memoir offers a lighthearted yet honest look at how even the darkest relationships can leave behind gifts of wisdom and self-awareness.

Interview with Sarah Aziza

Author of Powerhouse 2025 Memoir, The Hollow Half

BY CORINNA KLOTH

Credit: Natasha Jahchan

Blending memoir, history, and experiment, The Hollow Half resists easy categorization. Moving across time, borders, and generations, Sarah Aziza traces personal crisis alongside the inherited weight of exile, silence, and survival. In this conversation, she reflects on the book’s unconventional form, the role of memory and mystery, and what it means to write with both defiance and love.

THE

HOLLOW HALF IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL MEMOIR—IT BLURS TIME, GEOGRAPHY, AND EVEN MEMORY ITSELF. FOR READERS WHO HAVEN’T PICKED IT UP YET, WHAT IS THIS BOOK REALLY ABOUT BENEATH ITS SURFACE STORY?

SA: I am a firm believer that the reader ultimately finds and makes meaning through their individual experience, but I can share some of my intentions and reflections.

The blurring you mention was not something I intended from the outset—the particular structure of the book, which is both experimental and deliberate, emerged as I attempted to find a way to express what I was experiencing and coming to understand about my own body, life, and legacy. As I excavated history, I became convinced that time is far less linear than

Western convention likes to suggest. I discovered that I couldn’t understand my personal story without recognizing the way past, present, and future are braided together—or perhaps it’s better to say they are overlapping, interrupting, informing and forming one another, always. The difference, for me, lay in becoming aware of that.

How I became aware of that is both explored in the book and enacted through the form the book itself takes. In the beginning of the story, I face mental and physical challenges that feel insurmountable, while at the same time being unconscious to the way these struggles are informed by the intermingled timelines and geographies that make me who I am. But, as I began to learn how to “listen”—to my body, to my instinct, and eventually, to my art, what first felt like unmitigated chaos and confusion started to unfold into something more like understanding, more like grace. It taught me a different way to occupy my body, time, and space—and I tried to find a way to embody that in the book.

THE

BOOK

BEGINS IN A MOMENT OF PERSONAL CRISIS

BUT SOON EXPANDS INTO A MULTI-GENERATIONAL TALE OF EXILE, SILENCE, AND SURVIVAL.

WAS THERE A SINGLE THREAD OR IMAGE THAT FIRST TOLD YOU, THIS ISN’T JUST MY STORY, THIS IS MY FAMILY’S STORY TOO?

SA: This is a great question. I think I was resistant for a while to admit that the multi-generational threads were intertwined with my personal struggles. Terms like “intergenerational trauma” get thrown around a lot, and, just like “trauma” itself, it’s a word that is both profoundly necessary, and sometimes opaque. I didn’t want to use those words if I didn’t know what it meant to me in particular. I think I was also a little wary of attaching my story, which at the time I understood as a story of relative privilege, to the story of the two generations before me—they survived “real” catastrophes, like the Nakba, the war of 1967, and so much more. Who was I to link my experience so directly to theirs? Why couldn’t I, with all my supposed comfort in the diaspora, just “get it together”?

But there were definitely turning points, where the experiences of my relatives and ancestors leapt out of the archive and, like a tuning fork, rang out a note that undeniably matched the vibrations of my own story. There were resonances that were so profound, I finally began to see how deeply present, and active, this history was

in my own flesh and daily living. Some of those turning points are described in the book—and the “Nakba” chapter is really about the culmination of this realization.

YOUR WRITING FEELS LIKE IT’S ALWAYS REACHING FOR SOMETHING JUST OUT OF REACH—TRUTH, MEMORY, MAYBE EVEN HEALING. WHEN YOU WERE WRITING, DID YOU EVER FEEL LIKE THE ACT OF PUTTING WORDS DOWN WAS CHANGING YOU IN REAL TIME?

SA: I am glad you feel that this book gestures beyond what it grasps. That’s the posture I try to always have, in my living. Certainty is destructive. Narrative, even, can be destructive. There’s a lack of humility in needing to attach a fixed meaning to things, to attach too much language to the ineffable experiences of living. So I tried to make the reader feel the porousness I did—moments of clarity punctuated with the reverence or tragedy of not-knowing.

And yes, this did change me—in writing this book, I passed through many feelings, but one of the paramount emotions was awe. There is such mystery in a single life, a single moment in time—let alone the many I was trying to approach in The Hollow Half. But there was also a sense

of intimacy within that mystery. As I meditated on these stories for months and years, I discovered I was being held. By my grandmother. By the ancestors. Eventually, I began to learn how to hold this mystery toward myself. The sense that the unfolding never ends.

These feelings together taught me a new way to define hope and safety. Not in certainty, but trust. Not that what will come will be good, but that there are capacities in us that we have not imagined yet. And that there are ways we can hold and be held. This continues to transform me.

THERE’S A LOT OF SILENCE IN THIS BOOK—MOMENTS WHERE WHAT’S UNSAID FEELS LOUDER THAN WHAT’S ON THE PAGE. WERE THOSE SILENCES DELIBERATE, OR DID THEY ARRIVE NATURALLY AS YOU WROTE?

SA: Thank you for noticing this. Yes, silence is a very important theme in the book—and it is not, in my mind, a uniform concept. To me, there are many types of silence. There’s the silence of mental illness, repression and denial. The silence of the illegible, of mystery, the unknown. The silence of reverence and awe. The silence of deliberate opacity— the decision to withhold. I wanted to

play with these different textures in the book—the first section is even called “Silence” as a nod to the state of extreme disassociation and separation which marked the opening period of the memoir. At that point, there are many gaps in my understanding of my condition, my self, and my history—gaps which the book begins to “flesh out.”

But even as the story and selves in the book move towards greater realization, I wanted to steer clear of too much exposition, too much presumption. As I said before, I’m very wary of certainty. That is not to say I don’t believe in “facts,” but rather, I wanted this text to be first and foremost a human text, which makes space for the way events can take on different, overlapping, and even contradictory textures depending on your vantage point or positionality. And, I wanted to respect the privacy of the people I describe in this book—to make clear that, while I worked for years to arrive at what I felt was a very true representation of my family members’ stories, I also defer to the fact that every soul, every life, ultimately exceeds the understanding. So, I left gaps on purpose, for readers to pour their imagination into. I wanted us all to feel a sense of awe over the grief or love or beauty or terror that the text alluded to, without over-inscribing it.

In other places, I withheld on purpose. Too often, marginalized groups are asked to explain themselves and their history/ culture, to audition for compassion, to “humanize” themselves. In the history of colonialism, there’s been this assumption that the “other” should make themself perfectly legible. I wanted to resist that, too—hence, I withheld some precious details. I put some things in Arabic, as a sort of selective silence—only certain people will access those words and their meanings. Etc.

THE BOOK MOVES ACROSS CONTINENTS, BORDERS, AND LANGUAGES. IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE LANDSCAPE THAT HOLDS THE HEART OF THE HOLLOW HALF, WHAT PLACE WOULD IT BE—AND WHY DOES IT LINGER FOR YOU?

SA: I would have to say, the hills of Jordan, near the city of as-Salt, where I and my relatives would often drive to watch the sunset over Palestine. From those hilltops, you can see it—our homeland, its textures and beauty, its nearness, the way the land between us appears uninterrupted by the manenforced borders that have so terrorized our people, and destroyed so much.

On many evenings, you can find many other families of Palestinian refugees around you, sitting or standing around, gazing out along with you. This is our collective horizon. It feels so close, you could almost touch it.

One day, we will.

THIS MEMOIR DOESN’T OFFER EASY RESOLUTION, BUT IT FEELS FULL OF DEFIANCE AND LOVE. WHEN READERS CLOSE THE FINAL PAGE, WHAT DO YOU HOPE IS STILL ECHOING IN THEIR MINDS HOURS OR EVEN DAYS LATER?

SA: Well, I really like the sentiments you named. Defiance and love. I also hope they’d feel a new/renewed sense of reverence for the interconnectedness of lives, lands, and histories. Above all, I hope this love and interconnectedness propels them towards the conviction that a different world can’t wait. The same system that erases Palestinians also grinds so many other bodies into brokenness, disempowerment, death. But if love is truly what drives us, there is real, collective power available to us, to break into something new.

IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE THE

HOLLOW HALF AS A FEELING— NOT A PLOTLINE, NOT A THEME, JUST AN EMOTION— WHAT FEELING WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR READERS BEFORE THEY EVEN OPEN IT?

SA: Hauntings. Plural.

This term has negative connotations, but in my book—it’s more complicated, and more capacious, than that.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

THE BOOK GRAPPLES WITH QUESTIONS OF INHERITANCE— WHAT WE’RE GIVEN, WHAT WE LOSE, WHAT WE CHOOSE TO CARRY. WAS THERE A SINGLE STORY FROM YOUR FAMILY’S HISTORY THAT COMPLETELY SHIFTED THE WAY YOU UNDERSTOOD YOURSELF WHILE WRITING THIS BOOK?

SA: Yes—but I would rather leave it up to the readers to experience it in the text. It’s toward the end of the “Nakba” chapter. It’s told in the form of a verbatim transcription from my father. More than any other story, it made palpable to me the weight of what has happened to us. It was a revelation to realize the burdens I couldn’t name had an origin that long preceded me.

THIS MEMOIR FEELS LIKE IT PUSHES AGAINST THE IDEA

OF WHAT A BOOK CAN BE— FOOTNOTES, FRAGMENTS, DREAMSCAPES. WAS THERE EVER A MOMENT YOU THOUGHT, I CAN’T WRITE IT THIS WAY, AND WHAT GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO BREAK THE RULES?

SA: Thank you so much for saying that—I did try to push against those conventions. But first, I definitely did need to give myself that permission! I think what helped was spending almost two years experimenting with form as a “personal project” before recognizing/ admitting that I was writing a “book.” It gave me time to find the unique language of this book, and to hone some of the techniques I ended up using in the final version.

Once the idea of publication came into the equation, I felt a sudden sense of wariness. As if someone was going to come along and start enforcing the rules. . . And you know, my decisions did probably cost me some opportunities— mainstream publishers often like to play it safe—but aside from my initial hesitation, I never really questioned whether I would continue along my experimental path. Simply, I couldn’t imagine expressing the textures and layers of reality and thought

I wanted to encompass, needed to convey, without expanding on traditional, more familiar Anglophone modes.

I’m grateful I found an agent and then an editor willing to believe in me. And now, I have something precious: the peace of mind knowing I wrote exactly the book I felt I needed to. I didn’t compromise— artistically or politically. (And there’s so much I could say about the way the mainstream market gatekeeps Palestinians, and pressures the few Palestinians they do publish to be polite, depoliticized, tokenized, etc. . .) At least for me, that’s far more valuable than any additional commercial success I might or might not

have gained by playing it safe.

FOR READERS WHO ARE JUST NOW HEARING ABOUT THE HOLLOW HALF AND WONDERING IF THIS BOOK WILL STAY WITH THEM, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO CONVINCE THEM TO STEP INTO THIS STORY?

SA: I wouldn’t want to convince anyone to read the book, per se, but I would tell them—what I hear over and over again from people is that they’ve never read anything like it. Personally, that’s the kind of thing that would draw me in. Why not see for yourself?

“You were dead, Sarah, you were dead.” In October 2019, Sarah Aziza, daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, is narrowly saved after being hospitalized for an eating disorder. The doctors revive her body, but it is no simple thing to return to the land of the living. Aziza’s crisis is a rupture that brings both her ancestral and personal past into vivid presence. The hauntings begin in the hospital cafeteria, when a mysterious incident summons the familiar voice of her deceased Palestinian grandmother.

In the months following, as she responds to a series of ghostly dreams, Aziza unearths family secrets that reveal the ways her own trauma and anorexia echo generations of violent Palestinian displacement and erasure—and how her fight to recover builds on a century of defiant survival and love. As she moves towards this legacy, Aziza learns to resist the forces of colonization, denial, and patriarchy both within and outside her.

Weaving timelines, languages, geographies, and genres, The Hollow Half probes the contradictions and contingencies that create “nation” and “history.” Blazing with honesty, urgency, and poetry, this stunning debut memoir is a fearless call to imagine both the self and the world anew.

The Talking Drum: A Novel by

Lisa Braxton

A Book That Is Sensual, Fraught, And Above All, Human.” - The Boston Globe “

*

2021 IPPY Gold Medal - Urban Fiction

2020 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Award

2020 National Association of Black Journalists Outstanding Literary Award

Foreward INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist - General Fiction

Each issue of Shelf Unbound is distributed to more than 125,000 people in the U.S. and 62 countries around the globe. Our introductory ad rate for this section is $350/quarter page as seen here. Contact publisher Sarah Kloth to reserve your space. sarah@shelfmediagroup.com

Everything You Need to Know About Me

BY PRINCELLA SEYMOUR

For over 30 years, elder care expert Princella Seymour has supported families through the emotional and logistical challenges of aging. Her new book, Everything You Need to Know About Me, is born from decades of helping families navigate heartache and confusion. This step-by-step guide lets older adults document important information - medical details, emergency contacts, financial facts, and final wishes in one place. It can be stored in a home or safety deposit box and updated, giving families peace of mind when the unexpected happens.

