Out now: THE TIGER AND THE CAGE and BEST DEBUT SHORT STORIES 2022

Cover design by Nicole Caputo; animation by Elizabeth Yaffe

The Tiger and the Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis is poet Emma Bolden’s debut memoir. For readers of Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire and Porochista Khakpour’s Sick, this exquisitely wrought book recounts a lifelong struggle with chronic pain and endometriosis, while speaking more broadly to anyone who’s been told “it’s all in your head.”

With The Tiger and the Cage, Bolden uses her own experience as the starting point for a journey through the institutional misogyny of Western medicine—from a history of labeling women “hysterical” and parading them as curiosities to a lack of information on causes or cures for endometriosis, despite more than a century of documented cases. Recounting botched surgeries and dire side effects from pharmaceuticals affecting her and countless others, Bolden speaks to the ways people are often failed by the official narratives of institutions meant to protect them.

It’s a beautiful, harrowing read. Bolden’s poetic command of language ensures that, though we plunge into the depths with her, we never drown.

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“An intimate, eloquent personal history of survival and self-discovery . . . One of the most riveting and accessible accounts of the experience of pain you’ll read all year.” —Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon

“If pain is taboo, then the body becomes a very heavy thing. In The Tiger and the Cage, Bolden carries that weight in gorgeous, poetic prose infused with the kind of honesty that is difficult to turn away from . . . For any reader ever cast as the unreliable narrator of their own story, I suspect Bolden’s memoir will feel like a fierce, validating balm.” —Wynter K Miller, Electric Literature

“Bolden shines an unbearable, clinical light on how our desire to please, to be good, which serves us so well in school, can also lead to disaster . . . My sincerest hope is any woman—every woman—with medical problems no male doctor has yet bothered to really try and understand reads The Tiger and the Cage, a book that feels like the beginning of a new genre. There’s a guidebook, now. And a guide.” —Emily Van Duyne, Literary Hub

“Bolden’s memoir digs into the layers of sociocultural beliefs around menstruation, fertility, the expectations of women’s role to mate and procreate, and the indivisible links between sexuality, psychological security, desire, and self-awareness.” —Cat Woods, Shondaland

“[Bolden’s] lyrical descriptions and emotional honesty render this harrowing story hard to put down, and her critique of the medical establishment is both sharp and fair . . . A well-written, deeply researched, and searingly frank memoir about reproductive health.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Dark and riveting . . . [It] stings as much as it astounds.” —Publishers Weekly

“Emma Bolden’s The Tiger and the Cage is a memoir written as an investigation, a dive into what it means to be a woman caught in a medical establishment that doesn’t listen to women. I read this book in a fury. Bolden’s imagery is stark and vivid, and the prose moves in a spiral, encircling her pain, her confusion, and her strength. This book will make you laugh, cry, scream, and bleach your hair while you sing along loudly to Tori Amos. I am so grateful The Tiger and the Cage exists and so grateful for Emma Bolden’s generosity.” —Emme Lund, author of The Boy With a Bird in His Chest

“In The Tiger and the Cage, the call is coming from inside the house—or, rather, from inside the body. In the beautiful prose of a poet, Emma Bolden confronts the patriarchal foundation of the institutions that make our lives what they are: education, religion, medicine. If patriarchy—and frankly, misogyny—is part of medical ‘care,’ then via each surgeon’s scalpel and each prescribed medication, it is also inside us. The Tiger and the Cage opened my eyes, enraged me, and left me in awe of Bolden’s enormous talent as a writer, intelligence as a critic, and courage as a survivor.” —Maggie Smith, author of Goldenrod and Keep Moving

“A harrowing portrait of endurance and grief and resilience. With raw honesty and exacting detail, Bolden tells an intimate story while exploring the demands our oppressive culture places on women—our supposed hopes and dreams, our supposed desires and fears, and most poignantly of all the expectations on our bodies, what they should do and how they should behave. It is part damning critique of our male-dominated medical institutions and, quietly, a loving tribute to a mother-daughter bond.” —Julianna Baggott, author of The Seventh Book of Wonders

