To help bookstores and libraries share books published by independent literary presses, we’ve put together this roundup of memoirs published in 2025 and 2026.
How to Be Unmothered: A Trinidadian Memoir by Camille U. Adams
Restless Books | August 19, 2025
Distributor: Publishers Group West
ISBN: 978-1-63206-395-3
“Mapping the fault lines between mother and child,” Adams’s memoir “weaves the Caribbean island’s history of colonial violence with her own family’s legacy of abandonment.”
Dique Dominican by Ayendy Bonifacio
Unsolicited Press | January 31, 2026
Distributor: Asterism Books
ISBN: 978-1-963115-67-3
“With lyrical precision and emotional honesty,” Bonifacio “reflects on the immigrant experience, identity, language, and belonging” in this debut memoir.
Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn by Jeff Copeland
Feral House | February 11, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 978-1-62731-159-5
This memoir follows a “young, aspiring writer desperate for a break … and the legendary Andy Warhol superstar who gave him the story of a lifetime.”
In the Evening, We’ll Dance: A Memoir in Essays on Love & Dementia by Anne-Marie Erickson
Holy Cow! Press | August 20, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 978-1-66640-695-5
In this memoir, Erickson “lays bare the onset and eventual passing of her husband from dementia.”
Map of a Heart by Jacque Gorelick
Vine Leaves Press | February 17, 2026
Distributor: Ingram
ISBN: 978-3-98832-226-5
In this memoir, Gorelick “must advocate for her comatose husband’s life while caring for their newborn, navigating tenuous family dynamics, and confronting the ghosts of her past.”
A Body Made Home: They Black Trans Love by K. Marshall Green
The Feminist Press | February 24, 2026
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 978-1-55861-322-5
“Laced through his accounts of traversing discrimination, misunderstanding, and abuse from family, society, and academia,” Green’s memoir features “experiments in letter writing and biomythography, continuing in the literary tradition of Audre Lorde.”
The Boat Not Taken by Joanna Choi Kalbus
WTAW Press | May 6, 2025
Distributor: Independent Publishers Group
ISBN: 979-8-9877197-9-4
This “lyrical, often humorous” memoir is “a love letter to an extraordinary woman: an independent widow fiercely devoted yet destructively deceptive to her child.”
To Hell with Poverty!: A Class Act: Inside the Gang of Four by Jon King
Akashic Books | June 3, 2025
Distributor: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 978-1-63614-234-0
This memoir “documents King’s story from a south London slum and working-class background to international success as core musician, lyricist, writer, and producer in the legendary post-punk/funk band Gang of Four.”
Lost Found Kept by Deborah Derrickson Kossmann
Trio House Press | January 5, 2025
Distributor: Ingram
ISBN: 978-1-949487-33-6
In this memoir about her mother’s hoarding, Kossmann “comes to understand what’s been lost, what’s been found and what’s been kept in both her own and her mother’s life.”
Walking the Tideline: Loss and Renewal on the Oregon Coast Trail by Caroline Kurtz
Catalyst Press | July 8, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 978-1-960803-17-7
In this memoir, Kurtz “travels the coast of Oregon on foot in her late sixties, tracing the boundary of sand and salt water, rock and forests, carrying her shelter and food as she navigates the edges of solace and resolution after the death of her husband.”
Encounters with Men by Bob Ostertag
Black Lawrence Press | January 21, 2025
Distributor: Independent Publishers Group
ISBN: 978-1-62557-089-5
This memoir contains a “lifetime of intimacies and distances, moments with fathers and teachers, friends and lovers, soldiers, cops, and criminals—even one of the great mass murderers of the late twentieth century.”
Brooding Upon the Waters: A Memoir of Farming, Fishing, and Failure in America’s Lost Landscape by Howard Schaap
Slant Books | December 2, 2025
Distributor: Ingram
ISBN: 978-1-63982-208-9
Schaap’s memoir details his father’s journey “from Minnesota’s Young Farmer of the Year to financial failure in the farm crisis to a bed in the neurology wing of Mayo Clinic.”
The Dead Dad Diaries by Erin Slaughter
Autofocus Books | September 23, 2025
Distributor: Asterism Books
ISBN: 978-1-957392-40-0
“Part true-crime story, part poetic meditation on seeking to know a parent posthumously,” this memoir “confronts the impact of domestic violence and hereditary addiction on a family lineage, and questions the extent to which we can trust the stories we tell ourselves.”
Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz
Nightboat Books | July 29, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 978-1-64362-271-2
In this hybrid memoir, Wojnarowicz, “one of the most provocative artists of his generation, explores memory, violence, and the erotism of public space—all under the specter of AIDS.”