The Execution, Life and Times of Patrick O'Donnell

BY GAVIN O'DONNELL

The Execution, Life and Times of Patrick O'Donnell explores the remarkable life of an Irishman condemned to death for killing informer James Carey. From surviving the Great Hunger to serving in the Confederate Army, O'Donnell’s life is revealed through letters and historical accounts. His journey takes him from prison camps to the fateful moment of his execution at Newgate Prison. A captivating blend of history and creative fiction, this recently honored 2023 'Top Notable' indie novel offers an intimate look at a man whose story history nearly forgot.

The Shaman and The Mafia

BY ELIZABETH UPTON

A former nun, a mafia hit, and a forbidden love collide in this gripping thriller. Marietta Collins, head of a youth rehab center, is determined to rid her community of crime. When her friend, drug informant Joseph Gleason W, is murdered in a mafia hit, Marietta becomes entangled in the investigation. She meets FBI assistant director Raymond Gleason, Joseph’s brother, and their passionate romance complicates everything. This fast-paced, heart-pounding mystery weaves together romance, suspense, and unforgettable characters. Will Marietta survive the chaos, or will the mafia and her own emotions tear her apart?

Palace Green

BY CJ GRABHAM

Journey back to The Sixties Palace Green takes you to the beautiful, ancient city of Durham, UK, where stunning panoramas, a medieval cathedral, charming bridges, cobblestone streets, and a quiet, meandering river create the perfect backdrop. The university and its unpredictable students add a delightful mix of romance, humor, and drama. Journey back to the Sixties and let yourself be swept up in this charming, sometimes raucous comedy. With its irresistible wit and vibrant energy, Palace Green captures the spirit of a city full of life, laughter, and unforgettable moments, blending tradition with youthful rebellion.

A Portion of Malice

BY LLOYD JEFFRIES

A Trial of Fate

BY J.E. LARSON

An Ancient Evil Rises. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Emery Merrick is ready to end it all when a knock at the door interrupts his plans. Billionaire Thaddeus Drake hires Emery to write his biography, but Drake harbors a dangerous secret. He leads an ancient, secret society bent on fulfilling a prophecy and sacrificing the Earth to a bloodthirsty God. This gripping thriller follows Emery's explosive journey into the apocalypse, as he embarks on an epic quest to confront God as an equal. Deeply stirring, Emery is thrust into a world of darkness, deceit, and brutality.

A Woman in the Wild

BY TAD CRAWFORD

A Woman in the Wild is a powerful novel about a psychologist in crisis who retreats to a mountain institute seeking healing after failing to protect her daughter from abuse.

When she’s assigned to help a mysterious “wild” man, their journeys intertwine in unexpected ways. Through meditation, hiking, and deep self-reflection, she confronts guilt, resilience, and the limits of therapy in a gripping tale of trauma, transformation, and self-discovery.

Our world is dying.

Skylar Cathal is a twentytwo-year-old half-human, half-shifter with a curious mind and knack for bending the rules. Gilen Warrick, Skylar’s childhood friend and the next Alpha of the Solace pack, wants more than just her friendship– but fate has a will of its own. When Skylar is marked as the shifter champion, she must overcome her darkest fears to leave her home and those she loves behind. Daxton Aegaeon, High Fae Prince of Silver Meadows, has sworn to protect Skylar as his ward, but only she can protect her heart.

Like Sapphire Blue

BY MARISA BILLIONS

"Your eyes are amazing. I’ve never seen a blue like that."

Emma Landry is tough, independent, and determined to escape poverty. Raised by her father, "Bear," on the wrong side of a wealthy town, she’s fought to build a life of success— and love. But when a long-buried family secret surfaces, everything she’s worked for is threatened. Faced with betrayal and a destiny darker than she imagined, Emma must decide: will she rise above her past, or let it destroy everything she’s built? Like Sapphire Blue is a gripping tale of resilience, identity, and fate.

BOOK SHELF

The Culture of Burnout: Why Your Exhaustion is Not Your Fault

BY KRISTEN DONNELLY AND ERIN HINSON

The fate of humanity rests in the hands of a few.

Burnout is as American as apple pie, baseball, and the 4th of July.

Rooted in the overwork culture of the Puritans, burnout has shaped American life for centuries. Today, many of us are trapped in a relentless cycle of exhaustion, believing there’s no way out. But there is. Culture is shaped by the choices we make, and change is possible. This book reveals why burnout isn’t your fault and offers practical steps to break free. It’s not easy, but it’s doable— and it starts now.

Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers

BY JAMES AYLOTT

Missouri Towers— once St. Louis’s most glamorous address, now "Misery Towers"—is home to an unforgettable cast: a trapeze artist with a faltering love life, an aging stripper clinging to the past, an undertaker seeking vengeance, and a heartbroken man chasing love one hooker at a time. On a sweltering August night, their lives collide with explosive consequences. Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers is darkly funny, wildly tragic, and an unflinching look at a city on the edge.

The Tender Silver Stars

BY PAMELA STOCKWELL

In 1972, change is sweeping the world—but not fast enough for Triss and Everlove.

Triss dreams of becoming an attorney, but her influential grandfather won’t allow it. Defying him, she makes a reckless choice that threatens everything. Everlove, from a working-class family, has always followed the rules—until one fateful decision upends her life. When their paths cross, an unexpected friendship forms. Together, they must navigate shattered dreams and uncertain futures. Can they rebuild their lives, or will the past hold them back forever?

Shitamachi Scam

BY MICHAEL PRONKO

In Tokyo, respect for elders isn’t always a given—sometimes, it’s exploited.

When a retired woman and a student recluse die under suspicious circumstances, Detective Hiroshi uncovers a gang preying on the elderly, stealing pensions, life savings, and even homes. Teaming up with Detective Ishii and her women’s crime task force, Hiroshi dives into the shadowy underworld of shitamachi. With old-school cops and an ex-sumo wrestler at his back, he must untangle a web of deception before more lives are lost.

Blindspot

BY MAGGIE SMITH

A ruthless DA. A relentless stalker. A race against time.

Rachel Matthews is no stranger to pressure— whether in the courtroom or at home with her rebellious daughter. But when chilling threats arrive at her doorstep, she turns to an old classmateturned-PI for help. As she digs into past cases, a terrifying demand is made: pay up, or her daughter gets hurt.

The Ark and the Whale

BY JAMES FULMER

A desperate beachside meeting turns deadly, leaving Rachel fighting to save her family, career, and freedom before it’s too late.

Anna's Shadow

BY INGRID MCCARTHY

James Fulmer’s The Ark and the Whale blends literary fiction, magical realism, and philosophy. Through dreamlike vignettes, an introverted narrator—“Nobody”— embarks on an odyssey of redemption, confronting existential dread, identity, and the blurred lines between reality and the subconscious. Rich with poetic prose and layered symbolism, this thoughtprovoking tale challenges storytelling norms, inviting readers to immerse in surreal, introspective depths.

An Impossible Life

BY ONJA WASDEN AND RACHAEL SIDDOWAY

Sofia Rossi, a CanadianItalian orthopedic surgeon on leave from Doctors Without Borders, is staying with family in Verona and volunteering at Juliet's Club, answering letters from heartbroken lovers. When she responds to a letter from Luke Miller, a man in his late seventies, she writes, “Memories have huge staying power.” Unexpectedly, Luke arrives in Verona with his son, sparking an adventure that intertwines Sofia’s traumatic past with a search for a missing woman.

Anna's Shadow is a dramatic, uplifting tale of love, fate, and destiny, spanning continents and generations.

An award-winning memoir, An Impossible Life recounts one woman’s struggle through manic and depressive episodes, showing how she found lifesaving therapy and medication. At thirty-five, Sonja Wasden is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital by her husband and father. Despite having a CEO husband, three children, and a picture-perfect life, she is caught in a downward spiral.

In this gripping narrative, Sonja shares her battles with mental illness, motherhood, and marriage.

SHELF UNBOUND

BEST INDIE BOOK

COMPETITION

Shelf Media hosts the annual Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition for best selfpublished or independently published book, receiving entries from May 1 to October 1 each year. In addition to prizes, the winner, finalists, and more than 100 notable books from the competition are featured in the December/January issue of Shelf Unbound.

Call For Entries .

Shelf Unbound book review magazine announces the Shelf Unbound Writing Competition for Best Self-Published Book. Any self-published book in any genre is eligible for entry. Entry fee is $100 per book. The winning entry will be selected by the editors of Shelf Unbound magazine.

To submit an entry, Apply Online at www. shelfmediagroup.com/competitions.

THE TOP FIVE BOOKS, as determined by the editors of Shelf Media Group, will receive editorial coverage in the Winter issue of Shelf Unbound. The author of the book named as the Best Self-Published book will receive editorial coverage as well as a year’s worth of full-page ads in the magazine.

The deadline for entry is midnight on October 1, 2025.

Interview with Fredrik deBoer.

Author of The Mind Reels

BY SARAH KLOTH

In the mind reels, readers are brought into the unvarnished reality of living with bipolar disorder through the story of alice, a young woman whose journey avoids the clichés of romanticized madness and instead captures the pain, tedium, and consequences of severe mental illness. In this conversation, the author discusses the importance of telling the truth about mental illness, the decision to write fiction rather than memoir, and the ways literature can deepen our cultural understanding of psychiatric struggles. The portrayal of mental illness in your book is incredibly raw and unflinching. What drove you to write The Mind Reels in such an honest and unromanticized way, especially when so many stories tend to glamorize or sensationalize mental health struggles?

“The relentless romanticizing convinces people that every sidewalk psychotic is secretly a philosopher or artist or political dissident...”

FD: I think the second part of your question answers the first. We have a

responsibility to tell the truth for its own sake, for one thing. For another, how people think about mental illness has huge stakes for people who are mentally ill. The relentless romanticizing convinces people that every sidewalk psychotic is secretly a philosopher or artist or political dissident, which makes it harder to build the structures necessary to get them the care they need. If every mentally ill person is actually just marching to the beat of a different drummer, if schizophrenia is an expression of an artist’s soul, if madness is really a deeper and more fulfilling way to live – if that’s all true, why fund treatment? Why build hospitals? Why investigate more and better psychiatric drugs? We don’t treat people for being dreamers and nonconformists. These sunny, false concepts of severe mental illness completely undermine our moral responsibility to find better treatments. And they lead to situations like that of Michael Laudor, once the world’s most famous schizophrenic. He overcame his disorder to attend and graduate from Yale Law School, and in doing so became a kind of celebrity, a person in whom many people invested their hopes for people with mental

girlfriend to death. The narrative was so pleasant, the idea of the guy who rose above his disorder to become part of the intellectual elite, that nobody noticed how incredibly sick he was, and his girlfriend paid the price. You can’t see clearly through rose-colored glasses.

The reality is that almost everyone in the throes of a psychotic disorder is in terrible pain. It’s a horrific thing to go through, severe bipolar mania. It’s a nightmare of fear and paranoia. People suffering from it deserve simple and direct sympathy, not phony, idealized depictions in pop culture. And the loved ones of the sick need to understand that untreated psychotic disorders don’t lead to more vivid, less conformist lives. They lead to poverty, abandonment, and suicide. We can’t help people with severe mental illness by idealizing and depersonalizing them. You can ultimately only ever help people by telling the truth about them.

You’ve

mentioned in your author’s note that you intentionally avoided the memoir route because you felt it would either be boring or misrepresentative. Can you talk a bit about how fiction allowed you to explore mental illness in a way that memoir wouldn’t have?

FD: I mean there’s a very practical level to this and a broader level. On the

practical level, I simply don’t have stories to tell in my memoir because the actual experience of even very severe mental illness is quite boring. As someone who suffers from bipolar disorder, I have had long periods of euthymia, the space of stability between depression and mania; I’ve had depression, which is notoriously difficult to portray literarily and in terms of actual action involves sitting around, moving very little, and lots of sleeping; and I’ve had the long build-up phases of mania which are also typically not at all interesting, for me just gradually growing more and more paranoid, drinking alcohol by the gallon, working out like a demon, and not eating. The periods of peak mania, of actual psychosis, for me are mostly not wild experiences but long sick nights sweating in shitty apartments. I have had a very small number of violent incidents that have been more pathetic than exciting. Eventually I end up becoming so clearly unstable that someone forces me to get emergency treatment, and psychiatric hospitals in real life aren’t horrible torture prisons but drab boring spaces populated by generally competent medical staff. Ultimately I simply could not ever cobble together real experiences into a life narrative that any publishing house would want to pay for or any reader would want to read. And I’m afraid I’m not James Frey. So I had to do it as a novel.

