Support independent literary publishers by picking a read from the list below, which features new books released by CLMP members in August 2026.
Anvil Press | August 1, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-772142-57-0
In Grace’s debut poetry collection, “water becomes both vessel and mirror, reflecting how we adapt, how we hold grief and joy at once, and how we learn, finally, to flow.”
Bottles of Provincetown by Kyle Ezra Katz
Rainproof Press | August 1, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9945143-1-3
In this photography chapbook, “the author, an inveterate beachcomber and historian of things, presents ten antique bottles found in Provincetown Harbor” along with “amusing tidbits from contemporary advertisements.”
We Are Busy Being Alive by Rishi Midha
Anvil Press | August 1, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-772142-54-9
“Set in a North American milieu of detachment and alienation,” the short stories in this collection “document the attempts of disillusioned characters to re-enchant themselves with a seemingly indifferent world.”
Poetose | August 1, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64672-367-6
“Moving from the microscopic view of a chemist to the macroscopic view of a geologist, the mathematical view of an architect to the exuberant view of a painter,” these poems “delight in and resist the notion of an ‘occupation.’’
Graywolf Press | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64445-402-2
This novel is a “pointed satire about a Nigerian on vacation in Europe, into the heart of whiteness” that “confronts the absurdities of Europe and the West’s ideas about the global south.”
The Depopulation by Marina Closs
Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead
Bellevue Literary Press | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-954276-60-4
This novel is “set in a 17th-century Jesuit mission founded within the wild South American subtropics by the mystical and intense Father Ruiz and his assistant Father Maceta.”
The Hanged Man by Katherine Conner
Black Lawrence Press | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-62557-221-9
“Against the surreal landscape of the deep south, three Lebanese-American sisters encounter their missing mother six years after she vanished from their lives” in this collection of linked stories.
Across the Endless Night by Robert Crooke
Unsolicited Press | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-963115-78-9
In this novel, an aging man surrounded by family is “astonished by their generosity of spirit and by the future they imagine for themselves—one that feels both fragile and radiant amid a nation divided.”
Santa Fe Writers Project | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-951631-63-5
In this novel set in the 1980s, a young woman “grapples with the weight of tragedy and life, scrapes bottom, and finally discovers the elusive route to recovery, along with a hard truth: the black dog of addiction doesn’t die.”
Graywolf Press | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64445-400-8
This multi-genre nonfiction collection “follows the turbulent friendship between two composite characters, the narrator and the theorist, self-identified sisters struggling to define their wounded histories.”
Dispatches From the Kingdom of Outsiders: Writing on Music, Culture and More 1979-2025 by Tim Sommer
Trouser Press Books | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9990487-3-8
“Part memoir, part high-octane cultural criticism,” this collection of essays “documents a vanished era when knowledge was precious currency and a T-shirt was a flare sent up to find fellow survivors.”
Spiegel & Grau | August 4, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-966302-23-0
“Steeped in Icelandic folklore and myth,” this novel is a “gripping story of a child’s disappearance, a testament to the power of a mother’s love, and an enthralling tale of redemption and forgiveness.”
Thanks for Meeting Me Here by Jill Bronfman
Raven Chronicles Press | August 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798991403276
In this novel, “Miranda has wound up with a mix of biological and artificial body parts,” and “she and her daughter are in danger because their government is waffling on whether she deserves any human rights.”
Transformations: Wood/metal/stone/sundry
Raven Chronicles Press | August 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798991403283
In this multi-genre anthology edited by Scott Martin, thirty-eight contributors “share their appreciation for ‘weathered and/or broken, bent, decayed, or rusted objects’ that have inspired their poems and essays.”
Junkie Boy ~ A MotherWork by Linnea Wortham Harper
Finishing Line Press | August 7, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-89990-607-7
“While evoking the collective voice of all who have tried to keep their children safe,” in this poetry collection Harper’s “singular narrative of her son’s addiction, of loss, grief, endurance and flickering hope, is made universal.”
The Temple of Happiness by Marcella Durand
Black Square Editions | August 8, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-996167-00-5
Durand’s collection “explores the creative-emotional processes behind building a Temple of Happiness, laying poems one upon the other over loss, anxiety, love and beauty almost too intense to bear.”
Lessons from a Lost Republic by Michelle Berenfeld
Spiegel & Grau | August 11, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-966302-21-6
In this “lively pocket history of the Roman Republic’s collapse,” Berenfeld’s argument is “both clarifying and urgent: Rome’s slide into autocracy was not inevitable—and neither is ours.”
Line Affairs by Lawdenmarc Decamora
Fernwood Press | August 11, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-59498-231-6
This poetry collection “moves between the Philippines and elsewhere, between history’s inheritances and the urgencies of the present.”
Unsolicited Press | August 11, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-969421-04-4
This memoir tells the story of one woman’s experience on “the morning of December 26, 2004,” when “an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean.”
Wounded Boarders by George Singleton
Dzanc Books | August 11, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-938603-94-5
“Undeniably Southern in nature,” these short stories “capture the absurdity of the mundane, offering a glimpse into the routines and recollections of imperfect people whose lives are stranger than fiction.”
Regal House Publishing | August 11, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64603-741-4
According to Eric Rawson, in his debut novel Wyatt “ventures into the timeless landscape of the American South, where past and present are distilled into a fragrance as potent as moonshine and as evocative as a whiff of honeysuckle.”
Zip It Up! Too: More of the Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974-1984
Trouser Press Books | August 11, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9990487-9-0
This anthology of Trouser Press magazine articles edited by Ira A. Robbins “contains more enthusiastic, in-depth coverage of a diverse collection of artists, from classic rock to new wave/punk and beyond.”
upon waking by Margaret Bleichman
Finishing Line Press | August 14, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-89990-616-9
The poems in this collection are “informed by Bleichman’s lived experience as a first-generation Jewish American with immigrant/refugee/survivor parents” and “investigate the experiences of people in different diasporic, displaced, and suppressed communities.”
