Support independent literary publishers by picking a read from the list below, which features new books forthcoming in July 2025 from CLMP members.
Lit Fox Books | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-9922329-0-5
According to Patrick Phillips, this debut features “unflinching poems from a writer who knows how to summon her ghosts and make them sing.”
Rooms for the Dead and the Not Yet by Rhoni Blankenhorn
Trio House Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-35-0
“Slipping between exterior and interior with an unflinching gaze,” this poetry collection “invites us to embrace the impossible complexity of human experience.”
Trio House Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-34-3
This poetry collection “explores our constant cycle of reinvention and imitation, an engine that both holds us back and moves us forward.”
Tips to Help You Do Your Best by Mike Carlson
Tupelo Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-961209-34-3
“Written over a fifteen-year period,” the poems in this collection “seek an imaginative wisdom on the outskirts of conventional thinking.”
Abode Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-9900598-6-3
This hybrid poetry collection “weaves theories of survival and transformation in the face of negotiating rage, grief, pleasure, kinship, and the Korean diaspora.”
Watch Out for Falling Iguanas: A Children’s Picture Book by Edwidge Danticat
Akashic Books | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-63614-232-6
Illustrated by Rachel Moss, this picture book “teaches children about iguanas’ unique behaviors while celebrating the bonds between generations and the wonders of the natural world.”
The Magic Kingdom by Stanley Elkin
Deep Vellum | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-62897-608-3
This novel “tells the story of Eddy Bale, who, determined to learn from the ghastly experience of his son’s long, drawn-out death, decides to give seven terminally ill children a dream vacation before they die.”
Our Human Shores by Josh Fomon
Black Ocean | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-965154-01-4
This poetry collection explores a “tautology of thresholds and shores to remake our world, our experience of nature, and our relationship with climate, creation, and humankind’s existential place in a world staring down the apocalypse.”
Bobbito’s Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! A Memoir of Sports, Style, and Soul by Bobbito García
Akashic Books | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-63614-230-2
In this basketball-themed memoir, García “chronicles his unlikely experiences in and around the game as a Latino raised on hip hop.”
Trio House Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-36-7
This poetry collection “embodies the meaning of the word ‘mele’ – a Hawaiian song or chant traditionally used to preserve history through the oral tradition.”
Bellevue Literary Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-954276-38-3
This historical novel “calls into question the American belief in individualism to shape our destiny when confronted with irrepressible, chaotic forces.”
Nightboat Books | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64362-277-4
“Documenting (and interrogating) the poet’s daily walks,” this collection “investigates the twin practices of walking and art-making while aging.”
The Grace of Black Mothers by Martheaus Perkins
Trio House Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-42-8
The poems in this collection are “drenched in complexity and nuance: homemade heroes and villains, justice and fabrication, wit and risk, resurrection and erasure.”
Voice/Poems by Susan Azar Porterfield
Trio House Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-46-6
According to Zeeshan Pathan, Porterfield is a “master of restraint and deeply mines the domestic interior of her life in poem after poem.”
I Watched You from the Ocean Floor by Erin Cecilia Thomas
Modern Artist Press | July 1, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-964403-02-1
This book is an “evocative debut story collection that explores the depths of grief, loss, and resilience.”
An American Girl by Richard Fellinger
Serving House Books | July 2, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-947175-92-1
“When Emma’s asked to help create a list of diverse books for their school district, her life intersects with other unforgettable local characters” in this novel.
Pelekinesis | July 7, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949790-98-6
This anthology edited by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Dawn Raffel “provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer.”
The Girl with the Black Lipstick by Mary Biddinger
Black Lawrence Press | July 8, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-62557-161-8
In this novella set in late-90s Chicago, “creative writing graduate student Mary Van Pelt and her eccentric roommate navigate the collision between party life, domestic harmony, and academic ambition.”
A Long Way From Anywhere: Living Off-Grid In The American West by Norah Esty
Unsolicited Press | July 8, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-963115-48-2
In this memoir, Esty “takes readers on her surprising journey from math prodigy and tenured professor to a homesteader in the rugged landscapes of Eastern Oregon.”
Oh, Give Me A Home by Jane Kurtz
Catalyst Press | July 8, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-960803-20-7
This memoir in verse “relates the story of a girl’s inside-out view of America as she journeys from Ethiopia, searches for friends and belonging.”
Walking the Tideline: Loss and Renewal on the Oregon Coast Trailby Caroline Kurtz
Catalyst Press | July 8, 2025
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.”