In the broader, more philosophical sense (for lack of a better word)… the central premise of a memoir is that one’s

worth telling. And that’s just not true, for me. The very small portion of mental illness memoirs that I value are those like Susannah Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, which is dominantly not about her actual experiences in the psychiatric hospital but about her interior life while in that space, her ambivalence and confusion. No matter how I did it, a memoir would feel like a lie. I thought that in fiction I could tell a story that both demonstrated the banality and grinding boredom of mental illness while still being worthy of reading. And I hope I did.

Alice’s journey in The Mind Reels is harrowing, as she navigates the intense highs and lows of mental illness. What aspects of her character are most personal to you, and how did you use your own experiences to shape her?

FD: Alice’s story shares a lot of the broad outlines of most anyone with bipolar disorder. You have what the call they prodrome, which is a period before your first mania where there are some telltale signs, although people usually only realize that after the fact. You have the arrival of depression, which can often result in a misdiagnosis of unipolar depression and (as with Alice) drugs that can trigger mania. You have the development of paranoia and delusion that alienate friends and family, you have hypersexuality, you have sleep disturbance, you have frightening

weight loss. Finally you have psychosis which forces treatment. That general arc happens to almost all of us. The part that is most important to me is the hardest part of all, which is the loss of friends and relationships over time, the way that the accusations and the instability eventually force people to make the (entirely rational) decision to cut you out of their lives. It’s happened to me again and again, and it’s part of why I find the tendency to romanticize all of this so offensive. You lose people who you never get back, and there’s nothing good about it.

In the particulars, obviously, Alice and I have very little in common; I’ve never been a college-aged girl in Oklahoma. I wanted to keep a certain amount of authorial distance from the character in order to emphasize the universality of these conditions. It’s an interesting paradox – they prompt specific beliefs and delusions that are utterly individual in character, and yet they produce behaviors and ways of thinking that are remarkably similar in their broad outlines. Schizophrenics might fear that they’re being followed by the CIA or by vampires or by representatives of the Walt Disney corporation, but being surveilled in general is a commonplace that’s seen again and again. Bipolar patients can have remarkably different affective experiences, with some finding the early weeks of psychotic mania a period of elation and others experiencing it as a hellish time of heart palpitations of relentless fear. But ultimately paranoia

everyone collapses into the relentless acceleration of everything, until you can feel nothing else. I wanted to inhabit Alice so that I could hold at arm’s difference that which was still fundamentally a story I shared.

I also confess that I’m taking advantage of society’s stereotypes, a bit, in that it’s just easier to shock people with a story about an ordinary adolescent girl than with an adult man. (One core experience I wanted to portray was hypersexuality, a very common symptom, which wouldn’t have been possible if my protagonist had been a college-aged man; college-aged men are always hypersexual.)

There’s a notable absence of dramatic moments in Alice’s illness, yet we still get a vivid sense of the grind and tedium of living with bipolar disorder. How did you go about capturing that ‘boring’ yet exhausting experience in a way that is both true to life and compelling for the reader?

FD: I tried very hard to depict the internal experience of depression and mania in a way that’s true to (my) life. This is of course a quixotic task, as psychotic disorders distort the very perceptual mechanism through which we experience our own experience, and I don’t think any writer is masterful enough to accomplish that. But the beauty of fiction is its capacity for

metaphor and symbol, and so I felt free to come up with the best analogs possible to the experience of psychosis. Film depictions of mental illness are handicapped in that they can’t give you direct access to mental life, and screenwriters and directors are always trying to figure out a way around that limitation. With a novel I can just tell you what’s going on inside of her head. And I hope that what I’ve done is to demonstrate the connection between bipolar mind states and bipolar behavior. How does what Alice is doing lead to what Alice is thinking?

The book delves deeply into the impact of mental illness on relationships, from friends to family. How do you think society’s reactions to mental illness, both well-meaning and not, contribute to the isolation of those who suffer from it?

FD: I think the biggest thing is that the people who love you always want you to be okay. Sometimes that’s like an embarrassed parent or spouse who doesn’t want to face the stigma of being associated with a crazy person, but more often than not it’s just a profound and sincere kind of wishful thinking. And we don’t want to worry the people who love us and we don’t want to lose our freedom. So we tell the people closest to us that we’re alright when we’re not alright, and when things get bad again, it feels like a betrayal. Alice’s parents are in denial, and

like most they never truly understand. So you end up in an overtaxed medical system that would love to declare you in remission so that you can stop clogging a hospital bed, friends and family who have no frame of reference at all for your disease and want more than anything to just get past the difficult period, and your own denial and shame telling you to put your head down and push through. And that’s how you end up in a scenario where you can “forget” that you repetitively become psychotic, which only makes the next crisis that much worse.

You’ve described your book as a way to capture what it feels like to lose one’s mind. In your view, how does fiction give readers a better understanding of mental illness compared to non-fiction or memoirs?

FD: Well again, being able to match dramatic action to specific mental states, to make everything line up in terms of depicting behavior and internality, is an affordance you simply don’t have in honest nonfiction. Another reason I wouldn’t write a memoir is that I just don’t remember many core elements of my own story; I was diagnosed almost a quarter century ago, the condition itself damages your memory, and the drugs you take to control it do too. Years ago I did a kind of personal truth and reconciliation mission where I tried to piece things together, to figure out the dates of various hospitalizations,

to understand how things went on for as long as I did. And I found pretty quickly that my memory was just deeply flawed. It was difficult to simply do a “this happened, and then this happened, and this happened after that” with my own history. I discovered that my casual timeline for my own illness in my head made no sense, and when I looked into one particular hospitalization I found that my recollection of when it happened was off by more than two years. With Alice, the timeline was whatever I wanted it to be, which meant that I was free to dramatize the process in a cleaner, more digestible style. Which didn’t mean that there weren’t timeline problems! In the galley’s there’s a reference to Alice’s landlord in a period where we’ve already established that she’s living in a dorm. That was easily fixed. I guess this is a banal answer, but man it’s a lot easier when you can just make the narrative up.

The novel doesn’t shy away from showing the limitations of the mental health system, from insurance struggles to ineffective treatments. Can you expand on how you wanted to address the shortcomings of mental health care in America through Alice’s story?

FD: I am a big believer in the value of establishment mental healthcare; I really strongly disagree with the antipsychiatry movement, which is a big part of my next nonfiction book, coming in 2026.

and insurance; an unforgivable number of people still lack financial access to care. There’s also the fact that we have a problem with different specialties within medicine seeing very different financial futures. Psychiatry is notoriously hard on doctors, what with the tragedy of genuinely debilitated patients, but it also is poorly paying, especially compared to specialties like orthopedics, cosmetic surgery, or anesthesiology. And so unsurprisingly there’s a profound difficulty in finding psychiatrists to work outside of major urban areas. Two thirds of American counties do not have a single prescribing psychiatrist.

As far as the practice of mental healthcare itself, I think Alice’s story shows a few of the consistent problems. Everyone, even seasoned doctors, would prefer that you be alright, and there’s a tendency to try and probe until they find a reason to declare you fit for discharge, often missing serious illness. This is exacerbated for Alice because women are systematically under-diagnosed for psychotic disorders, which tends to happen because they’re seen as harmless. Unfortunately, too many doctors tend to see mentally ill patients in terms of their perceived threat level, especially GPs who are forced into assessing psychiatric health. And there’s also bit in the book that I find a growing problem, which is therapists who are obsessive about finding childhood trauma even when that’s not really helpful for the patients. The biggest thing though is that Alice’s

arc, and mine, are far too common – if you don’t have a specific person who is very carefully following the progress of your treatment, going off meds is incredibly easy to do, and the next thing you know you’ve ruined your life again.

How do you balance the need to depict the painful reality of mental illness with creating a narrative that keeps readers engaged and emotionally invested in Alice’s journey?

FD: I think the brevity of the book was important there. There’s another version of this book (more theoretical than written down, although I did write some) that’s another 60-80 pages long. One of the things that people don’t understand is the repetitiveness of chronic mental illness, which is what will really kill your relationships. Friends and family members and romantic partners tend to really step up for a first psychotic episode; they love you and they want to help. You end up losing them because of how these psychotic events are so repetitious – even someone who is truly dedicated is going to find their fourth trip to fish you out of the ER really hard to take. And this other version of the manuscript was going to dramatize that. I ended up paring the whole thing down because I realized that no one was going to read the thing and I couldn’t do any good if no one was reading it. I wanted the book to be painful to read but not a slog. That said, I think a lot of people are still

going to look at this book and say, “No thanks.” But I knew that would be the case going in.

There’s a tension in the book between the clinical and the personal experiences of mental illness. Can you talk about the role of psychiatric treatments in the book and how they fit into Alice’s larger narrative of self-discovery and recovery?

FD: I hate One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (book and movie) with a burning passion. I think that its narrative has done really profound damage to how mental healthcare is perceived in this treatment. (And it’s protagonist is a rapist who has curiously become a folk hero.)

The idea that every psychiatric hospital is a terrible dungeon of oppression, filled with fickle and cruel nurses and doctors, is just false and destructive. I’ve been inpatient six times, including several times in high-security locked wards. And certainly there’s a lot not to like about the experience. But almost universally I’ve found that the staff at those places are competent and eager to help patients heal. Alice finds what I think a lot of patients find, which is that in the real world “resisting” the psych ward is pointless and stupid and hurts no one but you. It’s when she’s inpatient that Alice is first taken seriously and her disorder understood as the life-threatening condition it is. The staff there give her the chance to save her own life, if she

commits.

And, look, it’s all imperfect. I tried to make it plain that the drugs are genuinely, deeply unpleasant, that the side effects are brutal. Her experience at the ER is all too typical – I’ve been brought to the ER by concerned friends more than a dozen times, and in my experience most emergency room staff don’t think you’re their problem and will try to wait you out until you leave so you’re not their problem anymore. I’m sure being a triage nurse is a very hard job, but I will bear a grudge against triage nurses for the rest of my life. The reality is that there are problems with psychiatric medicine in just the way that there are with all other forms of medicine, but committing to taking meds, doing therapy, and seeing your doctor can save your life. It’s saved mine.

In your author’s note, you mention that the experiences of people with mental illness are often boring or tedious. Do you think society, through media and literature, misrepresents the reality of mental illness by only showcasing the extreme or sensationalized cases?

FD: There are some moments in mental illness that are genuinely dramatic, but the problem is that they’re brief and tragic. When someone with schizophrenia commits a terrible act of violence, sure, that’s dramatic, but that

have an entire novel or movie dedicated to short bursts of tragic violence. So they tend to instead make delusion and psychosis into something they’re not, which is a cinematic experience, understandable fundamentally by looking at behavior. But psychosis is always internal before it’s external. Navigating that problem typically involves choosing between obvious external behaviors, which are easiest to depict as either dramatically violent or poetically artistic. And so we’re caught in this dichotomy between the old school of lurid depictions of frightening madness and the newer wave of portrayals that are so sympathetic they fail to tell the basic truth about how debilitating this all is. For that reason I find it so essential to dramatize the mundane daily existence of real psychiatric illness. I understand that pop culture always gravitates towards the sensationalistic, but because most people have no direct experience of severe mental illness, the risk of distortion is even greater.

Your novel has already drawn praise for its precision in depicting mental illness. What do you hope readers will take away from Alice’s story, particularly in terms of understanding mental health struggles in a broader cultural context?

FD: You know I don’t want this book to be perceived as didactic, like the point is

to teach a lesson. There’s no quiz at the end. I do hope that there’s something entertaining in it for any reason, even as unpleasant as much of it might be. But yes, I do hope people might understand from this book that there’s no upside to this condition. Mania isn’t a period of intense happiness for most of us, and even for those who experience euphoria, the results are eventually the loss of jobs, legal problems, financial ruin, and broken relationships you can never get back. Alice’s illness isn’t some operatic madness. It doesn’t endow her with magical creativity. There’s no poetry or beauty in it. It’s an illness, a disorder, and it ruins her life. I needed to depict her from the perspective of later decades because any sense of romance you might feel for the disorder in your youth will be long gone in time. When you’re nearing middle age and your credit is a disaster and your resume is pathetic and when so many people have walked away from you, and you know that they made the right decision in doing so…. The ending of the book is most precious to me because it (attempts to) dramatize the immense sadness of a life scarred by bipolar disorder. And just by depicting someone with a psychotic disorder who’s over 30, whose madness doesn’t look sexy anymore, I think is valuable.