“Layer by shimmering layer, Emma Bolden transforms the story of her body into the story of a search for truth. The Tiger and the Cage elegantly interrogates narratives of gender, pain, sexuality, and family to reveal the freedom underneath.” —Angela Chen, author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

“In brief, lyrical, and powerful essays, Emma Bolden unleashes her story of endometriosis, and the misogyny she endured at the hands of the medical establishment, interwoven with stories of a supportive and loving Southern upbringing. The Tiger and the Cage is a torrent of feeling. It is a left-hook to the jaw to anyone learning for the first time about the neglectful ways women are often treated when their bodies need help. It is a soft, supportive whisper to those of us who know it too well. May it find its way into the hands of doctors and those in training, and their patients, too, who will find a voice in this book, one speaking with clarity and purpose, that affirms their own experiences.” —Chantel Acevedo, author of The Distant Marvels

“This philosophical, funny, and beautiful memoir is both a work of art and a deep conversation about the rift between mind and body, those two great friends, and rivals, handcuffed together forever. Well-armed with a genuine Greek chorus, a truly excellent and private sense of humor, and incredible gifts for metaphor, Emma Bolden opens the vault for the reader into the true experience of how it feels to both reckon daily with a ravaging illness and also to carry on and make the most of one’s life.

If literature is the great river that runs alongside life, interpreting it, then this book is that river—[it] is deep and vigorous and vital, flashing with transcendence, thinking so richly about the human body, wondering at its mortality and fragility with love and humor and patience and strength.” —Rebecca Lee, author of Bobcat and Other Stories

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Cover design by Nicole Caputo; Cover art by Sirin Thada

Now in its sixth year, the Best Debut Short Stories series is an annual anthology celebrating the winners of the PEN America Robert J. Dau Prize for Emerging Writers, which honors twelve short story writers on their first-ever published short fiction.

This was my second year co-editing with the wonderful Yuka Igarashi. This year’s judges were Deesha Philyaw, Sabrina Orah Mark, and Emily Nemens. The twelve honored writers, stories, and journals for 2022 are:

“A Wedding in Multan, 1978” (The Asian American Literary Review) Yasmin Adele Majeed
“All We Have Left is Ourselves” (Reckoning) Oyedotun Damilola Muees
“Beat by Beat” (Barrelhouse Magazine) Emma Shannon
“For Future Reference: Notes on the 7-10 Split” (The Cincinnati Review) Patch Kirschenbaum
“Man, Man, Et Cetera” (The Virginia Quarterly Review) Cal Shook
“Sacrilege” (BOMB Magazine) Edward Salem
“The Black Kite and the Wind” (Virginia Quarterly Review) Erin Connal
“The Cacophobe” (Ploughshares) Seth Wang
“The Chicken” (The White Review) RZ Baschir
“Them Bones” (Hobart) CK Kane
“Work Wives” (Typehouse Literary Magazine) Preeti Vangani
“Writing with Blood” (Flock) Catherine Bai

Best Debut Short Stories 2022: The PEN America Dau Prize is available here, and wherever books are sold. Catapult magazine’s Don’t Write Alone ran a roundtable interview with Deesha, Sabrina, and Emily; PEN interviewed each winning writer, with the whole series of interviews accessible here; and Hobart excerpted the intro that Yuka and I co-wrote. Other press at Lit Hub, BookRiot, and Debutiful.

MONARCH by Candice Wuehle is out now, THE RED ZONE is out tomorrow!

Cover of MONARCH, a novel by Candice Wuehle. Cover design and animation by Michael Salu

MONARCH, the debut novel by poet Candice Wuehle, published on March 29th! The cryptic worlds of Hanna and Stranger Things mingle with the dark humor of Dare Me in this debut novel about a teen beauty queen who discovers she’s been a sleeper agent in a deep state government program.

