
Bookshelf
Members are invited to list their new titles on our online Bookshelf. Listings will also appear in the Bookshelf column of The Writer's Chronicle and on the AWP Bookshop affiliate page. To have your book listed, complete the submission form.
Recent Books
Direct Sunlight: Stories  by Christine Sneed
06/15/2023
"Christine Sneed's inimitable eye for detail, beautiful writing, hauntingly complex characters, and trademark humor shine in these brilliant, moving stories. Direct Sunlight is everything a short-story collection should be." --J. Ryan Stradal, author of Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club
Almost Brown  by Charlotte Gill
06/06/2023
“Almost Brown is that rarest of things: a memoir that is both deeply intimate and intellectually ambitious. It fearlessly examines race and the issue of belonging, and at the same time is a tender, touching, often very funny tale of growing up and finding your way." --Susan Orlean
ALICE THE CAT  by Tim Cummings
05/23/2023
“The writing of an angel with the imagination of the devil. Alice the Cat slinked inside me, furtively, magnificently. My heart ached for Tess—so much loss. My heart thundered for her too—so much sass. This book is nothing short of bliss.” –Caroline Thompson, writer of The Nightmare Before Christmas
FILTHY CREATION  by Caroline Hagood
05/01/2023
“It’s a shame Mary Shelley isn’t around to offer a blurb for this tender, luminous portrait of the art monster as a modern teen. Filthy Creation has so much to say about art, gender, loss, and broken dreams. It’s also a triumphant coming-of-age page-turner." —James Tate Hill
Writing the Self-Elegy: The Past is Not Disappearing Ink  by Kara Dorris, ed.
04/17/2023
Including prompts and essays, Writing the Self-Elegy introduces a prismatic tradition with potential to forge new worlds. Self-elegies mix autobiography and poetics, blending craft with race, gender, sexuality, disability—all the private and public elements that build individual and social identity.
Imagine Your Life Like This  by Sarah Layden
04/11/2023
“Sarah Layden writes about loneliness and disconnection with authority and beauty. Her characters are often flawed people in the midst of difficult circumstances whose stories unravel in surprising ways. She is a writer to watch.” —Marian Crotty, author of What Counts as Love
The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home  by S.L. Wisenberg
03/31/2023
"A sharp, deeply questioning mind and a wayward heart inform these delicious essays. They are wry, humorous, melancholy, and universally relatable, filled with the shock of recognition." --Phillip Lopate, celebrated essayist and editor of The Art of the Personal Essay
Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them  by Tove Danovich
03/28/2023
A captivating and most memorable memoir! I know I'll hold these chicks in my mind for a long time alongside Danovich's fascinating depiction of a return to farming. This book is a delightful peep into an old business, refreshed for a new generation. –Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Too Early to Know Who's Winning  by Karla Huebner
03/23/2023
Jacobine and Cinda are approaching retirement in the age of Trump and climate crisis. Jacobine works at a university, Cinda at a museum. As Jacobine struggles with health worries and the loss of loved ones, Cinda’s sometimes peculiar expectations prompt her to rethink their friendship.
Mass for Shut-Ins  by Mary-Alice Daniel
03/21/2023
MASS FOR SHUT-INS is the 117th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, selected by Rae Armantrout. Mary-Alice Daniel confronts tricontinental culture shock and her curious placement within many worlds. African and Western mythic systems and modern rituals originate an ill-omened universe.
The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth From the Margins  by Zoë Bossiere, Erica Trabold
03/21/2023
This anthology features some of the best lyric essays published in the last several years by prominent and emerging writers, situated within the ongoing work of resistance—to genre convention, literary tradition, and the confines of dominant-culture spaces.