Lastly, mental illness has been a recurring theme in much of your work, but The Mind Reels is a departure into fiction. How did the shift from writing

non-fiction to fiction impact your approach to storytelling, especially in terms of audience reception?

FD: I never wanted to be Mr. Mental Illness guy. I was in denial for fifteen years of my life, telling myself that my disorder was something I could handle on my own, in those rare moments when I admitted to myself that I had it at all. When I was coming back to writing, trying to rebuild a life ruined by scandal, I resisted writing about this stuff because I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself. Over time I got dragged into debates about it all and came to think that I had a responsibility to fight for my point of view. But essays and arguments, as important as they are, are cramped and

limiting, and I wanted to just tell a story, one girl’s story, and as long as that story was true, it wouldn’t matter that it was fiction. And I think Alice’s story is true.

The mind reels challenges us to reconsider how we think and talk about mental illness. Instead of the extremes so often portrayed in popular culture, it asks us to confront the quieter, harsher truths—the boredom, repetition, and deep losses that mark these disorders. Alice’s story lingers as a reminder that compassion begins with honesty, and that understanding mental illness means seeing it not as a source of beauty or inspiration, but as a reality that shapes—and often scars—everyday life.

READ A SAMPLE ON PAGE 82!

In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation. Thus begins an endless march of lithium, antidepressants, and Klonopin; doctors and therapists—when health insurance allows—along with overwhelmed parents and well-intentioned friends; all helpless bystanders as Alice descends deeper into chaos.

As chilling as a psychiatric case study, as wry and precise as Flaubert, The Mind Reels peels back society’s polite trappings to portray the experience of mental illness in all its complexity.

Interview with Harolf Phifer.

Author of My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift

BY SARAH KLOTH

Memoir asks a writer to step into the most vulnerable corners of memory, to put shape and language to experiences that are often left unspoken. In My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift, Harold Phifer does exactly that, tracing the complicated family dynamics that shaped him, particularly the influence of his formidable Aunt Kathy. What emerges is a story of hardship, resilience, and ultimately healing. We spoke with Harold about revisiting the past, finding humor amid pain, and why some stories demand to be told.

Your book, My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift, has such a personal and evocative title. Titles like that often spark curiosity. Can you share what inspired you to write this story and how it connects back to your earlier work?

her, I realized people were curious and would read about the person who tried to suppress my drive.

Without giving too much away, what is the core message or takeaway you hope readers gain from this book?

HP: I Sometimes, the villain is a relative! But regardless of any obstacles, stay the course and believe in yourself.

The book deals with themes of bullying, family, and personal growth, which can be heavy but also relatable for many readers. How did you find the balance between telling your truth and keeping the tone approachable?

“Sometimes, the villain is a relative! But regardless of any obstacles, stay the course and believe in yourself.”

HP: Actually, it’s a spinoff of Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at a Beach Bar. Aunt Kathy was my antagonist in that book. After so many queries about

HP: I knew I needed to pull back some of the daggers for fear of coming off as too resentful and meanspirited. So, I made sure to spread all the humor and zaniness I could muster. Through it all, I wouldn’t have written the book without showing personal growth and the healing that came after the passing of Aunt Kathy.

Family

relationships, especially

personal experiences with your family influence the way you told this narrative?

HP: I had a weak connection with all of my relatives because Aunt Kathy deemed it that way. They all stayed at a distance because of her. Since I had to exist outside of any tutelage or mentoring from other relatives, My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift allowed me an opportunity to expose those dastardly ways.

BULLYING CAN LEAVE LASTING EMOTIONAL SCARS, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES FROM WITHIN THE FAMILY. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR YOU TO REVISIT THESE EXPERIENCES DURING THE WRITING PROCESS?

HP: Walking down memory lane was painful at times. I couldn’t help but think of what could have been! I know I’m patched up and able, but the scars remain.

YOUR AUNT PLAYS SUCH A PIVOTAL ROLE IN THE BOOK. LOOKING BACK, HOW HAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON HER CHANGED OVER TIME? DID WRITING ABOUT HER BRING ANY NEW UNDERSTANDING?

HP: Aunt Kathy had no children and had to care for her younger brothers and sisters at a young age. Those are pretty big whammies. It explained why she was bullish and selfish.

THE BOOK SEEMS TO WRESTLE WITH THE COMPLEXITIES OF FORGIVENESS AND HEALING. DO YOU BELIEVE ALL WOUNDS CAN HEAL, OR ARE SOME RELATIONSHIPS TOO FRACTURED?

HP: I have to agree some relationships are too broken to ever be repaired. You just have to find ways to cope and avoid picking at the soft spot.

MEMOIRS OFTEN REQUIRE REVISITING DEEPLY PERSONAL MOMENTS. WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING SCENE FOR YOU TO WRITE, AND WHY?

HP: Writing about my mom and her schizophrenia is always hard. She was never at peace, which kept me on edge as well. I had very few good days around her.

MANY WRITERS FIND THE ACT OF WRITING CATHARTIC. DID YOU EXPERIENCE THAT WHILE WORKING ON THIS BOOK? WHAT EMOTIONS SURFACED AS YOU PUT THESE MEMORIES ONTO THE PAGE?

HP: No doubt, My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift was therapeutic for me. We knew we were poor; yet, my brothers and I were tightly knitted until Aunt Kathy drove the stake that forced us apart. That division carried well

into adulthood and hindered my sibling growth and success. It’s something I’m aware of, whereas my brothers are not.

MEMOIRS

REQUIRE VULNERABILITY, AND SOMETIMES AUTHORS HESITATE TO SHARE THE MOST PERSONAL DETAILS. WERE THERE MOMENTS WHERE YOU QUESTIONED HOW MUCH TO REVEAL?

HP: It was hard to rehash that I never received a Christmas gift until I bought my own at the age of 14. I knew Aunt Kathy made sure my brother Jerry never missed out on anything, birthdays included. So, pulling back that onion made me kind of sad. Yet, it explains why I tend to splurge on myself and why

I have obsessive behavior.

Memoir does not always offer tidy resolutions. What it can offer is perspective, and perhaps a measure of peace. In telling the story of his aunt—the bully, the antagonist, and ultimately the complicated figure whose presence shaped so much of his life—harold phifer finds a way to claim his own narrative. My bully, my aunt, & her final gift is not just about one difficult relative, but about the resilience that comes from writing through pain and finding clarity on the other side.

In “My Bully, My Aunt, and Her Final Gift”, Hal revisits the complicated relationship he shared with his late Aunt Kathy, a woman who stood as the antithesis of positivity in his life. Despite her domineering and often cruel behavior, her passing left Hal with an unexpected opportunity for humor, healing, and reflection.

As he plans her memorial―a gathering that no one seems eager to attend―Hal’s childhood memories resurface, pulling him back into a world shaped by his aunt’s unpredictable rules and twisted philosophies. Blending heartfelt truths with laugh-outloud moments, Hal weaves a tale of resilience, self-discovery, and ultimately, redemption. This memoir offers a lighthearted yet honest look at how even the darkest relationships can leave behind gifts of wisdom and self-awareness.

The Can Sack Ghost .

"The Can Sack Ghost, John's fifth book, is equal parts paranormal memoir and cosmic philosophy. John is a natural storyteller, and his stories are as entertaining as any you'd hear around a campfire on a dark summer night. Yet what makes these stories special is that John looks for the deeper meaning behind his psychic encounters. He raises questions on dozens of topics, from the true meaning of skepticism to the spiritual implications of AI."

— Martha C. Lawrence, author of Murder in Scorpio

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Learn more about John's books at www.johnrussellauthor.com

JOHN RUSSELL

John Russell has been a professional psychic for over 50 years. Internationally known and maintaining a worldwide clientele he has provided psychic readings for clients in over 40 countries. He has been a paranormal researcher and investigator for over 50 years, beginning serious study and investigations at age 11. During his lifetime John has experienced thousands of physical supernatural manifestations. In addition, he is a UFO experiencer with multiple encounters, including interactions with crafts and their associated paranormal phenomena. John filmed a TV pilot for The History Channel in which he psychically explored the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The accuracy of John’s psychic insights during his investigations were verified both by the docents at the historic sites he explored as well as by the production team; and he also stimulated a variety of paranormal activity, some of which was captured on film.

"John Russell is the Mark Twain of the paranormal." — Kat Hobson, host of FATE Magazine Radio.

Max’s War:

The Story of a Ritchie Boy.

A World War 2 saga in which a young Jewish German flees Europe, escapes to America, and joins the Army to fight Nazis

As the Nazis conquer Europe, Jewish teen Max and his parents flee German persecution for Holland. Once Hitler invades, Max escapes to Chicago, leaving his parents behind. When he learns his parents were gassed, he enlists in the Army where he is trained in interrogation and counterintelligence at the secret Maryland Camp Ritchie.

Deployed back to Europe, Max performs dangerous missions in occupied countries. He also interrogates scores of German POWs. Despite life-threatening conditions, he’s able to elicit critical information about German troop movements.

Post-war he returns to his Bavarian home town and reunites with a childhood friend who also sought refuge abroad. Can they find peace…together?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Max’s War was a 2024 Shelf Unbound Notable Book and a Finalist for the Hemingway Award, 2025, CIBA.

LIBBY FISCHER HELLMANN

Libby Fischer Hellmann is the bestselling, award-winning author of 12 thrillers: The Ellie Foreman (6) and the Georgia Davis (6) series. She has also penned 6 standalone historical fiction thrillers in her Saga Series, set in the US and abroad. Her Vietnam historical, A Bend in the River, took home the Chicago Writers Association Best Book of the Year. A transplant from Washington DC, she says they’ll take her out of Chicago feet first.

Broken Pencils.

Jonah Tarver, a troubled Oakland teenager grappling with his parents' troubled marriage, his own mental disorder, and the weight of his best friend's death, embarks on a desperate quest to find meaning in life. On his eighteenth birthday, coinciding with his Senior prom, Jonah, along with his girlfriend Taniesha, his best friend Trevon, and a group of peers, spirals into a night of reckless indulgence in drugs and alcohol in the vibrant city of San Francisco. As tensions escalate and emotions run high, Jonah finds himself thrust into a gripping twelvehour journey through the dark underbelly of San Francisco's nightlife, forever altering his perception of the world. Will Jonah uncover the purpose he so desperately seeks, or will he discover that life, like broken pencils, may have no point?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J.R. RICE

Once upon a time, in the bustling city of Oakland, California, there was a man named J.R Rice. He was a Black man with a passion for writing, teaching, and spoken word artistry. J.R had always been captivated by the power of words and their ability to inspire, motivate and transform lives. As a young man, he knew that he wanted to make a difference in the world through his writing and his ability to connect with people. After receiving his B.A in Creative Writing and an English Education teaching credential from California State University of Long Beach, J.R set out to pursue his dreams. He traveled abroad to Greece, where he had the honor of being mentored by the renowned author, George Crane. It was there that he honed his skills and developed his unique voice, which he would later use to inspire and empower countless others.

Abilene.

Three strong Southern women -- twelveyear-old Len, her mother Cora, and her Aunt Jean -- grapple with love and loss in this poignant tale set on a hardscrabble cattle ranch in a small Texas town. Len yearns to find the father who abandoned her, and after a chance encounter with a country music star who she suspects is him, she embarks on a life-altering journey to find the truth about her past. At the same time, Cora and Jean must deal with another shocking family betrayal that complicates everything. Told in turns by these three remarkable women, Abilene explores the boundaries of love and the transformative power of self-discovery.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DARE DELANO

Dare DeLano writes literary fiction for adults and middle grade fiction. Her debut novel, Abilene, was released on November 1, 2023, by Mint Hill Books. Her work has been a finalist for the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and is represented by Jennifer Thompson of Nordlyset Literary Agency.

Her middle grade novel, Odus and the Long Way Home (The Odyssey), won the San Diego Book Award and Gold Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. Dare holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, with her work featured in the A Year in Ink Anthology and the San Diego Central Library’s Local Author Exhibition.

Mr. Jimmy from Around the Way.

James Henry Ferguson doesn't belong here. After a highly publicized fall from grace, James attempts to flee from the chaos in his life. He ends up in a community he had never heard of before, one that has been neglected and ignored by everyone in rural Ham, Mississippi. A place of abject poverty, the neighborhood is commonly referred to as "Around the Way."

Within a place forgotten by the rest of the world, politics can be a dangerous game. When a troubling discovery is made, the entire neighborhood is rocked to its core and James is forced to confront his own past in order to help the community have a future. He will have to find the strength to fight for the neighbors he once disregarded and avert a heart-breaking disaster. A self-identified failure is forced to uncover the wisdom of his past in order to recognize that money can't solve every problem. Full of never-ending twists and turns, no one can prepare themselves for the surprises in store. Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way is a story about failure, self-discovery, empowerment, and the possibility of redemption.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEFFREY BLOUNT

Jeffrey Blount is an award-winning author of four novels, including The Emancipation of Evan Walls, which won the 2020 National Indie Excellence Award for African American fiction.