This book is for anyone who digs witchy podcasts, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Body Keeps the Score, Stranger Things, Ultraluminous, Drop Dead Gorgeous, But I’m a Cheerleader, Women Who Run with the Wolves, Sabrina Orah Mark’s Happily column at the Paris Review, Pam Grossman’s Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power, as well as Initiated, the memoir by Amanda Yates Garcia, Oracle of LA, on trauma and finding empowerment through ritual.

NPR calls MONARCH “irresistibly weird…the kind of book that you want to start reading again immediately after turning the last page — not just to trace the conspiracy at its heart, but to appreciate how its kaleidoscope of beauty pageants, Y2K anxieties, famous dead girls, and deep state machinations synthesizes into an exploration of what makes up a self.”

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal praises it as “some curious brew of Robert Ludlum and Don DeLillo” and Chicago Review of Books says, “Wuehle is an artisan; one senses while reading her that she has absolute control over the page—could conjure any emotion or image with startling concision, no matter how surreal or uncanny.”

Candice was interviewed at NYLON and The Daily Iowan, and wrote a gorgeous, funny essay for CrimeReads on growing up in the crime-addicted world of the late ‘90s, and the power of The Joke. To get into the era, Candice recommended a list of 90s/Y2K books at LitHub. And if you want to hear what MONARCH sounds like, Candice made a playlist for you at Largehearted Boy.

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"A deeply introspective novel with a notable metaphor for reinvention after trauma in the form of a weaponized pageant girl."—Kirkus Reviews

"Candice Wuehle had me at 'Jon Benet Ramsey.' The poet's new novel follows a former child pageant star as she discovers ties to her previous glory and a deep state government program. Add an occult wellness guru to the mix, a heaping of mommy issues, and a queer romance for taste and this might just be my ideal book. —Kerensa Cadenas, Thrillist

"Readers sturdy enough to peer into this glittering, multifaceted novel will find weaponized beauty reflected back." —Publishers Weekly

"Don DeLillo can only dream of being Candice Wuehle, who's wrenched the maximalist postmodern novel from the hands of old white men and given it an enticingly feminist spin. MONARCH is a smart, weird, funny gut punch, the kind of book that will blister your brain in the best possible way." —Rafael Frumkin, author of The Comedown

“This book is really quite sinister, and I mean that in the Latin sense—MONARCH takes the left-hand path through a chilling (and, if you're honest with yourself, quite real) landscape as Jessica, a decommissioned MKUltra-esque beauty queen, traces back to her origins as such. Along the way, she has to tell the true from the false, which can be difficult when you have a closet full of alters and a lot of gruesome off-label memories.

“Underneath it all is a question you can probably relate to even if you aren’t the progeny of a cryogenically preserved mother and a father who lectures on Boredom Studies: How do we know which of our reactions belong to us? How can we tell apart the conditioned self from the one we actually live with, especially when we've been trauma-trained into not looking too closely at certain facts? What happens when our frozen selves start to thaw? 

“If you've always been suspicious of the institutions of childhood, beauty, and sentimentality, this book is for you. If you crave a frosty narrative voice with the whip and torque of a bitchy gymnast, this book is for you. It will make you smarter. And it will also upset your schema for the world—but you'll be glad, I promise.” —Sarah Elaine Smith, author of Marilou is Everywhere

“In this riddled pageantric, insomniac, photographic, and university-infused world of eating disorders, triple suicides, astral projections, enigmatic bruises, and uncontrollable impulses, Candice Wuehle’s poetic and narrative gaze on everything she Midas-touches is eyelined, eyeshadowed, polished, Norwegian lip-penciled, and loose powdered with her devilishly inventive, singularly imaginative beauty and a devastating wry sense of humor. Her brilliance in MONARCH will lacquer, enamel, and wax you and turn your mind inside out like a monarch butterfly macerated in emulsion.” —Vi Khi Nao, author of The Vegas Dilemma and Swimming with Dead Stars

“A wise, unsettling, and multifaceted masterpiece, MONARCH succeeds on all levels—as a portrait of an endearingly dysfunctional family, as a shadow history of Y2K and the hidden power structure underlying and undermining contemporary life, and as a profound exploration of the extremely dicey prospect of being a self in a body in the world. Unless you’re hiding in an underground city or frozen in a kryokammer in the desert, you'll want to run out and get this one right away!” —David Leo Rice, author of The Dodge City Trilogy, Angel House, and Drifter: Stories

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Out 4/19

Chloe Caldwell’s The Red Zone: a searching, galvanizing memoir about blood and love, and how learning more about her period, PMS, PMDD, and the effects of hormones on moods transformed her relationships—to a new partner, to family, to non-blood kin, and to her own body.

