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AWP Member Bookshelf

Members are invited to list their new and forthcoming books on our AWP Member Bookshelf. Listings will also appear in an issue of the Writer's Chronicle and on our Bookshop.org affiliate page when available. Books added ahead of their publication date will receive a special Pub Day shoutout on AWP’s social media pages. To add your book, fill out our submission form.




New and Forthcoming Books by AWP Members

Now Displaying 67 Books


Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark  by Katie Singer

08/16/2024

This book explores Newark’s Krueger-Scott African-American oral history collection. Singer separates these stories into thematic categories of social and political events, including church, work, and activism in order to paint an intimate portrait of the larger Black urban experience.


Linh Ly is Doing Just Fine  by Thao Votang

07/23/2024

Told with deadpan humor and brutal honesty, this debut novel follows Vietnamese-American Linh Ly’s unraveling as she reckons with the traumas of both her past and present. Moving, insightful, and caustically funny all at once, the novel depicts a quarter-life crisis in deeply relatable prose.


The Big Freeze: A Reporter's Personal Journey into Egg Freezing and the Quest to Control Our Fertility  by Natalie Lampert

07/16/2024

A fascinating and deeply-researched investigation into the lucrative, minimally regulated, fast-growing industry of egg freezing, from a young reporter on a personal journey into the world of cutting-edge reproductive medicine.


Tender One  by G. Gazelka

06/21/2024

Written in 2015–16, these often-personal poems take a spiritual journey through crisis to wholeness and a place of intimacy. Offered in this chapbook are their meditations and truths learned along the way.


Into the Ancient  by Joseph M Hess

05/31/2024

"...INTO THE ANCIENT crosses several continents while digging into memories: ex-lovers, a tragically lost brother. In Joe Hess’s exacting mirror, a troubling American style of loving, fogged-over and obscure against a late Cold War backdrop, starts to come clear." C. Wagner, Of Course, Fence


In the Grip of Grace  by Marianne Mersereau

05/24/2024

"Compelling poetry, adroit storytelling, and keen memoir." (Annette Sisson, author of Small Fish in High Branches) "Under the spell of Mersereau's vivid and compassionate voice, readers will be held in awe of her rich-storied life." (Anna Egan Smucker, author of Rowing Home and No Star Nights).


Maine Under Water  by Allison Whittenberg

05/07/2024

Set in the 1970s, the book centers on Charmaine "Maine" Upshaw who is about to graduate from junior high, after achieving valedictorian status. However, she is not able to read her grad speech to her class because of a power outage.


Pulp into Paper  by Lenore Weiss

04/22/2024

In the close-knit community of Hentsbury, racism and the local paper mill’s oppressive control over the town collide in a gripping tale set in the 1990s in southern Arkansas along the fictional Mud River.


A Kind of Madness  by Uche Okonkwo

04/16/2024

Set in contemporary Nigeria, A Kind of Madness is a collection of ten stories concerned with literal madness but also those private feelings that, when left unspoken, can feel like a type of madness: desire, desperation, hunger, fear, sadness, shame, longing.


She Called Me Throwaway - a Memoir  by Shama Shams

03/26/2024

Shama Shams spent her childhood in her native land of Bangladesh during a time of political turmoil and daily violence. Her father fled to the United States when her mother turned to extreme religion, which changed Shama's life forever.


The Animal Is Chemical   by Hadara Bar-Nadav

03/15/2024

"Hadara Bar-Nadav organizes terror through a language so precise that every line proves how beauty can be wrought from pain." -Jericho Brown, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Judge of the 2022 Levis Prize in Poetry


Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch?   by Cyrus Cassells

03/15/2024

Who else could write work so unapologetic in its appetites, so sexy and urbane at the same time? Here we see him at his best-brazen, erotic, confident, and full of verve...In this brilliant collection, Cassells is the "artful, persistent dreamer"... -Richie Hofmann, Author of A Hundred Lovers