Alongside his literary achievements, he is an Emmywinning television director and a Virginia Communications Hall of Fame inductee. During his 34-year career at NBC News, he directed iconic programs like Meet The Press and Today, becoming its first African-American director. Blount’s documentary scripts are featured in institutions like the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture.

NEW TO SHELF UNBOUND!

Shelf Media Group's digital young adult community designed to connect readers with YA authors and books.

Callasandra Fractured.

BY STEPHANIE DOUGLAS

Stephanie Douglas delivers a taut and unsettling entry into the YA dystopian landscape with Callasandra Fractured, a novel that blends highstakes action with a keen exploration of fear, trust, and identity under surveillance.

The story opens with a jarring act of violence: Cassi Dyson’s father is abducted in front of her, leaving behind a single cryptic warning that unravels everything she thought she knew about her life. Moments later, a dimensional rupture scatters Earth’s population across unknown worlds, separating families and stripping away the illusion of safety. Cassi awakens alone in Cimerrion, a realm where outsiders are hunted and obedience is a currency of survival.

From the moment Cassi assumes a new identity to navigate a militarized training compound known as The Camp, the narrative builds an oppressive tension that rarely eases. Douglas captures the claustrophobic dread of a world where every movement is monitored and every relationship may carry a hidden cost. Cassi’s reluctant ties to the underground resistance, the Antistasi, are fraught with danger and moral ambiguity, raising questions about loyalty, betrayal, and what freedom can possibly mean in a place designed to crush it.

Douglas’s writing is brisk yet layered, balancing relentless pacing with moments of quiet, unsettling introspection. There are no easy heroes here, no guaranteed victories—only a razor-thin margin for survival and a haunting uncertainty that lingers long after the final page. Callasandra Fractured is a sharp, immersive thriller that digs beneath the surface of dystopian tropes, asking what it truly costs to keep hope alive when every move could be your last.

WHAT TO READ IN YA FICTION

Young adult fiction continues to become one of the most popular genres – mostly for adults. Join us each issue to find your next YA read.

CALLASANDRA FRACTURED

BY STEPHANIE DOUGLAS

CALLASANDRA FRACTURED .

RECOMMENDED AS YOUR NEXT YA READ

When every move is watched—breaking free means risking everything

Sixteen-year-old Cassi Dyson thought she had a normal life—until the day her world shattered. In a sudden, terrifying moment, two men seize her father right in front of her. Before they drag him away, he shouts a coded message to her—the warning changes everything. Soon after, a dimensional fracture scatters Cassi— and all of Earth’s citizens—across dimensions.

Separated from her family, Cassi awakens alone in Cimerrion, a world where the government sees her as a threat and any misstep could mean capture—or worse. Not knowing who to trust, she adopts a new name—Callasandra—but even that may not be enough to keep her safe. Assigned to The Camp, a monitored sector where sixteen-year-olds are trained, Cassi must blend in to survive.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT GIRL

+ BOOK

“Best

YA Blogs And Book Reviewers”

- URBAN EPICS, BLOGGER AWARDS

“Top 100 Book Review Blogs For Book Readers and Authors”

- FEEDSPOT

“The awesome Girl+Book YA book review blog.....I smiled to see Blue Karma recommended for "tom-boys, tree climbers, adventure seekers, and backyard-campers" because I have answered (or still do) to all of these descriptions....The Girl+Book blog continues to make my day.”

- J.K. ULLRICH, AUTHOR OF BLUE KARMA

“I Just Read Girl Plus Book’s

Review Of

Revelation, And It Made My Night!”

- ELLERY KANE, AUTHOR OF LEGACY SERIES

RETURN OF PODSTER!

Shelf Media Group's digital magazine about podcasts and podcasters.

Crit RPG.

WITH MADIX-3

About the Podcast

Hosted by Madix-3 and inviting a different up-and-coming litrpg/progression fantasy author each week, CritRPG is your One-Stop-Shop for everything LitRpg, Progression Fantasy, and Royalroad! Warning! This Podcast may contain traces of writing advice, talks about video games, anime, and tips on how to market your books in the Progression Fantasy space.

BY CORINNA KLOTH

Podster is a column for podcast listeners and serves as a curator for the best of known and unknown podcasts.

READ

CRIT RPG WITH MADIX-3

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF/ SELVES.

M: Hi, I’m Max, 36 years old, and from Berlin, Germany! I’m many different jobs in a trenchcoat, but mostly, I want to work together with people I like to help them succeed.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED WITH THE CRIT RPG PODCAST?

M: I was at an office job and needed a break, so I took a day off and went to the spa. I’d already been writing (again, and seriously, this time) for a few months at the time, and had met a lot of great friends through my discord community. I’d called it CritRPG on a whim, because most of us were writing LitRPG or Progression Fantasy at the time. As I was sitting by the pool and reading a book I unfortunately didn’t enjoy, I wondered what I could do to get my friends some more exposure. Something came over me and suddenly thought “I should do a podcast”.

(I always liken it to the old meme with the cat from the Bjork video that says “I should buy a boat.”)

So when I asked my writing buddies

if anyone wanted to hop in, Haylock Jobson (of Heretical Fishing fame) jumped on the chance, and I just kept going. Over 100 episodes, one every week!

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PODCAST?

M: A very loose format held together by 5 core questions, some duct tape, and my chronic addiction to puns.

To me at least, podcasts that are very strict on their routine don’t feel all that right. I always would much rather get to know the person behind the book, the author, and what makes them tick. How do they write, why do they write, and what are they interested in writing. That sort of thing.

WHAT’S THE MOST CHALLENGING AND MOST SATISFYING PART OF RUNNING A PODCAST?

M: It doesn’t pay at all, is one thing. I earn about $250 a month, and $100 of that comes from my friend Travis Deverell aka Shirtaloon. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to keep the podcast running for so long, but even with all that money, after material, hosting, and paying an editor (Jamie from BigbadAudio.Ca who is just a

pure gem), I am already down about $50, and that’s before my own time.

That is offset, however, by the mails I get from people telling me that the podcast inspired them to write. In times like these, with jobs falling away at all sides, its so important that we reconnect with the arts to talk about what makes us human. If I can help with that at least a little bit, I have made a positive impact on someones life, and that feels better than I can put into words.

WHAT’S ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE EPISODES?

M: I have many very strong episodes that I love, but the one with Johnathan McClain and Seth McDuffee comes to mind immediately. Many friendships have been forged in the course of the podcast, but this one episode really stands out because I could almost feel the connection building as we talked. I’ve recently had the great pleasure of meeting Johnathan and Seth both at LitRPGCon in Denver, and I can confirm they are as cool in real life as they are in the podcast.

WHAT’S YOUR UPLOADING SCHEDULE, AND WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM CRIT RPG IN

THE UPCOMING MONTHS?

M: It used to be once a week, on Sundays, at 12PM German time, but I recently had to go on hiatus. I have founded a video game studio that’s taking up most of my free time, and I just can’t justify the work I’m putting into finding a guest, interviewing them, an uploading the result, let alone the promotion the podcast would need. I also hit a pleateau about a year ago, and nothing I do has won me the algorithm’s favor. Accepting that ithe show would probably never be Diary of a CEO or The Joe Rogan Experience wasn’t as hard as one might imagine, though. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do with that level of fame and scrutiny. Making an impact on a small group of people who can then change the world feels much better.

That doesn’t mean this is the end, though. There are going to be new episodes sporadically, if I can find cool people the interview, and the mood strikes me! :)

WHERE CAN LISTENERS FIND TALKING BOOK PUBLISHING?

M: https://critrpgpodcast.com or https:// linktr.ee/madix3

PRIDE & PUBLISHING

Starting a Writing Group

by Chrissy Brown | C.A.A.B Publishing

Can I start my own writing group? Will it help?

Of course it will help. You can get advice, you can see where you are going wrong or even better, what the others enjoy about your writing. You can get ideas, share frustrations, make friends and it gives you a chance to focus on your writing for a while.

So, you want to start your own group? Yay! That is a fantastic idea.

C.A.A.B PUBLISHING

CAAB Publishing Ltd is a traditional, small, indie company helping unknown authors have a voice and inspiring new writers to take that first step into the world of publishing.

But firstly, check all the local papers, check with your local library and the council. Ask in bookstores and put out feelers on social media – all so you can check if there is already a writing group in your area. If there is then you may have a bit of competition or you could reach out, go to the group for a while see what you could do differently, what you like and do not like about the group. You may even find the group needs a leader or someone to take it over, this could mean you have a fully formed group awaiting your talents.

Of course, it may be a thriving group that you want to be a part of and maybe that is where you stop and just enjoy the fruits without the labour. On the other hand, it may not be a good fit for you, if that is the case then your next step is to create the writing group that you want to be a part of. Be sure to schedule it at a different time to the other group. Do not clash with them, you could let them know you are starting the group and offer to tell any members that you gather about the original group, in case they wish to join both. That way you keep your fellow writers happy, and you may find that other members follow you to the new group, if you are offering something a little different.

Your first step to creating a group from scratch should be to find out if there is a need or a want for such a group near you. You do not want to be sitting in a room all alone.

Send out social media posts on groups focused on local

issues. let people know you are thinking about starting a writing group and find out who your fellow writers are. Can you run a group during the day or in the evening? Do you need a room for five people or fifty?

Once you send out feelers you can start to get an idea of who might come and what your next steps are.

Once you have a time and day set, then start looking for a room. The library can be helpful or a community centre, some bookstores have a back room they will let authors use or even local restaurants can be helpful if you promise to buy a few drinks and snacks.

Start searching. once you have it, then it is time to start planning the first session.

Will you guide the writers or let them mould the group to their own needs? Will you use prompts? Will you set a writing

A Less Than Serious Guide to London by E. Bungle

time? Will you let authors work on novels or other work? Do you include bloggers and those that have never written before? What do you hope to accomplish?

Once you have this all decided. You can begin.

The first session should be relaxed, let people talk and get to know each other. sharing work can be a daunting thing for some writers, they will need to feel that they know the people in the room, that it is a safe space. Let people offer critique if it is asked for but never let it be too harsh or become a bullying session.

This group may help you to be inspired but it also might help with making like-minded friends and giving you a network of people who will support you and promote you. This can be a wonderful experience, so get out there and start writing.

Good Luck!

This is a less-than-serious guide to a city you thought you knew. From the witty author of the madcap guide to San Francisco comes a cheeky romp through the British capital. You’ll discover some tongue-in-cheek history about the great city of London. If it’s all true… well, that’s a question for another day.

This is an entertaining read about a city you may already love—or may be about to discover. Either way, you’ll chuckle as you read about the Royal Family’s inability to navigate the city, the real reason Marble Arch was built, and the sad tale of a famous lion tamer caught in a great concrete flood in Trafalgar Square.

Packed with questionable history, oddball tales, and irreverent humour, this is a fun book that’s less than serious in every way. Whether you're a lifelong fan or a first-time visitor, you'll laugh, learn (maybe), and enjoy every wildly inaccurate minute.

Little Shop of Stories. DECATUR,

GA

FEATURED INDIE BOOKSTORE

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT BOUT YOURSELF AND GREENLIGHT BOOKSTORE.

SB: Hello! My name is Sunny Bowles, and I am the new co-owner at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA. We are an independent children’s bookstore located right on the square downtown. We offer books and more for kids and the grown ups they become. We just celebrated our 20 year anniversary in July and are thrilled to be expanding into the vacant storefront next door to be adding more retail space and a cafe.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO OPEN A BOOKSTORE?

SB: My co-owner Diane Capriola started the bookstore 20 years ago after she started her family and was spending so much of her day reading. She always loved children’s books and was looking for something new in her career. She realized that Decatur would be a fabulous home for a cute children’s bookstore as it was a thriving downtown retail district and a community that values education and books! 20 years later, Little Shop of Stories is thriving and an important part of the Decatur

community.

WHAT KIND OF READING TRENDS DO YOU SEE WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS?

SB: Overall, the consensus in the industry is that reading is down. But we do not see that with our customers. Our customers continue to shop! For older readers, teens through adult, we are selling a lot of cozy fantasy, romance, and sci fi. For younger readers, we always have 8-12 year olds looking for the next big fantasy series. As far as picture books, the publishers continue to do a better and better job creating a wide range of diverse books by diverse authors. We are thrilled to see more and more representation of marginalized people and voices in picture books.

WHAT OTHER SERVICES AND/OR PRODUCTS DO YOU PROVIDE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS?