Chloe has a few upcoming events, spanning 4/19 – 6/26; full list here.

"Caldwell’s candor about all things menstrual is the greatest strength of this dynamic book . . . [W]omen who suffer from PMDD will take solace in the ups and downs of Caldwell’s journey toward self-acceptance, health, and love. The narrative may also appeal to anyone who suffers frustration and anger in the face of an illness for which they struggle to get an accurate diagnosis, a situation that disproportionately affects women. Provocatively intimate reading." —Kirkus Reviews

“Not since Elizabeth Wurtzel’s More, Now, Again have I been so obsessed with a book of nonfiction. I read The Red Zone in one day, in one chair, four cups of coffee, and after: a single cigarette. Obsessed.” —Elizabeth Ellen, founder/editor of SF/LD Books, author of Person/a and Her Lesser Work

“A coming-of-age memoir for those of us in our thirties who are still trying to come of age, Chloe Caldwell's The Red Zone is an incredible tale of vulnerability, family, and periods. As hilarious as it is heartfelt, and as informative as it is inspirational, here is as honest a tale of self-discovery—and eventual self-acceptance—as has ever been written. A bloody brilliant book.” —Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts

"The necessity and urgency of The Red Zone made me wonder how I—and any woman—had lived so long without it. Through the lens of PMDD and the female body, Caldwell refracts every issue imaginable, from relationships to hormones to queerness to stepmotherhood to blended families, all with hilarity, intimacy and depth. Feeling seen by this book is an understatement; it's a survival guide." —Zaina Arafat, author of You Exist Too Much

“Chloe Caldwell invites us to call shotgun on one of her most intimate, moving, and hilarious rides yet! Tinder, THC, Poshmark, WebMD, Prozac, diner eggs, ovulation—The Red Zone has all the highs and lows you come to expect in her delightful nonfiction. Plus her exploration of PMDD and being a stepmom offers a texture all their own. The Red Zone operates like a love story indeed on so many levels—we readers feel so loved turning every page of this gorgeous offering.” —Porochista Khakpour, author of Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity 

“Finally (finally!) someone wrote a book about struggling to understand your body and your heart and finding the answers on the internet. This book is moving, funny, and impossible to put down. Caldwell reveals the messiness of life in a way few writers can pull off.” —Chelsea Martin, author of Caca Dolce: Essays from a Lowbrow Life

“The Red Zone: A Love Story is a period memoir as only Chloe Caldwell could write it, with warmth and particularity and charm. I smiled in recognition every few pages, read parts angrily aloud to my husband as though they were his fault, and laughed loudly enough at others to wake up my dogs. Yes, it's a love story, but The Red Zone is also an adventure, which may sound like a strange descriptor for a book about PMDD until you have experienced it through Caldwell's wry, piercing, fundamentally optimistic eyes. Both personal and communal, searching and exuberant, The Red Zone will speak to anyone who has been led by pain, curiosity, or misdiagnosis to become a detective of her own body.” —Kristi Coulter, author of Nothing Good Can Come from This

HIGH-RISK HOMOSEXUAL and PATH OF TOTALITY are out now!

High-Risk Homosexual cover and animation designed by Michael Salu, houseofthought.io

Somehow, despite everything, the world keeps turning and the seasons keep changing. Now that the tulips and daffodils in town tell me, emphatically, that it’s real spring (not the fool’s spring of a couple weeks ago), I realize I’m overdue to shout out these winter books!

