Support independent literary publishers by picking a read from the list below, which features new books forthcoming in January 2024 from CLMP members.
Sleeplessness by Paul Hetherington
Pierian Springs Press | January 1, 2024
According to Kristin Sanders, in this poetry collection “two loves traverse a landscape—at once tangible and metaphoric—of insomnia, intimacy, desire, and language.”
Wandering Aengus Press | January 1, 2024
According to Jill Christman, this essay collection “is like a walk through the woods with your smartest, funniest, most observant friend—in the excellent company of at least two dogs.”
Solstice: A Winter Anthology (Volume 3)
Devil’s Party Press | January 1, 2024
This anthology edited by Terri Clifton includes writing by Renee Rockland, Alberto Ambard, Jill Wooddell Aller, Kim Hoey, Patricia Esposito, and more.
Regal House Publishing | January 2, 2024
Through vignettes, essays, snapshots, portraits, and poems, Music in the Halls “brings to light the visceral and emotional nature of childhood poverty and trauma and how it not only impacts a student’s ability to learn but also how it restricts their ability to live a full life.”
What My Hound Dog Is Scenting Through the Sloughgrass Is a Way of Scenting Me by George Kalamaras
Wolfson Press | January 2, 2024
Kalamaras’s new poetry collection “is an intimate appreciation of hound dogs of all breeds and a Whitmanesque celebration of American life.”
30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry Prompts Inspired by Trio House Press Poets
Trio House Press | January 5, 2024
Edited by Kris Bigalk, this book collects work by Trio House Press poets alongside prompts “inspired by various literary devices these poets uniquely employ.”
The Unrooted Bloom by Amber Allen-Peirson
Black Lawrence Press | January 5, 2024
Cat Brooks writes of Allen-Peirson’s poetry, “Vulnerability, rage, sorrow jumps off the page as her pen pours out hope, bruising, fear and prayers for the men and children in our lives.”
Akashic Books | January 9, 2024
This picture book, based on the Bee Gees’s classic love song and illustrated by J. L. Meyer, “tells the tale of two bunny mermaids who meet on a rock and descend into the water together.”
Coming Clean by Beth Uznis Johnson
Regal House Publishing | January 9, 2024
In this novel “Dawn, a self-employed cleaning lady in upstate New York, agrees to pose in the houses she cleans for her friend Matthew’s provocative photography project.”
Besaydoo by Yalie Saweda Kamara
Milkweed Editions | January 9, 2024
According to Ross Gay, “Besaydoo is a prayer, a prayer for all of us, which Yalie Saweda Kamara reminds us a book sometimes can be.”
Grove Atlantic | January 9, 2024
Invisible Woman is “at once a literary thriller about the lies we tell each other (and ourselves), and a powerful psychological examination of the complexities of friendship, marriage, and motherhood.”
Cold Victory by Karl Marlantes
Grove Atlantic | January 9, 2024
This novel is “layered with fast-paced action, historical detail, and a keen eye for the way totalitarianism and loss of truth and privacy threatens love and friendship.”
Lemuria: A True Story of a Fake Place by Justin McHenry
Feral House | January 9, 2024
In this book McHenry “provides a thoughtful exploration of how pseudo-science hijacked the gentle Victorian-era concept of Lemuria and, in following decades, twisted it into an all-encompassing home for alternative ideas about race, spirituality, science, politics, and the paranormal.”
There Will Never Be Another Night Like This by John Salter
Slant Books | January 9, 2024
In this short fiction collection, Salter’s “insights into the human condition, its dreams and nightmares, are always unflinching but never without compassion.”
How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems by Mikeas Sánchez
Translated from the Zoque and Spanish by Wendy Call and Shook
Milkweed Editions | January 9, 2024
Sánchez’s poems “fuse cosmology, lineage, feminism, and environmental activism into a singular body of work that stands for the self and the collective in the same instant.”
FlowerSong Press | January 10, 2024
Sáenz’s work “beautifully explores the complexities of classrooms, embracing hope, despair, resilience, and joy.”
The Bones Beneath by Sheila Smith McKoy
Black Lawrence Press | January 12, 2024
The Bones Beneath “captures what it means to be American, Southern, diasporan, what it means to belong and not to belong, and finding many ways home.”