SB: Little Shop of Stories is so much more than a bookstore! We of course sell tons of books, but we also host author signings, storytimes, summer camps, school bookfairs, after school D&D campaigns, community meetings, slumber parties and seasonal events

that do not involve authors. We are so proud of the Little Shop of Stories Children’s Book Festival each spring. We have had such a wild range of events in the shop from a customer wedding, planned proposals, flash tattoos, costume contests, midnight dinner parties, and movie sing alongs. We have a SUPER creative staff, and we rely on them to come up with new and exciting events and camp ideas.

HOW DO YOU SEE LITTLE SHOP OF STORIES EXPANDING IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?

SB: We are expanding- literally. We are hoping that in the next few months, we will be a little bit bigger. We will be adding a cafe space as well as more retail. We all know that coffee and books are a natural pairing, so we are delighted to team up with Bellwood Coffee. As we plan our expansion, we will provide more sidelines for all ages from dress up and art supplies to cards and gifts. We hope that Little Shop of

Stories continues to be a destination for young families and kids looking to find a new book or gift!

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FUTURE OF INDIE BOOKSTORES WILL LOOK LIKE?

SB: We are hopeful for the future of indie bookstores! We have found over these many years that people still want to read physical books- especially children! We just continue to provide a welcoming space and knowledgeable staff. Although online retailers can provide product, they cannot provide the same experience you get when visiting Little Shop of Stories. We continue to remind our staff that they are the reason people shop with us, and relationships are SO important- individual personal relationships as well as community connections.

Self-Published & Small Press Book Reviews

The 1929 Kelsey Quilters.

BY BEVERLY BURNETT HAMBERLIN

PUBLISHER:

AUTHORHOUSE

PAGES: 338

ISBN: 9798823023191

A faded square of calico can hold more history than a library, containing narratives of lives lived. Beverly Burnett Hamberlin’s The 1929 Kelsey Quilters is a historical and genealogical detective story recounting Hamberlin’s quest to identify 46 Mormon women who created quilt blocks in Depression-era Kelsey, Texas—a now-ghost town that once served as refuge for Mormons fleeing religious persecution.

Following the death of her husband’s aunt, Hamberlin receives a mysterious, unfinished quilt from 1929, sparking an investigation into the lives of the women who created it. Her research unearths personal accounts of a community of newly-converted Latter-day Saints (LDS) who escaped intense hostility in the American South to establish a refuge colony in Texas. The quilt becomes both the central mystery and primary metaphor of the story. “It reminded me of a puzzle where someone had removed half of the pieces and put them somewhere else,” Hamberlin writes. The author pieces together the quilters’ stories of hardship and faith, giving voice to their names and transforming them into histories of faith, migration, and profound hardship.

While the premise is sound, the narrative structure is disjointed, moving from one genealogical summary to another without a strong overarching thread. Hamberlin frequently inserts her own life story—including family tragedies and her neardrowning as a child—which, while moving, divert her focus. A story about a quilter’s son, for instance, notes that he died after falling during an epileptic seizure. “I don’t know when [the seizures] started for him,” she adds, “but I had an older sister, Sandra, who died at twenty-six following a seizure. She had fallen in the shower at a health spa…” This approach makes the book feel more like a scrapbook than a focused historical account.

Readers seeking a polished academic text will likely find the narrative’s personal diversions and dense genealogical tracing demanding. But those interested in LDS history, Texas settlement stories, and women’s material culture will find some rewards here. 

The Supersonic Phallus.

BY STEVEN KEY MEYERS

PUBLISHER: SMASH-ANDGRAB PRESS

PAGES: 148

ISBN: 979-8-9850215-7-8

The Supersonic Phallus is a short, entertaining novel about reporters investigating flying saucers, with a queer twist. Set in 1947 small-town Colorado, north of the alleged Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash site, it follows young reporter Sam as he and his colleague, Dean, check out sightings.

As they discover the underlying truth, they face challenges to their ethics: Business interests want parts of the story withheld; the military wants it dropped entirely. Their editor sees the sightings as a potential tourism boost and orders them to conceal information damaging to this prospect. Along the way, Sam and Dean begin a passionate romance.

Narrated by Sam, the novel moves briskly, raising the excitement as Sam and Dean hear of the UFO’s first appearances before seeing one and later figuring out what it is.

The characters are mostly well-rounded and easy to root for. Dean is idealistic, wanting to publish the entire story, while Sam hesitates, thinking of his career if he goes against his editor. Even a character Sam initially dislikes turns out to have good intentions.

This is a light-hearted story, with colorful characters and descriptions. When Ernie bursts into the newsroom, looking for the editor, the author winkingly conveys his swagger: “’Wilt in? Or did the Martians get him? Or maybe a moose?’ [he says]…as all five-feet-five of him stumped on cowboy boots towards Wilt’s office…”

Watching Sam and Dean’s relationship develop is wonderfully sexy. Complications ensue, as Sam is married with children, while Dean, proudly homosexual, wishes Sam could be with him.

Given her importance to Sam and his choices, Sam’s wife seems one-dimensional compared with many other characters. And an unexpected ending leaves unanswered questions. Some explicit language, even in regular conversation, might discourage certain readers (the book’s title comes from a description of a distinctively shaped UFO).

Despite these minor issues, readers seeking an amusing read with relatable characters will enjoy The Supersonic Phallus. 

Grappling with Ghosts.

BY JAMES HARVEY

PUBLISHER: LULU

PAGES: 276

ISBN: 9781300960829

Adult

In James Harvey’s memoir, the Ireland-born, Londonraised, educator-turned-American public servant looks back on his chaotic upbringing.

Born in Donegal, a tiny town in northwest Ireland, Harvey—later a Capitol Hill analyst and occasional presidential speechwriter—had a decent early childhood: school at St. Edwards in London; going to movies, circuses, and Punch and Judy shows; playing “war” with his friends (among actual WWII bombing sites, no less).

When his father started drinking, however, this caused brawls between his parents that left one or both of them bleeding. Finally, when he was six or seven years old, his mother packed him and his four siblings into a police car after one such fight, which took them to a London orphanage. There was Ted, the eldest, who “fitted the archetype of the first child to a ‘T’”; Rosemary, a rebel; Kathleen, the characteristic middle child; and James’s fraternal twin, Frank, who was small and sickly, and struggled in school.

James and Ted eventually ended up with their grandmother back in Donegal, which, according to James, “was the intensive care unit that breathed new life into both of us.” Later, the family (sans James’ father) reunited in America, when James was a teenager. There, he attended college, earning a PhD and ended up as a staffer for President Jimmy Carter.

James is trained as a historian, and it shows in his attention to detail, which is, unfortunately, sometimes tiresome (e.g., the chapter devoted to generations of the Harvey family stretching back to the 1700s). Yet he possesses what many historians lack: storytelling prowess. That scene of escaping to an orphanage is a page-turner, and there are a dozen more just as gripping. Also fascinating is how James evokes postwar Ireland and England, both in their politics and in tableaus of daily living, such as the spectacle of an Irish Catholic mass.

Readers interested in depictions of life in other countries will enjoy this enthusiastic narrative. 

Legacy Letters.

BY STEPHANIE LIVINGSTON

PUBLISHER: WESTBOW PRESS

PAGES: 416

ISBN: 9798385022045

Adult

Stephanie Livingston revisits past journals and writes letters to her younger self in this memoir about marriage, parenting, and placing one’s faith in Jesus when life unravels.

From the outside looking in, Livingston’s life seemed wonderful: a Christian husband, four beautiful daughters, a thriving family business. Livingston shares the beautiful moments of being a wife and mother. But her world was about to crumble, and Livingston also shares the devastating discovery of her husband’s infidelity and subsequent physical abuse.

Livingston doesn’t dwell on the abuse, which began early in her marriage. Her love for her husband spurred her to focus on his positive attributes and keep the peace. Eventually, though, the altercations’ severity increased. After the final incident, she writes, “My body was hurt and was bruised. Police were called and statements were taken. Surveillance cameras and guns were removed, and his hands were cuffed. We were undone.”

With a steadfast faith in Jesus, Livingston recounts how she weathered the storms of her marriage and divorce and offers hope to others facing similar challenges.

Two interesting elements makes this work unique. First, she shares excerpts from her old journals and then responds to her younger self with words of encouragement and advice. This sends an underlying message of gentle forgiveness and self-acceptance. She also includes several dreams, analyzing them for “meaning or warning,” offering intriguing insight into dream analysis.

Although the book is well written and easy to follow, one section puzzles. It seems to be a confession by Livingston of infidelity she committed in her marriage. Here, Livingston abruptly switches from first person to third as she tells of a woman confessing in church that she was unfaithful to her husband. It’s uncertain whether these events actually happened or if they are a metaphor. Livingston never mentions the events again, adding to the mystery.

Nevertheless, Christian couples or anyone navigating through divorce will find her hindsight, wisdom and testament of faith helpful and inspiring. 

Letters to an Embryo.

BY JASNA KALUDJEROVIC

PUBLISHER: PUBLISHDRIVE

PAGES: 400

ISBN: 9788690766215

In this sweet, poignant memoir, Jasna Kaludjerovic writes to her last viable frozen embryo, deciding whether to go ahead with a pregnancy when she and her husband—the embryo’s “papa”—are divorcing.

At this pivotal moment in her life, Kaludjerovic is conflicted: “Should I try to have you and, if it succeeds, be a divorced woman with a child? Or keep going like this, looking for a man to love, but what if I find one? What should I do with you then? Throwing you away is out of the question.”

She mourns the demise of her marriage but seizes on her newfound freedom to find a new man and craft a new career; she is an SAP software consultant considering breaking out on her own to go freelance. Living in Belgrade, she takes the opportunity to travel and determine what her new life might look like.

The letters spend significant time on the role of women in society and how she now sees her own place in the world. She had always wanted to be a mother, but now she is wrestling with who she is. All of these are interesting considerations, but they get bogged down in many pages of daily-life detail: nail polish, jewelry, pedestrian conversations with her sister, the “flirts” she talks to, even decorating concerns (“As far as fixing up the apartment goes, I put curtain rods and curtains in the bedroom and am having a bedspread made for the bed”). While there are many sweet and thoughtful moments throughout the book, the narrative gets mired in minutiae, causing it to lose it the momentum it needs.

A judicious trimming of the mundane material would greatly enhance this offering, which is likely to appeal to other women considering having children at similar crossroads of life. 

Gloria.

BY ANDRÉS FELIPE SOLANO, TRANSLATED BY WILL VANDERHYDEN

PUBLISHER: COUNTERPOINT

PAGES: 176

ISBN-10: 1640097643

Adult

Released earlier this year, Gloria by Andrés Felipe Solano is a short but powerful novel originally written in Spanish and translated into English by Will Vanderhyden. Though it’s fiction, the story feels deeply personal—like something pulled from memory or confession.

It’s centered around Gloria, a woman living with schizophrenia, and told through the eyes of her adult son, who’s trying to make sense of her life, her illness, and the many silences she left behind. What unfolds is a layered, intimate portrait of a mother shaped by both suffering and strength.

The novel moves between memories, imagined scenes, medical reports, and fragments of the narrator’s reflections. That mix gives it a fragmented, almost dreamlike quality. At first, I had to slow down to figure out where the narrator was taking me and what was real versus imagined. But once I got my bearings, I found myself pulled in by the emotional depth. The writing is poetic without being overly dense, and there are moments that made me stop, reread, and think. It’s not an easy story, but it’s one that lingers.

The translation reads smoothly. Vanderhyden does a thoughtful job capturing the shifts in tone and the quiet intensity of Solano’s prose. Nothing felt stiff or overworked. Instead, the voice felt natural. It’s the kind of translation that gives the reader room to feel without drawing attention to itself.

Gloria explores heavy topics like mental illness, family memory, and grief with honesty and care. It’s not flashy, and it doesn’t tie everything up with a bow—but that’s what makes it so powerful. The book may be short, but it asks big questions and leaves behind an impression that’s anything but small.

I hadn’t read anything by Solano before this, but I’m glad I chose it to read. If you’re in the mood for something quiet but emotionally rich, this is a good one to reach for. 

The Hollow Half.

BY SARAH AZIZA

PUBLISHER: CATAPULT

PAGES: 400

ISBN-10: 1646222431

Adult

A Memoir Written in Fragments, Silence, and Defiance

Sarah Aziza’s debut memoir, The Hollow Half, begins in a hospital bed, where her body is on the brink of collapse. But this isn’t just a story of survival—it’s an unflinching journey into family history, inherited trauma, and the long shadows of exile. The book asks a question that lingers long after the final page: How do you piece together a life when the past is scattered across continents, broken by silence, and filled with stories too painful to tell?