High-Risk Homosexual, the debut memoir by national treasure Edgar Gomez, was published on 1/11/22. This memoir follows a touching and often hilarious spiralic path to embracing his gay, Latinx identity against a culture of machismo—from his uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua to cities across the U.S.—and the bath houses, night clubs, and drag queens who helped him redefine pride.

Edgar’s book got a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and a beautiful review from ¡Hola Papi! himself, John Paul Brammer, in the New York Times!! The TODAY show and VOGUE also featured the book, and BOMB, NYLON, Poets & Writers, and the American Bookseller Association all ran in-depth interviews with Edgar. I can’t pick a favorite, so you should probably just read all of them. I also got to speak with Publishers Weekly about what makes High-Risk Homosexual, an ABA Indies Introduce pick, so special!

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"Excellent . . . A journey not without difficulties, but also not without saving grace."—Rigoberto González, On the Seawall

"Heartbreaking, funny, and vulnerable . . . Gomez expertly captures what it means to be on the cusp of embracing your full, queer self when the world doesn’t want you to do so."—Eva Recinos, Bitch

"A riotously funny and poignant debut by a quick-witted new voice . . . Displaying a masterful blend of humor, personal reflection, and thoughtful commentary on Latinx culture, Gomez’s first work is as good as it is largely due to its emotional sincerity, its willingness to examine the mistakes and lessons learned just as closely as it does the triumphs . . . This book—open, anguished, brimming with humanity—is, above all, a work of hope."—Isabella Pilotta Gois, Latino Book Review

"A breath of fresh air . . . Gomez writes with a humor and clarity . . . Gomez’s voice is equal parts warmth and acid wit, like a good friend you’re slightly afraid of . . . An exciting debut from an author with a rare point of view. High-Risk Homosexual deals with some titanic questions. What is Latinidad? What is machismo? What does it mean to be a man, never mind a queer man? By its own admission, the book doesn’t have all the answers, but it makes a compelling case that they will come from the razor-sharp queers living in the margins." —John Paul Brammer, The New York Times Book Review

THIS MEMOIR HAS EVERYTHING:

A door torn off its hinges

A mattress made out of T-shirts

Truck Nutz

A 5’9” uncut Venezuelan dude

The most famous woman in the world

A tragic, heartbroken elf

Maybelline foundation shade: Rich Tan

A baby wailing in an ancient Jesuit language

An instruction manual for raising a boy

A Honda Civic named the Speed Queen

The hottest person alive: Rachel Maddow/The Rock

A mob of supportive, half-naked strangers

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"Gomez’s vulnerable and humorous voice gives strength to High-Risk Homosexual. And yes, while this highly personal memoir is written through the unique lens of a femme-queer-Latinx, there is a universal narrative that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt marginalized. No matter how we identify or where we end up, ultimately, we are all high-risk, and Gomez captures this universality so well. Shantay."— Trey Burnette, Los Angeles Review of Books

"High-Risk Homosexual is an absolute marvel in voice, style, and its raucous, tender, heartbreaking, compassionate, and ultimately triumphant examination of gay spaces, the politics of gender, violence against GLBTQ folks, and, of course, the human heart. Edgar Gomez is an unforgettable writer with enviously fantastic storytelling skills. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll rage, you'll buy this book for all of your friends." —Emily Rapp Black, author of Sanctuary and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg 

“Edgar Gomez is the chaotic queer hero we both need and deserve—with humor and charm, he tenderly leads us into night clubs, bathhouses, the backseat of cars with anonymous men, asking us to examine our current place in the world amongst the lonely and brokenhearted, the ones who dare live our truest lives. For anyone whose coming out and coming of age is messy in all the ways, let High-Risk Homosexual be a road map.” —Christopher Gonzalez, author of I'm Not Hungry but I Could Eat

“High-Risk Homosexual is a vivacious, compelling, and intimate portrait about queer coming of age and finding oneself. Gomez’s writing has this special way of inviting us in, like an old friend, catching us up to the pains, doldrums, and pleasures of living, reminding us at every turn of the exquisite messiness that is life. This memoir is a sheer delight, and one not to be missed.” —Marcos Gonsalez, author of Pedro's Theory: Reimagining the Promised Land