Truth Be Told  by Linda Susan Jackson

03/15/2024

"In our violence, in our need, in our appetite for every last thing, we are no different than even the most terrifying gods...Truth Be Told is in every way a Revelation." -Tracy K. Smith


unalone  by Jessica Jacobs

03/15/2024

"Lucid, deft, circumspect, generous, sagacious, she gets down on her poetic knees and plants a green new tree of knowledge. Jacobs seeds, stakes, pollinates, flourishes, blooms." -Spencer Reece, Presbyterian Minister and Author


Letters from Conflict  by Lisa Stice

03/13/2024

Through a welcome bundle of poetic correspondence with an international community of artists and poets, a seasoned North Carolina poet and spouse of a U.S. Marine shares intimate insights and observations on creating history, family, community, and art.


The Truth About Unringing Phones  by Lara Lillibridge

03/05/2024

When Lara was four, her father moved from New York to Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket. Now that he is in his eighties, she contemplates her obligation to an absentee father.


Chicano Frankenstein  by Daniel A. Olivas

03/05/2024

"Olivas puts a Latinx twist on Mary Shelley’s classic in this fascinating modern retelling . . . Part science fiction and part political satire, Olivas’s timely latest explores the pitfalls of assimilation and probes what it means to be 'human.'" —Publishers Weekly


Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare  by Michelle Ephraim

03/01/2024

Recipient of the 2023 Juniper Prize in Creative Nonfiction. “GREEN WORLD is one of the funniest and most captivating memoirs I’ve read in years. Ephraim’s wit flies off the page.” —Chris Monks, managing editor, MCSWEENEY'S INTERNET TENDENCY


Fine Dreams  by Linda N. Masi

03/01/2024

Fine Dreams rewrites myth and history. Framed by a ghost’s first-person narrative, Masi’s debut novel centers on four young friends. While studying for exams, they are kidnapped and taken to a terrorist encampment. Two are claimed as “wives” by their captors, one is forced to wear a suicide vest...


The Next Draft: Inspiring Craft Talks from the Rainier Writing Workshop  by Various

03/01/2024

The Next Draft brings together a selection of the “morning talks” delivered by the renowned authors who teach at the prestigious Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program. These diverse essays feature inspiring, innovative approaches to writing and literature across genres.


War Bonds  by Christina Lux

03/01/2024

This book of poems is about survival in the face of conflict.


Ember Days  by Mary Gilliland

03/01/2024

Woolf’s pen runs dry, Tesla holes up, Lincoln emerges in yet another bardo, and the rest of us tunnel through Wednesday’s jammed boulevards, Friday’s cash worthless, Saturday’s prodigal feet, in “a radiant testimony—and a triumph—of an unerring ear.”—Ishion Hutchinson


Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman  by Zilka Joseph

02/27/2024

In this deeply moving collection, Zilka Joseph takes us on a journey through memories scented with cumin and cardamom, grief and regret, as her Bene Israel heritage comes alive. Joseph’s precise and passionate descriptions transcend time and space. —Nancy Naomi Carlson.


The Turtle House  by Amanda Churchill

02/20/2024

"Sweeping yet intimate, Amanda Churchill’s Turtle House spans cultures and continents. Minnie and her granddaughter Lia are unforgettable protagonists, whose grit and grace will inspire you. Together, they find a way through in this gripping debut." —Vanessa Hua, author of Forbidden City


WAGER  by Adele Elise Williams

02/19/2024

“All sass and smarts, Adele Elise Williams’ WAGER does the duende—that dance with death Lorca said all great poems risk. In life and in art, Williams meets the prospect and memory of annihilation with ferocious honesty, linguistic play, and wit." —Dana Levin, author of NOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE


Entwined: Essays on Polyamory and Creating Home  by Alex Alberto

02/19/2024

A moving, often hilarious memoir about polyamory and the radical possibilities of chosen family.


Nonprofit Fundraising - Lessons from the Trenches   by Shama Shams

02/09/2024

LESSONS FROM THE TRENCHES adopts a workbook approach with a step-by-step guide to nonprofit fundraising. It encourages readers to annotate, jot down ideas, and work through exercises directly on its pages.