Aziza refuses to offer the kind of tidy resolution readers might expect from memoir. Instead, she writes in fragments, footnotes, and dreamscapes, building a narrative that feels as fractured—and as alive—as memory itself. One moment, we’re in Gaza, tracing the threads of displacement that ripple through generations. The next, we’re in the Midwest, watching a young woman try to wrestle her body back from the brink while carrying the weight of a family history marked by war and migration.

This is a memoir that thrives in its contradictions: tender yet unrelenting, intimate yet expansive, haunted yet full of quiet rebellion. Aziza doesn’t just recount her story—she dismantles it, challenges it, and reshapes it on the page, daring readers to confront what it means to inherit pain and still imagine a future.

The Hollow Half is not a memoir you consume and set aside. It’s one you carry with you, a book that unsettles, stirs, and ultimately reshapes how you think about family, memory, and what survival truly means. 

The Lilac People.

BY MILO TODD

PUBLISHER: COUNTERPOINT

PAGES: 320

ISBN-10: 1640097031

Adult

In Milo Todd’s The Lilac People, history is not just revisited—it is unearthed from the quiet corners where silence once buried it. Set against the shifting tides of 1920s and 1930s Germany, the novel follows Berthold “Bertie” Durchdenwald, a trans man who once thrived in Berlin’s glittering queer enclave before the Nazi regime crushed it underfoot. Years later, long after the city’s cabarets have been raided and its freedoms erased, Bertie and his partner Sofie are living in fragile anonymity on a remote farm—until a single act of compassion threatens to shatter their sanctuary and expose a truth that could cost them everything.

Todd’s prose is both tender and unflinching, capturing the fleeting joy of a community allowed to exist for only a brief moment in history, and the devastating weight of having to erase oneself to survive. The novel’s emotional force comes not from spectacle, but from the

intimate stakes of everyday life: a meal shared in fear, a name whispered only in safety, a promise of love that outlasts a world determined to deny it.

While many historical novels end with the word “liberation,” The Lilac People refuses that illusion. Even as Allied forces dismantle the Nazi machine, queer lives remain policed, punished, and precarious. This rarely told truth—the oppression that continued long after the camps were opened—is what gives Todd’s debut its lasting sting.

A love story, a survival story, and a reclamation of forgotten queer history, The Lilac People is a novel that lingers. It challenges readers to reconsider what freedom really means, and whose stories are still waiting to be told. 

Midnight is Not in Everyone’s Reach.

BY ANTONIO LOBO ANTUNES, TRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH LOWE

PUBLISHER: DALKEY

ARCHIVE PRESS

PAGES: 576

ISBN-10: 1628976128

Adult

Released in April 2024, Midnight Is Not in Everyone’s Reach is written by Portuguese author António Lobo Antunes, and Elizabeth Lowe translated it from Portuguese to English. From the beginning, the book has a dreamlike, almost stream-of-consciousness feel. There isn’t a clear, straightforward plot. Instead, it’s more like we’re drifting through memory, trauma, and bits of reflection from characters who seem to be holding everything in until it spills out. The narration moves between voices and time periods without warning, which can be disorienting at first. But once you let go of trying to pin everything down and just move with the language, the rhythm becomes familiar. Even when I wasn’t entirely sure who was speaking, I could feel the emotion behind it.

The writing itself is dense and poetic. Antunes is known for his lyrical, often fragmented style, and that comes through here. Some sentences stretch across entire paragraphs, and there’s an emotional intensity packed into the imagery and repetition. This isn’t a book to rush. It’s one that asks you to slow down and sit with it. That’s where Elizabeth’s translation really stands out. She manages to preserve the complexity of the original without letting it get too confusing. It feels like a careful, respectful rendering of Antunes’s voice.

I’ll admit I struggled a bit at first. The shifting perspectives, lack of clear chapter breaks, and non-linear structure took some adjusting. I had to reread a few passages to understand what I was reading. But at the same time, that drifting, fragmented quality is part of what makes the novel good. It mirrors the way memory and grief don’t follow neat patterns either.

If you enjoy literary fiction that challenges you, that leans into complexity and emotional weight, Midnight Is Not in Everyone’s Reach is one to consider. It’s not a light read, but it’s a powerful one. 

DISCOVERIES

BY HAROLD PHIFER

CHECK OUT

What's On Our Shelf

Nobody loves books more than us. We're a team of readers with broad interests and strong feelings about the books on our shelves.

WE SHOULD ALL BE BIRDS

by Brian Buckbee

On a spring evening in Montana, Brian Buckbee encounters an injured baby pigeon. Heartbroken after the loss of the love of his life and increasingly isolated by a mysterious illness that overtook him while trekking through Asia, Brian is unaware that this bird—who he names TwoStep—will change his life. Brian takes in Two-Step, and more injured birds, eventually transforming his home into a madcap bird rehabilitation and rescue center. As Brian and Two-Step grow closer, an unexpected kinship forms. But their paths won’t converge forever: as Two-Step heals and finds love, Brian’s condition worsens, and with his friend’s release back into the world looming closer, Brian must decide where this story leaves him.

WANTING

by Claire Jia

A searing debut novel of envy, longing, and regret across three lives and two countries that asks how far we’ll go for a friendship, a romance, a dream.

Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She has a well-paid job, a nice boyfriend, and plans to marry and move into a luxury high-rise apartment. She’s wanting for nothing—until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything—a successful career as an influencer, a millionaire American fiancé, and a bespoke mansion in the Beijing suburbs—throwing Lian’s own reliable choices into high relief.

THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS by

Nini Berndt

Lucy’s brother, Mikey, is dead. Two years ago, when he left their small Eastern Colorado town and moved west to Denver, he’d intended to bring Lucy along. But Lucy has only just arrived, and too late. She arrives in search of Helen, a woman Mikey loved. But when Lucy moves in across the hall, she finds nothing is as she expected: the city is crumbling; the weather is tempestuous; a predator is on the loose; the old woman in the attic needs company; desire is being compressed into pills and distributed like candy; and, most distressing of all, she finds herself becoming obsessed with Helen, who is nothing like she expected—and who has no idea who Lucy really is.

ABSENCE by Issa Quincy

As a child, an unnamed narrator’s mother reads to him a poem. Throughout his life, the poem reappears mysteriously, in the affecting life experiences of others as they are recounted to him. An eccentric and beloved schoolteacher leaves behind a dark secret after his death. An elderly woman returns to the same hotel on the Tunisian coast every year as an act of remembrance for a disappeared brother. The son of a wealthy Indian businessman, the pariah of his family, finds solidarity and the distant pang of freedom within the letters of an estranged Aunt.

As we follow characters on their journeys of self-discovery through the jungle of Thailand, as a child in the British countryside, or as an aging doctor on the island of Cyprus, Absence evocatively builds a compassionate symphony of nostalgia, attuned to the drama of everyday and the phantoms that linger with us.

FILLY by Rosamund Taylor

From acclaimed poet Rosamund Taylor comes a compelling, genre-bending coming of age story. In the hostile world of Ireland’s secondary school system, Orla is discovering her burgeoning sexuality. When her friend Muireann rejects her advances, Orla turns to her online community for support, and to her charismatic English teacher Irene Wall for a love affair both passionate and annihilating.

A novel in verse about sexual awakening, masochistic love, and the transformative possibilities of community, Filly introduces two unforgettable characters in Orla and the complicated and magnetic Irene Wall. Written with Taylor’s trademark earthy lyricism, Filly is an exploration of intergenerational love and trauma, and an explosion of queer joy.

Bebe Ashley’s prizewinning second collection charts the poet’s efforts to qualify as a British Sign Language interpreter. Intershot with enquiries into the nature of language as it is spoken and signed, and the process of leaving and finding home, Harbour Doubts is a collection that tangles with the burning desire to communicate in the isolation of a late capitalist, post-pandemic world. It’s also a love letter to the delights of linguistics and language, a threedimensional exploration of words and the body. Bringing together meditations on language as mediated through sound, sign, vision, and film, this exciting sophomore collection cements Bebe Ashley’s reputation as a fearless experimenter.

HARBOUR DOUBTS by Bebe Ashley

TENTERHOOKS by

ClaireLise Kieffer

An eerie discovery at a building site triggers a crisis for a garda and his family. A grieving woman comes to believe that she is being possessed by the spirit of her mother, and seeks an unusual exorcism. A brave new world is established as Galway City disappears slowly underwater. And a young woman experiences the morning after the night before in a strange, condemned midlands town.

In these stories of an Ireland both strange and achingly familiar, Claire-Lise Kieffer animates our collective past, present and future. Humorous, off-kilter, savage and surreal, she depicts the bonds that hold couples, families and communities together with a sharp, humane and deeply original slant.

OFF-WHITE by Astrid Roemer, translated by Lucy Scott & David McKay

In 1966 Suriname, the Vanta family, an intricate blend of Creole, Maroon, French, Indian, Indigenous, British, and Jewish heritage, is led by Grandma Bee, a proud, cigar-smoking matriarch facing her final days. As she reflects on her scattered family and the loss of her favourite granddaughter, Heli, exiled to the Netherlands for an affair with her white teacher, Bee grapples with one question: What truly binds a family? Off-White offers a moving exploration of Bee’s legacy amid themes of male violence, colonialism, and the dismantling of racial identity, marking the return of a celebrated Surinamese author after two decades.

CARNAVAL

FEVER by Yulina Ortiz Ruano, translated by Madeleine

Arenivar

Sheltered within her grandmother’s fiercely protective household, Ainhoa blossoms under the guidance of her constellation of aunts—women who become her teachers, guardians, and spiritual anchors. Through Ainhoa’s keen observant eyes, readers experience how music and dance – particularly during the explosive energy of Carnaval – don’t merely entertain but form the very heartbeat of existence, a pulsing testament to Afro-Ecuadorian identity and resistance.

Yet beneath this tapestry of warmth and celebration, Carnaval Fever fearlessly confronts the shadows: crushing economic hardship, the heartbreak of migration, and the ever-present threat of male violence hovering at the community’s edges. At its luminous core, however, this novel stands as a defiant celebration of women’s resilience, collective power, and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood that sustain communities through generations.

CAPITALISTS MUST STARVE by Park Seolyeon, translated by Anton Hur

Set against the backdrop of Japanese-occupied Korea, Capitalists Must Starve follows a sharp-tongued, big-hearted heroine who dares to love, rebel, and carve out space for working-class women in a world determined to silence them. Echoing the unflinching narratives of Alias Grace and the sweeping historical vision of Pachinko, this feminist historical novel balances raw grit with unexpected tenderness and a defiant streak of dark humour.

A stirring portrait of resistance from below: fierce, funny, and full of fight.

SCHOOL GIRL by Rie Qudan, translated by Haydn Trowell

In Schoolgirl, a wealthy housewife, dogged by ennui, struggles to connect with her teenage daughter, who turns to YouTube to vent her frustration with the climate crisis and muse about her dayto-day life in Tōkyō. Through the fog of generational tension and unresolved ethics, mother and daughter find a shared connection in Osamu Dazai’s 1939 novella Schoolgirl.

Darkly funny and stunningly mysterious, these two novellas pinpoint the effects of technology, conflicting desires, and the shifts and rifts in relationships. Rie Qudan, winner of one of Japan’s most prestigious literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize, explores the affectation and compromise required of us all, providing a disquieting view of the many faces of modern life.

THE STRANGE MATTER by Ali

Jane Smith

The Strange Matter invites you into a world both familiar and strange, capturing the moments in between — catching the bus, looking up at the moon, baking bread, listening to music, spotting onionweed, and snacking on Jatz. These poems span streets and gardens, books and films, people and things, creating a landscape that feels both close and surreal.

Sometimes the language is sharp, sometimes lavish, each poem a document of life as a waking dream, a relentless exploration of the everyday. Ali Jane Smith writes, ‘It is a relief to turn thoughts and feelings into a poem. Sometimes it is like making a chair, and sometimes it is like smashing concrete with a crowbar.’ Here, the chair might wobble, the cracks in the concrete twist like rivers. They take you somewhere, or they tell you something.

LISETTE

by Catherine Rey

In the early 1990s Catherine Rey formed a deep bond with Lisette Nigot, a kindred spirit whose colourful past and sharp humour made her an invaluable confidant and mentor. As Lisette aged and faced mounting discomfort, she became determined to end her life on her own terms.

This book is Catherine Rey’s heartfelt tribute to their unique relationship, honouring their rare connection through candid honesty and empathy. In exploring their bond and the sorrow of its loss, Rey delves into profound questions about the nature of death and the autonomy we seek in our final moments. With a refusal to settle for conventional wisdom on grief, Rey examines what it means to remain connected to others and ourselves, and the ethical complexities of euthanasia.