House of Wandering by Lucyna Prostko
Finishing Line Press | August 14, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-89990-618-3
This collection is a “tribute to the poet’s origins in northeastern Poland, exploring both the magic of the storytelling and the scars of trauma.”
Reckless Shelter by Karen Holmberg
Cider Press Review | August 17, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-930781-69-6
According to V. Penelope Pelizzon, Holmberg’s poetry uses “sumptuous figurative language to praise the restorative power of friendship, mourn lost elders, and look forward with wary hope as her own daughters come of age.”
Dreams of Ayn Ara by Sara Abou Ghazal
Translated from the Arabic by Katharine Halls
The Feminist Press | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-55861-364-5
Ghazal’s English-language debut novel “traces the worldwide, timewide scatter of the Abu Sukkar family in the wake of the 1948 Nakba and its displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.”
Against Certainty by Scott Cairns
Slant Books | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-63982-232-4
Throughout this poetry collection forty years in the making, “one common disposition obtains: a genuine poem is never finished in its effort to lead a reader into further meaning-making.”
This Far North by Susan Campbell
Boreal Books | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-59709-964-6
“Tethered to northern landscapes,” this poetry collection “invites readers to look, look deeper at the world’s myriad wonders, to pause and consider what we can learn when we stand still long enough.”
POW! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84 by Tony Fletcher
Trouser Press Books | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9990487-7-6
This memoir tells “the tale of a naïve young man in a cultural whirlwind who learns some hard lessons about business, journalism, love and sex—all while trying to get his own band a record deal.”
A Season in Heck & Other Poems by Justin Lacour
Fernwood Press | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-59498-239-2
“With a searing honesty and a resilient sense of humor,” the poems in this debut collection “speak bluntly about addiction, depression, and anxiety, but also the possibility of grace and mercy.”
Translated from the Danish by Caroline Waight
Graywolf Press | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64445-404-6
Nors’s novel is “a gripping investigation of the many kinds of distance we cross through space and time.”
The Smallest Mistake We Call Human by Isaac Pickell
Black Lawrence Press | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-62557-226-4
In this poetry collection, Pickell “writes from the middle of things: the tensions between Blackness and Jewishness, between loss and inheritance, between being seen and being claimed.”
Murmuration Archives by Felicia Zamora
Noemi Press | August 18, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-955992-71-8
In this poetry collection, Zamora “traverses overlapping orbits of an ancient Mesoamerican codex, lineage, and her stage two breast cancer treatment,” reminding us that “the body is the first archive.”
Village: Recession by Jo Pitkin
Finishing Line Press | August 21, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-89990-621-3
This poetry collection “explores the Great Recession of the early 2000s from the intimate vantage point of an American village, documenting the effects of this worldwide economic meltdown on friends, family, and neighbors.”
Emigrant from an Imagined Country by James Wyshynski
Finishing Line Press | August 21, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-89990-622-0
The poems in Wyshysnki’s collection “delve into how loss, grief and trauma affect a third generation Ukrainian who grew up in the Bronx in the late 70s.”
Stepdad on the Dance Floor by Timothy Boudreau
Unsolicited Press | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-963115-74-1
“Set in familiar American landscapes,” the short stories in this collection “allow the uncanny to surface quietly, transforming everyday moments into acts of reckoning or grace.”
Daytona Teddy Riggs by Drew Buxton
Hub City Press | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 9798885740784
“At once an outrageous comedy, a biting satire of the self-help industry, and an earnest look at the facets of obsession,” this debut novel “chronicles how masculinity, privilege, and mental illness intersect.”
A Shadow of Jaguars by DC Frost
Canis Major Books | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-63628-506-1
This mystery novel “finds DJ and partner Bobby Talbot struggling to untangle a murder where Hollywood, wealthy powerbrokers, and an immigrant population struggle to coexist and survive.”
Translated from the Kurdish by Chiya Parvizpur and Hourieh Maleki Qouzloo
Henar Press | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-968327-00-2
“Told through contradicting, unreliable narrators and almost entirely in dialogue,” this novel set in a Kurdish village creates a “seldom explored portrait of friendship and boyhood under the anarchy of occupation.”
Landscape with Rocks, Sky, Nails by Judy Kaber
Fernwood Press | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-59498-234-7
This poetry collection depicts the natural world as well as “the human world with its strengths and weaknesses and its close relationship to this wild ecosphere.”
Fruits of Our Labor by Ian Patterson
Shiraki Press | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-970458-09-1
In this novel about parthenogenetic birth, “converging perspectives tell the story of a profound societal transformation that asks what it means to have autonomy, who reaps the rewards, and who the future is for.”
The Train to Santa Fe by Ginger Pinholster
Regal House Publishing | August 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64603-744-5
“Inspired by historical accounts,” this novel beginning in 1880 “imagines the impact of the railroad’s arrival in northern New Mexico, tracing one family’s story across generations.”
His Martian Apprentice by Chaz Brenchley
Wizard’s Tower Press | August 27, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-917950-35-0
In this novel, Sherlock Holmes’s doctors “have recommended that he retire to Mars, where the lower gravity will be easier on him, and he’ll be away from the bustle of London.”
TRP: The University Press of SHSU | August 28, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-68003-466-0
“Through the rich colors and sounds of vivid rural and urban South India,” the characters in these short stories “across class, gender, and generational barriers, set out alone in search of someone or something missing.”
Making the Turn by Wyatt Townley
Lost Horse Press | August 31, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-993313-91-7
This poetry collection explores how “life takes many turns from birth to death and back, through love and illness, trauma and ecstasy.”