Pencil  by Carol Beggy

02/08/2024

"PENCIL" offers a deep look at this common, almost ubiquitous, object. To love a pencil is to use it, to sharpen it, and to essentially destroy it. OBJECT LESSONS is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.


Ceremonies for No Repair  by Paula Cisewski

02/06/2024

"Night skull elegy, matrilineal pandemic pillow book, harrowing florilegium, red-threaded unbinding spell, Paula Cisewski's CEREMONIES FOR NO REPAIR descends into the mouth of the lion called care." —Elisabeth Workman


Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life  by John R Miles, foreword by Matt Higgins

02/06/2024

PASSION STRUCK delves into the essence of becoming your ideal self, drawing wisdom from luminaries like Oprah Winfrey, Marc Benioff, and Gen. Stan McChrystal. Discover the twelve powerful principles to unlock purpose, overcome self-doubt, catalyze personal mastery, and embrace life with intention.


Fish Streets Before Dawn  by Rick Campbell

01/25/2024

Campbell's eighth book of poetry. These poems "are focused on the rapture of the world."


Counterblow Clemency  by Naomi Shibles

01/24/2024

Promo City is blazing with advertising pollution, but all sixteen-year-old Bjorn Bear cares about is having fun—until the city’s deadliest assassins attack and he must face the possibility that the only family he’s ever known isn’t real.


Ancient Light  by Kimberly Blaeser

01/16/2024

ANCIENT LIGHT is more than book: it’s a map of a people thriving in a strange language or it’s a manual with the sole purpose of showing us how we arrive at ‘our / sacred, / our / medicine.’ —Jake Skeets, author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers


Acoustic Shadows  by Ceridwen Hall

01/15/2024

In poems that are exactly right for this moment, Hall examines how we perceive and communicate across vast distances and through strange and rapidly-evolving media, constantly questioning what we know and how we know it, whether we are communicating via letter, telegraph, or Zoom. --Katharine Coles


Inheritance with a High Error Rate  by Jen Karetnick

01/10/2024

Winner of the 2022 Cider Press Review Book Award, selected by Lauren Camp. Camp observes, "The poems carry environmental angst and individual, quotidian worries, and also manage to bound with wit and rhythm." This collection is a feast from a master craftswoman at the top of her form.


Politics, Partnerships, & Power: The Lives of Ralph E. and Marguerite Stitt Church  by Jay Pridmore and Christine Wolf

12/19/2023

On March 21, 1950, Rep. Ralph Church dies suddenly while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. His wife, Marguerite, runs for his vacant seat and wins, becoming one of the first 50 women elected to Congress. While serving 5 more terms, she inspires women everywhere to step into politics.


The Sign for Drowning  by Rachel Stolzman Gullo

12/15/2023

"Here is a novel written straight from the heart, a tender yet fearless portrait of a family crippled by grief. Rachel Stolzman Gullo reminds us what kind of stories matter, and move us, the most." -Julia Glass, author of Three Junes


Embodied Unconscious: the feminine space of sexuality, surrealism, and experimentation in literature  by C. M. Chady

12/01/2023

Encomiums to this labor of love, a feminist extravaganza! A full-throated documentary project of newly inspired inter-generational poetics has sprung full grown out of the Jack Kerouac School Archive. This is a great shimmering and useful handbook for younger writers/thinker. ~Anne Waldman


Ethics for Apocalyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature  by Daniel Shank Cruz

11/21/2023

Ethics for Apocalyptic Times is about the role literature can play in helping readers cope with our present-day crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the shift toward fascism in global politics.


Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown  by Annie Dawid

11/18/2023

Fact and fiction intertwine to tell the story of the USA's greatest single loss of civilian lives in the 20th century—919 Americans. Four protagonists—two dead and two living, two men and two women, two Black and two white—tell their stories here, illuminating the shadow lives of four of them.