"The catalogue page for this debut memoir lists a number of things you can expect to find within the book’s contents. Among them are 'Maybelline foundation shade: Rich Tan,' 'A baby wailing in an ancient Jesuit language,' and 'The most famous woman in the world.' If that doesn’t entice you to read Gomez’s account of figuring out how to embrace his queer identity amid a culture of machismo, I’m not sure what will." —Keely Weiss, Harper's Bazaar, A Best LGBT Book of the Year 

“High-Risk Homosexual is a keen and tender exploration of queer identity, masculinity, and belonging. From the cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was taken by his uncles to learn how to be a man, to the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, where he witnesses freedom and joy on the dance floor, Edgar Gomez writes with honesty and humor about the difficulty of straddling boundaries and the courage of finding oneself. This book signals the arrival of a major new talent.” —Laila Lalami, author of Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America and The Other Americans

“High-Risk Homosexual is like a delicious cocktail: sharp, nuanced, sweet and tender when the bite must be tempered. Edgar Gomez writes with the magnetic candor that flourishes at gay bars, with as much style as all the queens at DragCon, with observant eyes well-trained in steamy bathhouses—all of which he sketches in these electric pages. This book parses queer spaces, the queer self, with a heart as intelligent and thoughtful as its author. As he proves in his unapologetic memoir, Gomez is a force to be reckoned with.” —Matt Ortile, author of The Groom Will Keep His Name

“Edgar Gomez has written a memoir that stands out among so many others, with a narrative voice that's singularly hilarious and observant and unforgettable, so perfectly nuanced with memory and humor in limning the landscapes of love in Florida and Nicaragua. At the center is his mother, a bright vivid burst of fear and tenderness and absolute deephearted love. High-Risk Homosexual presents a brand new voice of impeccable clarity and vision.” —Susan Straight, American Book Award finalist and author of In The Country of Women

“There's a rhythm to vulnerable, honest writing and Edgar Gomez doesn't miss a beat in High-Risk Homosexual. His characters—his mother, his friends, his lovers—are his dance partners that he lovingly dips and twirls across the page, their beauty on full display even as he bares their humanity and his own to the audience. This memoir is a master class in humor with warmth, not ridicule, and truth with tenderness, not overexposure. Pick this book up for the laughs, but have your tissue ready for a few tears too.” —Minda Honey, author of An Anthology of Assholes

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Cover art and animation by Michael Salu, houseofthought.io

Then, on 2/8/22, Niina Pollari’s poetry collection, Path of Totality, was released. This is a remarkable collection explores the sudden loss of her child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that follows, rendering a shattering experience with candor and immediacy.

This book was edited by Sarah Jean Grimm, with some behind-the-scenes logistical assistance from me. It was a real honor to have a hand in bringing it to the world and all of the people who see their experiences reflected here.

Path of Totality also received a starred review at Publishers Weekly, was featured as a best book of the month at NYLON, and aptly called “a special, cosmic gift” by Just Circling Back. Niina was interviewed at Shelf Awareness and Triangle House. GRANTA excerpted a couple of the poems, which you can read here, and you can hear Niina read the title poem here at Catapult.

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"Pollari’s writing is expansive, all-encompassing. These poems feel like a generous act; in sharing her tragedy — not just the sorrow, but the fierce and enduring love, the moments of pure bliss — Pollari is offering a legacy, a blindingly beautiful corona surrounding all that darkness. This book, then, feels like a special, cosmic gift." —Kristin Iversen, Just Circling Back 

"A gorgeous poetry collection that contends with the sudden passing of a child. Niina Pollari's poems capture the specific, devastating feelling of fixation: not only on spurts of grief but on the small strange things you pay attention to in the wake of it, as if your brain can only hold so much." —Sophia June, Nylon, One of the Best Books of the Month 