Celia in the Revolution by Elena Fortún
Translated from the Spanish by Michael Ugarte
Swan Isle Press | January 15, 2024
In the final book in Fortún’s Celia series, set during the Spanish Civil War, “Celia, now a madrecita, a little mother to her two younger sisters since the death of their mother, is forced into a life of hardship.”
Finding Duende by Federico García Lorca
Translated from the Spanish by Christopher Maurer
Swan Isle Press | January 15, 2024
This new translation of Lorca’s lecture on duende “provides a path into Lorca’s poetics and the arts of Spain.”
Sun Don’t Shine by Crissa-Jean Chappell
Regal House Publishing | January 16, 2024
In this YA novel, sixteen-year-old Reece “begins to realize that everyone else has secrets too. And the deadliest secret of all is the one her father has kept from her all these years.”
Isn’t She Great: Writers on Women-Led Comedies from 9 to 5 to Booksmart
Read Furiously | January 16, 2024
Edited by Elizabeth Teets, this anthology is “a collection of the most beloved female-centric comedies and the audiences who adore them.”
The Case of Cem by Vera Mutafchieva
Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Sandorf Passage | January 16, 2024
This novel, “presented as a series of depositions by historical figures before a court, tells a straightforward tale: Upon the death of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in 1481, his eldest son Bayezid takes the throne.”
Unbend the River by Devin Murphy
Black Lawrence Press | January 19, 2024
The characters in this collection of linked stories set in Western New York, “all of whom are tied to a modern knife manufacturing plant, illustrate all the ways love and longing shapeshift over the course of a long life.”
Bear Lexicon by Eric Fisher Stone
Clare Songbirds Publishing House | January 19, 2024
Bear Lexicon is Stone’s third collection of poetry.
Europa Editions | January 23, 2024
Bristow’s latest novel is “a fascinating coming-of-age novel about magic and the choices that define future generations.”
Harbor Lights Stories by James Lee Burke
Grove Atlantic | January 23, 2024
The eight stories in this collection “move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the South.”
Snowfire and Home by Alexander Etheridge
Belle Point Press | January 23, 2024
In these poems Etheridge “calls readers’ attention to what remains amidst a landscape fated for desolation even as it moves toward seasons of renewal.”
Raised by Wolves: Fifty Poets on Fifty Poems
Graywolf Press | January 23, 2024
In this “choral arrangement of voices and lineages across decades, languages, styles, and divergences,” fifty Graywolf poets have selected fifty poems by Graywolf poets and offered prose reflections on their selections.
The Singularity by Balsam Karam
Translated from the Spanish by Saskia Vogel
Feminist Press | January 24, 2024
Set in an unnamed city filled with refugees, this novel is “a breathtaking study of grief, migration, and motherhood.”
Dressing the Saints by Aracelis González Asendorf
Black Lawrence Press | January 26, 2024
According to Cristina Garcia, Dressing the Saints is “a beautiful collection of short stories that captures the losses, family allegiances, and ruptures of Cuban exile.”
Thirty West Publishing | January 26, 2024
This debut short fiction collection “merges the brutal with the surreal, blurring the line between safety and danger, sinner and saint.”
The Flying African by Areg Azatyan
Translated from the Armenian by Nazareth Seferian
Frayed Edge Press | January 30, 2024
This novel “follows the journey of an unnamed traveler, a young Armenian writer who spends fifty-four adventurous days in Africa, one day in each of the continent’s countries.”
One Hour of Fervor by Muriel Barbery
Europa Editions | January 30, 2024
In this novel Barbery “explores the deep love of a father, and what is gained and what is lost when one chooses a ‘family’ of friends over one’s biological family.”
Swanna in Love by Jennifer Belle
Akashic Books | January 30, 2024
Belle’s latest novel is “a kind of inverse Lolita that explores adolescent desire from the girl’s point of view.”
Slant Books | January 30, 2024
The poems in Porto’s debut collection “range from encounters with ancient biblical and mythological tropes to fresh translations of elegiac Anglo-Saxon verse to sojourns from Texas to Taiwan and Vermont to Venice.”
Regal House Publishing | January 30, 2024
This novel follows a former literary agent who, after four years in prison for a crime of passion, “receives an early release from Sing Sing to join an FBI undercover investigation of multiple murders in Manhattan.”
People Without Wings by Morgan Christie
Digging Press | January 31, 2024
Winner of the 2022 Digging Press Chapbook Series Award, this collection of three stories “invites you to explore the depths of grief, the heights of transformation, and the beauty of human connection.”