Bone Country  by Linda Nemec Foster
03/15/2023
“In Linda Nemec Foster’s Bone Country, each keenly composed and compressed piece seems at once fragmented and yet self-contained. It’s the speed and addictive rhythm with which they reel by that transforms this collection into a visionary travelogue.” Stuart Dybek, author of Ecstatic Cahoots
The Fine Art of Camouflage  by Lauren Kay Johnson
03/15/2023
"An astonishing glimpse into the daily life of America’s military women. A moving chronicle of a mother-daughter relationship. A powerful coming-of-age tale. Johnson has pulled off a hat trick with her haunting debut. I couldn’t put it down.” —Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
The Invisible Art of Literary Editing  by Bryan Furuness and Sarah Layden
03/09/2023
Featuring exercises, case studies, in-progress and published manuscripts with professional editors' commentary, this is a practical guide to the skill, process and profession of literary magazine editing.
Sprawl  by Andrew Collard
03/07/2023
These lyrical poems about growing up and becoming a parent in Detroit reflect deeply felt connections to places and experiences that inevitably fall victim to irrevocable change.
Dear Outsiders  by Jenny Sadre-Orafai
03/07/2023
Dear?Outsiders?explores how we are part of and stranger to our environments and to our families and how identities form by where and who we come from. Told through two siblings’ perspectives of the loss of their parents, the book is a map of isolation, longing, and what it means to be deserted.
GAUNTLET IN THE GULF: The 1925 Marine Log & Mexican Prison Journal of William F. Lorenz, MD  by Edited & With a Foreword by Claude Clayton Smith
03/07/2023
This is a ripping yarn, an historical account that reads like a novel. There are two stories here: the marine log and prison journal of William Lorenz, and the story of the journal itself, which Claude Clayton Smith presents masterfully. —Christopher Chambers; author, Kind of Blue
String  by Matthew Thorburn
03/01/2023
A book-length sequence of poems, Matthew Thorburn’s String tells the story of a teenage boy’s experiences in a time of war and its aftermath. He loses his family and friends, his home and the life he knew, but survives to tell his story.
Root Rot  by Rhienna Renée Guedry
03/01/2023
Root Rot as a collection is a reckoning with the environment and histories, internal and external. It explores grief and loss, and that disruption spurs growth. Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon are cataloged as we learn of flood waters rising into houses, and storms blowing past.
It's fun to be a person I don't know  by Chachi Hauser
03/01/2023
“What if you could record, not just the story of your life, but your thoughts about your life? This is the echo, the double vision, that Chachi Hauser gives us as a rare gift.”—Gloria Steinem
27 Threats to Everyday Life  by Anne Holub
02/17/2023
Semi-finalist in the 2021 New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition by Finishing Line Press. What did you worry about when you walked alone in the dark? The debut poetry chapbook, “27 Threats to Everyday Life," explores our fears, our secrets, and our hidden strengths.
The Art of Brevity  by Grant Faulkner
02/15/2023
With elegant prose, deep readings of other writers, and scaffolded writing exercises, The Art of Brevity takes the reader on a lyrical exploration of compact storytelling, guiding readers to heighten their awareness of not only what appears on the page but also what doesn't.
Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out  by Jennifer McGaha
02/08/2023
Part writing memoir, part nature memoir, and part meditation on a life well lived, Bushwhacking draws on McGaha’s outdoor adventures to offer readers encouragement and practical suggestions to accompany them on their writing and life journeys.
The Promise of a Normal Life  by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
02/07/2023
“Exquisitely written… The novel unfolds in a riveting series of experiences that interrogate womanhood, desire, religion, race and privilege on the path to personal liberation. It is a novel that haunts through restraint.” – CLEYVIS NATERA, author of Neruda in the Park
Decade of the Brain: Poems  by Janine Joseph
01/17/2023
In the deeply personal Decade of the Brain: Poems, Janine Joseph writes of a newly-naturalized American citizen who suffers from post-concussive memory loss after a major auto accident. The collection is an odyssey of what it means to recover in the aftermath of trauma and traumatic brain injury. Through connected poems, buckling and expansive syntax, ekphrasis, and conjoined poetic forms, Decade of the Brain remembers and misremembers hospital visits, violence and bodily injury, intimate memories, immigration status, family members, and the self.