Translated from the Faroese by Randi Ward
Deep Vellum | July 8, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64605-372-8
This poetry collection “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.”
Ripples in the River by Soorya Townley
Vine Leaves Press | July 8, 2025
ISBN: 978-3-98832-159-6
This true crime memoir is a “modern-day David and Goliath battle, a mother’s journey through unthinkable grief, and a spiritual testament to the power of love.”
Glossogenesis by Cynthia White
Sundress Publications | July 8, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-951979-78-2
In this poetry collection, White “reminds us of the power of language—one of our oldest systems—while reflecting on her most impactful relationships.”
2.5 Patients Per Hour by Carlin Corsino
Fallen Tree Press | July 9, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-9860861-5-6
According to Stacy R. Nigliazzo, this poetry collection illustrates that “the emergency room is a wound and a remedy, a wasteland and a river.”
Black Lawrence Press | July 15, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-62557-162-5
This poetry collection is a “vibrant, genre-busting collection of voices, observations and memories that trigger nostalgia of a lost time, lost neighborhood, lost city.”
The Show Must Go On by Mary Warren Foulk
Fernwood Press | July 15, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-59498-165-4
This memoir in poems “centers on the topics of sibling loss and queer identity, including queer parenting.”
The Gobi of Was by George Kalamaras
Black Square Editions | July 15, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-9860370-4-2
“Drawing on his long-term engagement with Surrealism,” the poems in Kalamaras’s collection “move across time and space in ways that plumb the depths of the unconscious, helping to re-imagine the Gobi Desert as not just physical geography but also as a landscape within.”
Split/Lip Press | July 15, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-952897-45-0
“Contaminated by literature and compelled by the impossibility of translating one another, two young lovers fall in love against their better judgment” in this book-length essay.
Philosophical Toys by Susana Medina
Deep Vellum | July 15, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-62897-572-7
This book is a “cerebral novel about our relationship to objects, filled with ruminations on sexuality, money, and Luis Buñuel.”
new words {press} | July 15, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-968528-01-0
“Reconsidering the stories of Greco-Roman mythological figures,” the poems in this collection “don’t just retell these stories in a contemporary queer context, but consider how, reimagined and renewed over millennia, they resonate with our lives now.”
In the Needle, A Woman by Susan Michele Coronel
Finishing Line Press | July 18, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-89990-114-0
In this poetry collection, Coronel “deftly weaves together strands of challenging life experiences, including the complexities of the mother-daughter bond, divorce, family losses, and her Jewish ancestors’ traumatic past.”
The Diamondbacks by Sandra K. Barnidge
Belle Point Press | July 22, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-960215-37-6
This debut novel is a “coming-of-age story about the weight of legacy, the bonds that shape us, and the quiet rebellions that lead us home.”
Deep Vellum | July 22, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64605-380-3
“Set in rural Montana,” this novel “centers on the dual coming-of-age of a girl and her father amid the natural and cultural forces that shape their family.”
Carcrash Parker and the Haven of Larpers by Ian M. Rogers
Vine Leaves Press | July 22, 2025
ISBN: 978-3-98832-161-9
This novel is a “hilarious, heartfelt collision of old-school fantasy, ‘80s and ‘90s cult classics, and the magic of friendship.”
In the Factory of Loathing by Michael N. Steffen
Fernwood Press | July 22, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-59498-163-0
This poetry collection provides a “critical look at the United States of America as a ‘factory of loathing,’ the place where our Second Amendment assembly lines shape—with incredible uniformity—the various words and weapons that are then distributed throughout the world.”
Blood of Gods: Metal. Mayhem. Wine. by Stacy Buchanan
Feral House | July 29, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-62731-160-1
This multi-genre collection originally published as a magazine is a “full-bodied tribute to the power, precision, and passion that both headbangers and winemakers pour into their craft.”
Translated from the French by Jan Steyn
Deep Vellum | July 29, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-62897-610-6
In this novel, Levé creates “a striking portrait of a man, with all his talents and flaws, who chose to reject his life, and all the people who loved him, in favor of oblivion.”
Woman of the Hour by Claire Polders
Vine Leaves Press | July 29, 2025
ISBN: 978-3-98832-163-3
In this short fiction collection, “women play roles to find themselves, resist oblivion, break laws, swallow regrets, take revenge, follow their passions, and eat spiders.”
Good Printed Things | July 29, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7345844-9-3
This collection continues Redmond’s “poetic journey through South Carolina’s 47 state parks, deepening her exploration of nature, memory, and resilience.”
Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz
Nightboat Books | July 29, 2025
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.”