Lisette is both a moving homage to a vibrant woman and a reflective meditation on how time shapes our understanding of what is truly significant. It offers an intimate look at the details that become precious as life progresses and challenges us to consider how death influences our lives and the choices we make about our end.

WEDDING OF THE FOXES

by Katherine Larson

Raising two children, coping with pandemic isolation, and grappling with the magnitude of the current extinction crisis, Katherine Larson finds herself in need of an antidote for despair. This is when Larson encounters kintsugi—the art of repairing broken pottery with golddusted lacquer. Wedding of the Foxes borrows from this ancient practice to create a new interpretative framework, one that seeks beauty in both breakage and unexpected connections. Here, Larson juxtaposes the elaborate courtship dance of sandhill cranes with scientific reports on diminishing avian populations to shed light on the urgency of climate crisis. She braids the wisdoms of a wonderfully varied range of forebears and predecessors—Gaston Bachelard, Tawada Yōko, Francis Ponge—who share her dream of a liberated consciousness. Each of these disparate parts come together to highlight the beauty in “what falls through the cracks and blurs into other moments.”

THE

WAY AROUND by Nicholas Triolo

Growing up in northern California, in a family of high-achieving athletes, Nicholas Triolo was imbued with a particularly acute form of our intensely goal-oriented culture. “Do the reps,” he internalized. “Commit to the work. Grind for your dreams.” Shortly after graduating from college, he embarked on a solo circumnavigation of the globe. And then after returning to the States, he threw himself into ultrarunning, all to combat a deepening discontent. While traveling around the world, it was in Kathmandu that Triolo first encountered kora, a form of moving prayer in which pilgrims walk in circles around a sacred site or object—a kind of “ritualized remembering” birthed by place. Unable to shake this initial encounter with circumambulation, he sets out here on three such extended walks. First, he completes the sacred thirtytwo-mile revolution around Tibet’s Mount Kailash, in search of a cultural counter to Western linearity. Then, following his mother’s diagnosis with breast cancer, he returns home to California and takes part in an annual circuit of Mount Tamalpais, tracing a route made famous by Beat poets Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Allen Ginsberg.

THE

SALT STONES by

Helen Whybrow

Set in Vermont’s Green Mountains, a profoundly moving meditation on the lessons and wisdom that come from raising a family, tending sheep, and living close to the land.

In the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Helen Whybrow and her partner set out to restore an old two-hundredacre farm. Knowing that “belonging more than anything requires participation,” they begin to intertwine their lives with the land. But soon after releasing a flock of Icelandic sheep onto the worn-out fields, Whybrow realizes that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of Knoll Farm.

THE ALLURE OF ELSEWHERE

by Karen Babine

In her mid-thirties and happily single, Karen Babine hitches up her tiny Scamp camper and sets out with her two unenthusiastic cats, Galway and Maeve, on a journey from her home in Minnesota to Nova Scotia to explore the place where her French-Acadian ancestors settled in North America some four centuries ago.

As the miles roll by, she wonders: “Why do we carry this need to belong to an established history? What happens when that can’t—or shouldn’t—happen?” The road reveals more questions than answers about her history, identity, and belonging, about the responsibilities of stories and silence, about her life choices as a solo woman, and what it means to be driven by both a strong sense of kinship to a very close-knit family on one hand and a deep desire for independence on the other.

NIGHTSHINING

by

Jennifer Kabat

Floods, geoengineering, climate crisis. Her first year in Margaretville, New York, Jennifer Kabat wakes to a rain-swollen stream and her basement flooding. As she delves into the region’s fraught environmental history, it becomes clear that this is far from the first— and hardly the worst—disaster in the region. Tracing connections across time, she uncovers Cold War weather experiments, betrayals of the Mohawk Nation, and an unlikely cast of characters, including Kurt Vonnegut’s older brother, Bernard— all reflected through grief brought on by her father’s recent passing.

Inquisitive and experimental, Nightshining uses place as a palimpsest of history. With lyrical incision, Kabat mirrors her own life experience and the essence of being human—the cosmos thrumming in our bodies, connecting readers to the land around us and time before us.

SMALL WARS MANUAL

by Chris Santiago

Stemming in part from a disturbingly mundane military document of the same name, Small Wars Manual is a how-to for imperialism that critically dismantles itself with each passing line, “a pidgin // containing elements // of animus and // insubordination.”

In its wake, the very boundaries of oppression and resistance, art and justice, and power and truth are exploded.

Highly conceptual yet gutwrenching, this meticulous and visionary masterpiece of erasure poetry and other forms sinks into the cold mechanics of American warfare in the Philippines and Vietnam to reveal a brutal rhetoric. In more autobiographical sections, Chris Santiago’s own Filipino immigrant background reveals hard-lived experiences, where “stars can guide // either bayonets // or refugees” and “even small wars waged // on the living room floor” cause trepidation and harm.

In recent years, our poetic landscape has evolved in profound and exciting ways. So has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, this book challenges what we think we know about “nature poetry,” illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing.

You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation’s most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more. Each poem engages with its author’s local landscape—be it the breathtaking variety of flora in a national park, or a lone tree flowering persistently by a bus stop—offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States.

An irreverent, darkly comic novel dissecting the misjudgments, hypocrisies, and occasional good motives that drive our politics and our journalism, as well as our most intimate personal relations.

At his desk one day, prominent Washington commentator Adam Zweig receives a text message. “Btw want to give you a heads-up abt some breaking news,” it reads. “Call soonest.” These are the early rumblings of an eventual media storm generated by small-town reporter Valerie Iovine, who has gone public with her account of sexual harassment at the hands of esteemed editor and liberal icon Max Lieberthol. Twenty years have passed since the incident, and though Adam wasn’t directly involved, he quickly finds himself implicated and entangled, his career under imminent threat.

YOU ARE HERE by Ada Limon

A HOLE IN THE STORY by Ken Kalfus

THE END OF CHILDHOOD by

Wayne Miller

A tender and provocative collection of poems interrogating the troubles and wonders of both childhood and parenthood against the backdrop of global violence.

From accomplished poet Wayne Miller comes a collection examining how an individual’s story both hews to and defies larger socio-political narratives and the sweep of history. A cubist making World War I camouflage, a forlorn panel on the ethics of violence in literature, an obsessive litany of “late capitalist” activities, a military drone pilot driving home after work—here, the awkward, the sweet, and the disturbing often merge. And underlying it all is Miller’s own domestic life with two children, who highlight the hopeful and ingenious aspects of childhood, which is “not // as I had thought / the thicket of light back at the entrance // but the wind still blowing / invisibly toward me / through it.”

MAKING A LIVING

by

Rosalie Moffett

A brilliant and lithe collection of poems making space for the resolve and hope of motherhood amid consumerist dreams and nightmares.

Consumerism—its privations and raptures—seeps into all aspects of contemporary life. “Who knows me / as the search bar does, which holds / sacred its grasp of me / as a creature of habit?” probes Rosalie Moffett, reckoning with algorithms, with marketing and capital. But Making a Living isn’t just about the trappings of materialism— it’s also about the fraught trials of trying to bring forth life in a double-dealing America where all sources are suspect.

HOUSE OF CARAVANS by

Shilpi Suneja

Lahore, British India. 1943. As resentment of colonial rule grows, so do acts of rebellion. Seduced by idealistic visions, at seventeen Chhote Nanu is imprisoned for planting a bomb on behalf of the resistance, leaving his brother Barre to fight for his freedom. But Chhote is consumed not by thoughts of family and liberation, but by the beautiful half-English woman he met before his arrest. Who was she really, and who was the child with her?

Kanpur, India. 2002. Karan Khati is studying in the States when his younger sister, Ila, informs him that their grandfather Barre Nanu has died, and asks that he return home. When he arrives, he finds their estranged mother at odds with their embittered granduncle, Chhote. As hard truths and harmful legacies of familial and religious prejudice resurface, an already-fractured family must learn to heal after being driven apart by years of contentious secrets and unresolved heartache.

TERRY DACTYL by

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.

Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again. In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility.

ANALOG DAYS by Damion Searls

Acclaimed translator damion searls’s exuberant debut novella navigates the bittersweet tugof-war between nostalgia and living life meaningfully in a world buzzing with information overload.

Analog Days is a snapshot of a circle of friends living through the sorrows and joys of a particular inflection point in history. Amid the ever-present news cycles, watching the world shift around them, they fall back on film and friendship and art as the last bastions of meaning in their fragmented lives. Moving from coffee shops to bars, from New York City to San Francisco, Analog Days immerses us in the individual lives set adrift among the pivotal events of our recent history.

In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation. Thus begins an endless march of lithium, antidepressants, and Klonopin; doctors and therapists—when health insurance allows—along with overwhelmed parents and well-intentioned friends; all helpless bystanders as Alice descends deeper into chaos.

As chilling as a psychiatric case study, as wry and precise as Flaubert, The Mind Reels peels back society’s polite trappings to portray the experience of mental illness in all its complexity.

THE MIND REELS by Fredrik deBoer

HELEN OF NOWHERE by

Makenna Goodman

In the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home’s many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture. Through hearing stories of Helen’s chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his own story is not actually over—rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that’s always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated.

Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, Helen of Nowhere asks: What must we give up in exchange for true happiness?

PATCHWORK by Tom

Comitta

Tom Comitta returns with a novella that is at once a picaresque quest for a stolen snuffbox and a marvel of literary découpage, equal parts love story, old-fashioned thriller, and absurdist romp.

To whom does a story belong? Who is its author? What is an author? Does it matter? These questions and more populate the subversive and audacious Patchwork, a comical tragedy that highlights the connective tissue that joins stories to themselves as well as to the grand history of storytelling itself. Celebrating the tropes and clichés of classical novels while simultaneously forging them into an original narrative, Patchwork ultimately shows us that the stories produced by hundreds of writers past—celebrated or obscure, reverent or hilarious, factual or fantastical—may, in the hands of a master, become a single, seamless whole.

AUDITION by Pip

Adam

A genre-defying novel—part science fiction, part social realism—from one of the most powerful voices in new zealand literature today.

A spaceship called Audition is hurtling through the cosmos. Squashed immobile into its largest room are three giants: Alba, Stanley, and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing.

Talk they must, and as they do, Alba, Stanley, and Drew recover their shared memory of what has been done to their former selves— experiences of imprisonment, violence, and disempowerment.

Pip Adam’s transcendent new novel sets its eye firmly on our current justice system and asks what happens when those in power decide someone takes up too much room?

A TOAST TO ST MARTIRIA

by Albert Serra

The town of Banyoles, an hour and a half from Barcelona, hosts a festival every year named after its patron, Saint Martyrianus (or, in Catalan, Martirià). There are horse races, there are local delicacies and dances, and there is always someone elected to be the festival’s pregoner––literally, “town cryer.” This person is given the signal honor of opening the fair with a celebratory speech, and in 2022, the controversial and acclaimed filmmaker Albert Serra, born in Banyoles, was handed the microphone. He opened his mouth. . . and this book emerged, whole and entirely improvised. Puckish, confrontational, subversive, and always dripping with Serra’s impulsive lust for life, A Toast to St Martirià is a headlong journey through the director’s formative years and early relationships, all played out against the nightlife of his hometown. These are the experiences that have shaped his own peculiar conception of the movies, art, and life, focused not on metropolitan glamor but the slower pace of the countryside, the little moments lost between edits.

Set around a foster home in Kilburn and in the squares of Bloomsbury where its protagonist Hannah sleeps, The Seers chronicles the first weeks of a young Eritrean refugee in London. As Hannah grapples with her own agency in a strange country, her sexual encounters become an unapologetic expression of self—a defiant cry against the endless bureaucracy of immigration.

In a single, gripping, continuous paragraph, The Seers moves between past and present to paint a surreal and sensual portrait of a life being burned up in search of refuge. For Hannah, caught between worlds in the UK asylum system, the West is both savior and abuser, seeking always to shape her, but never succeeding in suppressing her voice.

NO NAMES by Greg

Hewett

Inspired by the iconic punk scene of the late ‘70s, no names blurs the lines of affection and sexuality in a haunting tale of desire, hope, and loss.

Mike and Pete were “no names,” two working-class boys lost in the shuffle of their stratified town, brought together by their love of music. By 1978, their punk band was blazing across the underground scene. Now, in 1993, Mike is a hermit living alone on a dot of an island in the North Atlantic. When a mysterious letter from an unlikely fan named Isaac arrives, he’s pulled right back into the pain he’s spent over a decade running from.

Isaac longs for an escape from his lonely teenage life. A chance discovery of the No Names’ only album catapults him into an obsession with the godlike rockers and the tantalizing possibility of connection.

As their stories collide, mistakes breed consequences that echo through the decades like the furious reverberations of a power chord.

THE SEERS by Sulaiman Addonia

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.”

— NEIL GAIMAN

SHELF