At the Base of Kaaterskill Falls  by Mary Tautin Moloney
01/15/2023
A heady mix of nature and domesticity, lyricism and passion, acceptance and insistence, all rendered in language and imagery that is strikingly original, a confident display of mastery of form and line announcing the arrival of a serious poetic voice.
The Dream Builders  by Oindrila Mukherjee
01/10/2023
After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur where her father now lives is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing—and no one—here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand just how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations.
The Kudzu Queen  by Mimi Herman
01/10/2023
“Funny, sad, and tender… Mimi Herman has written a novel that possesses a true and hard won understanding of the South.” —David Sedaris "Mimi Herman brings us a charming charlatan, a farming community at a major turning point, and the most appealing young heroine since Scout.” —Lee Smith
Summoning Space Travelers  by Angela Acosta
01/04/2023
Speculative poetry at its finest, with observations on self-discovery, the longing for a better place (hiraeth), the future of humanity, beings swept up in events, and classical romanticism.
Dreaming on the Page  by Tzivia Gover
01/03/2023
"Accessible and unfailingly encouraging, Dreaming on the Page proves that dreaming and writing are for everyone--and that when you combine the two, the result can be truly magical." --Brooke Warner, She Writes Press Packed with informative essays, writing prompts, and more, Dreaming on the Page is a guidebook for writers of all genres, from casual journal-keepers to experienced authors--and or all creative souls, whether you remember your dreams--or not.
Resurrection City: Stories from the Disaster Zone  by Catherine Browder
12/30/2022
Spokane Prize winner. "A captivating collection inspired by the 2011 triple disaster that devastated Northeastern Japan. Browder takes the reader on a journey through communities rocked by each facet of the disaster—earthquake, tsunami, nuclear meltdown--offering a deeply human perspective."
Not the Camilla We Knew: One Woman's Path from Small-Town America to the Symbionese Liberation Army  by Rachael Hanel
12/13/2022
During this time of mounting unrest and violence, Camilla Hall’s story is of urgent interest for what it reveals about the forces of radicalization. But as Rachael Hanel ventures further into Camilla’s past, searching out the critical points where character and cause intersect, her book becomes an intriguing, disturbing, and deeply moving journey into the dark side of America’s promise.
Weather Report: A 90-day journal for reflection and well-being, with the aid of the Beaufort Wind Scale  by Margaret O'Brien
12/09/2022
This journal offers you the space and the tools to pause and take stock of how you are on a daily basis. It uniquely uses the Beaufort Wind Scale as a tool to scaffold your reflections and monitor your inner weather. You will also find here a daily invitation to notice beauty in your day and the opportunity for a guided weekly reflection.
THE GOLDEN LAND  by Elizabeth Shick
12/06/2022
A debut novel that digs deep into the complexities of family history and relationships. When Etta's grandmother dies, she is compelled to travel to Myanmar to explore complicated adolescent memories of her grandmother's family and the violence she witnessed there. Full of rich detail and complex relationships, The Golden Land explores those personal narratives that might lie beneath the surface of historical accounts.
Nature's Olympics  by Janet Ruth Heller
11/30/2022
Nature's Olympics offers concise poems about the natural world, including plants, animals, and birds. This book focuses on the flora and fauna of the Midwest. Nature's Olympics has four sections dedicated to the different seasons: summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Poetic forms include haiku, tanka, sonnets, and free verse.
Rehabit Your Life  by PL Bandy MD
11/30/2022
Rehabit Your Life shares trusted advice from a seasoned physician and provides a proven roadmap in navigating better health and greater wellbeing one step at a time.
A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents  by Mary-Alice Daniel
11/29/2022
A poetic coming-of-age memoir that probes the legacies and myths of family, race, and religion—from Nigeria to England to America. Mary-Alice Daniel’s family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian savanna. They arrived to a blanched, cold world of prim suburbs and unfamiliar customs. So began her family’s series of travels across three continents in search of places of belonging.