My County is the Whole World  by Felicia McCarthy

11/17/2023

'Between the personal and historical, America and Ireland, patriarchy's stranglehold and matriarchy's promise- women will reach their fullest potential w/out retribution.' S Yanonne 'A rare rich voice; strong medicine the world needs.'.G Wells


Changelings: Insurgence  by Liam Corley

11/15/2023

Commander Tauran didn’t travel from the 26th century to kidnap a forgotten healer, but he will if that’s what it takes to save his mutant son. "An intricate, compelling exploration of humanity and its core flaws and values."—KIRKUS REVIEWS


Maximum Speed  by Kevin Clouther

11/15/2023

“With meticulous craft and profound compassion, Clouther conjures this vibrant collection of connected stories of friends wrestling the ghosts of their past. Balancing heart and humor, Maximum Speed bears witness to the raw hope of youth and the bittersweet wisdom of age.” —Frances de Pontes Peebles


Transitory  by Subhaga Crystal Bacon

11/14/2023

Grounded in protest and solidarity, Subhaga Crystal Bacon’s Isabella Gardner Award-winning Transitory is a collection of elegies memorializing 46 transgender and gender-nonconforming people murdered in the US and Puerto Rico in 2020.


Heading North  by Holly M. Wendt

11/07/2023

For fans of The Art of Fielding and the Beartown series, Heading North follows a gay professional ice hockey player rebuilding his life after tragedy while his general manager wrestles for team control amid a deteriorating marriage. Anne Valente calls it "Sharply written and beautifully moving."


the matchstick litanies  by jo reyes-boitel

11/01/2023

Blending poetic memoir and revelation, the matchstick litanies opens on family violence and women’s work. These richly-detailed poems, however, reclaim the voice of a speaker who excavates family stories. jo’s poems refuse to look away and finds that sometimes fire can create a path.


Night Wing over Metropolitan Area  by John Hoppenthaler

10/31/2023

"I needed these poems from John Hoppenthaler. There is so much beauty in his poems, but no sentimentality. There is raw feeling, but it has purpose and provides service for our rattled hearts." Rosanne Cash Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter


The In-Betweeners  by Khem K. Aryal

10/24/2023

Timely. Relevant. Deeply felt. Aryal’s The In-Betweeners presents a deeply human perspective on the travails—and triumphs—of a group of Nepalese immigrants in the U.S. The stories reveal the heartrending ambivalence of not being part of a new culture while being unable to return to the old.


ONE  by Haley Lasche

10/23/2023

ONE manipulates and breaks poetic constructs, making it possible for readers to experience the world when humanity is decentralized.


All That Rises  by Alma Garcia

10/17/2023

All That Rises introduces us to a refreshing new voice in Latinx literature. With empathy and grace, Alma García has mapped the borderlands in a bold new way....A novel of stark originality populated by characters whose lives readers won’t easily forget.” —Alex Espinoza, author of Still Water Saints


Spinning Tea Cups: A Mythical American Memoir  by Alexandra Teague

10/15/2023

In these quirky and richly told tales, Alexandra Teague brings readers along for the wild ride of her youth, traversing wide swaths of the American landscape in the company of a talking puppet, Victorian ghosts, and a family fueled by fantasy, dysfunction, and fierce love.


What Makes You Think You're Supposed to Feel Better  by Jody Hobbs Hesler

10/15/2023

Told with restraint and deep compassion against the backdrop of Virginia back streets and small towns, Jody Hobbs Hesler's debut collection shines with its portraits of longing, disconnection, and the ache for renewal and redemption that comes from our own frailties.


The Stratford Devil, 3rd ed.  by Claude Clayton Smith

10/10/2023

The Stratford Devil tells the tale of young Ruth Paine and how her singular experience beyond her Puritan world leads to her demise. Rich in historical insight, this novel gives a touching look into the isolated world of an independent woman struggling to survive circumstances beyond her control.


