Support independent literary publishers by picking a read from the list below, which features new books forthcoming in January 2023 from CLMP members.
Against the Written Word: Toward a Universal Illiteracy by Ian F. Svenonius
Akashic Books | January 3, 2023
According to Publishers Weekly, “Wielding the satiric tone of a Gen-X Jonathan Swift or leftist Andy Kaufman . . . Svenonius is an engaging companion . . . and he lands some scathing blows.”
Helen of Troy is High AF by Sonia Greenfield
Harbor Editions | January 5, 2023
These persona poems “in the voices of the women of The Odyssey take a merciless look at the misogyny that informs the epic—and our contemporary culture as well.”
Twice-Born World: Stories of Lithuania by Wendell Mayo
Deerbrook Editions | January 8, 2023
In this short fiction collection, Mayo “captures the fractured, mournful soul of modern Lithuania like no other writer,” exploring themes of “grief, loneliness, the impossibility of communication, the inexplicability of desire.”
Coolest Stories Press | January 10, 2023
In the second volume of this annual short fiction anthology edited by Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey, “America’s most talented storytellers share their most interesting, engaging, unputdownable work.”
Homesick for Nowhere by Richard LeBlond
EastOver Press | January 10, 2023
LeBlond travels across North America in these essays, reporting “with clarity and humor on the natural world and the two- and four-legged animals who inhabit it.”
Story & Bone by Deborah Leipziger
Lily Poetry Review Books | January 10, 2023
According to Adam Sol, “Story & Bone dives deep into language in search of identity, memory, intimacy, and connection.”
All Things Are Born to Change Their Shapes by Jennifer Martelli
Harbor Editions | January 12, 2023
Martelli’s poetry chapbook is a reminder “that women have been mythologized as a means to control, and, therefore, it is best to lean into this mythology and adopt the guise of the witch we are so often accused of being, or risk eclipse.”
Kelp Books | January 13, 2023
The noir in this anthology edited by David M. Olsen “features old school legends, alongside the brightest emerging writers in the game.”
Future Botanic by Christina Olivares
Get Fresh Books Publishing | January 15, 2023
Olivares’s poems are “lyrical meditations- in some cases, spells- that embody, vivify and reckon with the geography of the Americas and the centuries-long postcolonial condition.”
Fierce Geometry by Mary Brancaccio
Get Fresh Books Publishing | January 15, 2023
Brancaccio’s poetry collection “travels the emotive back roads and roadside attractions along one woman’s journey through longing, love and loss.”
The Little Deaths by Mercy Tullis-Bukhari
Get Fresh Books Publishing | January 15, 2023
In The Little Deaths, Mercy Tullis-Bukhari “shows the influence of existential rebirths in the human interactions of the everyday.”
Someone Speaks Your Name by Luis García Montero
Translated from the Spanish by Katie King
Swan Isle Press | January 15, 2023
In this coming-of-age novel, “León discovers that, under the repressive Franco dictatorship, people, places, and events are not always what they seem.”
The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel
Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
New Vessel Press | January 17, 2023
According to Patrick Nathan, “Gardel’s love story is a delirium of a novel that reminds its readers of an uncomfortable truth: that even a life of regret can be a beautiful one.”
Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Graywolf Press | January 17, 2023
In this essay collection, Dangarembga “examines the legacy of imperialism on her own life and on every aspect of black embodied African life.”
A New Race of Men from Heaven by Chaitali Sen
Sarabande Books | January 17, 2023
A New Race of Men from Heaven is a collection of stories “about characters who wander but are never truly lost.”
Boundless as the Sky by Dawn Raffel
Sagging Meniscus Press | January 17, 2023
Raffel’s poetry collection in two parts “is a book of the invisible histories that repose beneath the cities we inhabit, and the worlds we try to build out of words.”
The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants by Renee Emerson
Belle Point Press | January 17, 2023
In her poetry chapbook, Emerson “evokes the sacramental through the most ephemerally permanent materials around us.”
It’s About Time by J.R. Solonche
Deerbrook Editions | January 20, 2023
According to David Mark Williams, “Solonche is revealed as a philosopher in the mould of Wittgenstein: aphoristic, charismatic, acerbic and oddly mystical.”
Nothing Is a Cure by Jeff Horwat
Wolfson Press | January 23, 2023
The protagonist in this wordless graphic novel “explores a disorienting checker-board terrain that is strewn with bones even as vines and flowers burst through the cracks.”
Exquisite by September by Shayla Hawkins
EastOver Press | January 24, 2023
Hawkins “merges the female form’s everyday with the exotic, acknowledging the male gaze through ekphrastic poems inspired by the artwork of men who were inspired by women.”
Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman
Bellevue Literary Press | January 24, 2023
In this essay collection, published posthumously, Talve-Goodman “tells the story of her chronic illness and her youthful search for love and meaning, never forgetting that her adult life is tied to the loss of another person—the donor of her transplanted heart.”
Warrior Princesses Strike Back by Sarah Eagle Heart and Emma Eagle Heart-White
Feminist Press | January 24, 2023
“Interspersing personal memoir with radical notions of self-help and collective recovery,” this memoir “focuses how Indigenous activist strategies can be a crucial roadmap for contemporary truth and healing.”
Unbound: A Book of AIDS by Aaron Shurin
Nightboat Books | January 24, 2023
Unbound is Shurin’s “intimate account of life in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s during the apex of the AIDS epidemic.”
Arboretum in a Jar by Frances Donovan
Lily Poetry Review Books | January 27, 2023
According to Kevin Prufer, “Donovan weaves lyric poetry with memoir, dramatic personae with careful self-reflection, all in complex meditation on trauma, sexual awakening, recovery, and femininity.”
Slate Roof Press | January 30, 2023
According to Jeffrey Thomson, this poetry chapbook “is a book of wonder, blood, and holy longing for flowers and seeds and wind and stone and their echoes in the human form.”
The Cracker Box Poems by Joe Benevento
Mouthfeel Press | January 30, 2023
According to Larry D. Thomas, “Benevento continues his laser-like depiction of the blue-collar, Italian American culture of his Queens childhood, coming of age, and subsequent adulthood spent in other locales.”
Night Letter by Sterling Watson
Akashic Books | January 31, 2023
Ninth Letter is “a taut thriller set in Florida’s desolate panhandle, part coming-of-age story, all hard-boiled noir.”
Eye Brother Horn by Bridget Pitt
Catalyst Press | January 31, 2023
This novel “is the heart-wrenching story of how two children born of vastly different worlds strive to forge a true brotherhood with each other and with other species, and to find ways to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the colonial expansion project.”
Pearl of the Sea by Anthony Silverston and Raffaella Delle Donne
Catalyst Press | January 31, 2023
Illustrated by Willem Samuel, this graphic novel for young adults “is a South African adventure story exploring how we are both bound to and freed by nature, seen through the eyes of a tough teen-aged heroine determined to live life by her own rules.”
Autofocus Books | January 31, 2023
Caine’s poetry collection “attempts (and maybe fails) to define “home” in an era when the future is uncertain and everything feels a little bit off.”