Safe Colors  by Thaddeus Rutkowski

10/03/2023

Safe Colors tells the story of a biracial boy who grows up in Northern Appalachia and moves as a young adult to New York City. A driving force in the boy’s life is the desire to fit in as a person of color in American society.


Italian Blood  by Denise Tolan

10/03/2023

Denise Tolan’s memoir-in-essays traces the legacy of violence in an Italian American family, showing how abuse reverberates both in the body and mind and how everything is connected through literal and metaphorical blood.


Bold, Brave, and Breathless: Reveling in Childhood's Splendiferous Glories While Facing Disability and Loss   by Margaret Anne Mary Moore

10/02/2023

After a normal pregnancy, Margaret Margaret ("Meg"), was born with Cerebral Palsy and relies on a wheelchair, walker, and speech device. Meg narrates her childhood experiences pursuing regular education and activities such as Girl Scouts, soccer, and ice-skating despite these challenges.


A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness: Poems of a Fabled Universe  by Angela Acosta

09/29/2023

A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness is a bilingual English-Spanish collection of Latinx Futurist poetry. This book is published by Red Ogre Review via a grant from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.


Sibilance  by Sally Van Doren

09/27/2023

“Tactile, luminous, and original in voice, Sally Van Doren’s SIBILANCE is a journey of the body and its elusive ache and the shape of living in the name of life itself.”—Rachel Eliza Griffiths


Written in the Sky: Lessons of a Southern Daughter  by Patricia Foster

09/26/2023

"Taking a cue from James Baldwin, who found the innocence of privileged white Americans appalling, Patricia Foster has recounted her own trajectory from clueless Southern girl to a hard-won loss of innocence about racism in this stunningly-written, unique and vital memoir." —Phillip Lopate


QUIET TREE  by DM Frech

09/22/2023

QUIET TREE is a poetry chapbook for dismantled souls in search of truth through swamp lands and passages with God. DM Frech has a BFA and MFA in dance from New York University, performed throughout NYC and since then has been a writer of poetry, fiction, children's stories and so on.


The Box  by Mandy-Suzanne Wong

09/19/2023

THE BOX follows an impenetrable rectangle as it changes hands in a collapsing metropolis, causing confluences, conflicts, rifts, and disasters. Different narrators, each with a distinctive voice, give secondhand accounts of decisive moments in the box's life.


Jammin' in Kalamazoo  by Sean and Sonya Hollins

09/19/2023

When a music teacher loses her home to a fire, her students and community use their talents and connections to rebuild her home and create a community surprise! Sean and Sonya teamed with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and Branford Marsalis for this musical adventure.


Worn Smooth between Devourings  by Lauren Camp

09/19/2023

The poems in Worn Smooth between Devourings travel through fears of ecological devastation and national and global tragedy, and map routes away from despair. These precise, sonically-driven poems investigate a confessed gaze for contentment with the conviction of quiet rebellion.


Dominus  by Tiffany Troy

09/18/2023

Dominus, Tiffany Troy’s poetry debut, fuses post-confessional bildungsroman with a toxicology report of American ambition. As insistent on justice as it is baffled by its own hope, Dominus shows us there’s beauty in caring for each other, so as to never let anyone “kill the love in [our] hearts.”


The Disordered Alphabet  by Cintia Santana

09/15/2023

In this outstanding debut collection, where “from the whorl of a whelk a newborn elk stepped impossibly out,” Santana harnesses a language torqued by erasure and loss, imbued with the aftermath of Hiroshima, yet filled with present-tense wonder, to create a set of spell-binding poems. –Arthur Sze


The Mansions  by Daniel Tobin

09/15/2023

“. . . Daniel Tobin’s The Mansions is nothing less than a wonder. In its compendious learning, its consummate artistry, and its spiritual wisdom, this poem inspires genuine awe..." —from the preface by Ryan Wilson


Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival  by JoeAnn Hart

09/15/2023

Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival won the 2022 Hudson Prize. In this collection of short fiction, characters struggle with Covid, ecological destruction, and grief as they attempt to find solace and restoration from a nature that is not always in a position to give back.


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