"Pollari writes with straightforward, heartbreaking clarity. These poems are unflinching and powerful yet speak in simple, flat language that suggests everything can suddenly look different after a life-changing experience. . . . Pollari has suffered the indescribable and written from that place, showing how fierce love can be, and how unspeakable grief can be endured." —Publishers Weekly  (starred review) 

"This poet speaks from the most terrible grief, losing a child, in the most direct way possible. When language begins to fail, she does not fall silent, but moves into a startling metaphorical knowledge: 'What are you supposed to call the feeling / When you see a star and realize that it corresponds to a map / That it’s just one point in a huge map / Extending over everything like an enormous dark skull.' The poems are often not dark or sad. Yet they all feel achieved by means of an utterly terrible price. When I read their harrowing truths, I remember the irrefutable necessity of poetry." —Matthew Zapruder, author of Father’s Day and Why Poetry

"The exquisitely lyric Path of Totality is as gentle and tender as it is fierce and potent . . . Genre feels less important than the shape and shaping of language itself, and Path of Totality is a container woven to fit the content perfectly. Grief is messy, and the work does not deny that. But there is nothing chaotic about these poems. They grasp the raw and honorable honesty that deep sorrow demands, and deliver with startling clarity and attention the impossible, unending experience of loss, yes—but also, the vast emotional landscape of human experience." —Khadijah Queen, author of Anodyne

“You hold this book but this book also holds you . . . This book is alive, as painful as that might be to its brilliant writer. It’s not much comfort but not much can comfort—comfort is not in this universe. What suffuses this universe is all the universe holds despite what, and who, is lost. Am I speaking in code? Any reader of this book knows what I’m saying about it—to the reader nothing, not even utter emptiness, is alien. And emptiness is never utter, though it can be uttered and that sound resembles a splash of stars, a milky wash of stark existence, consciousness, connectedness almost unbearably relentless, almost unbearably beautiful.” —Brenda Shaughnessy, author of The Octopus Museum

“These poems are blisteringly clear, devastated, and oracular, and they brim with the kindness that comes after terrible enlightenment.” —Sarah Manguso, author of Very Cold People and 300 Arguments

“It seems impossible this book was written, and with such grace and startling beauty. Amidst utter devastation and pain—hope, even humor emerges, and tenderness for others, and the other-than-human. These poems are the sunflowers growing up through the abyss.” —Kate Zambreno, author of Drifts

Out now: BEST DEBUT SHORT STORIES 2021 and a li'l microchap

Being that it is solidly, pumpkin spicédly autumn now, it is long past time to announce some fruits of the summer literary harvest!

Cover art by Sirin Thada, art direction by Nicole Caputo

The Best Debut Short Stories series is now in its fifth year. This annual anthology celebrates the winners of the PEN America Robert J. Dau Prize for Emerging Writers, which honors twelve short story writers on their first-ever fiction publication.

I’m honored to be an official co-editor for the series, having been involved in some capacity since its inception in 2017. We celebrated with a new cover design, with art direction by Nicole Caputo and gorgeous original art by Sirin Thada. This year’s judges were Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and Beth Piatote, honoring twelve debut writers and their debut stories:

“Force, Mass, Acceleration” (The Southern Review), Heather Aruffo
“Good Girls” (Barrelhouse), Lindsay Ferguson
“The First Time I Said It” (The Georgia Review), Isaac Hughes Green
“Maria” (Waxwing Magazine), Amy Haejung
“The Math of Living” (Virginia Quarterly Review), Nishanth Injam
“Transit” (Virginia Quarterly Review), Khaddafina Mbabazi
“Re:Frankie” (Porter House Review), Mackenzie McGee
“The Strong-Strong Winds” (adda), Mathapelo Mofokeng
“Salt” (Michigan Quarterly Review), Alberto Reyes Morgan
“The List” (Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art), Stanley Patrick Stocker
“Taxi” (Midwest Review), Pardeep Toor
“Mandy’s Mary Sue” (Sine Theta Magazine), Qianze Zhang

Best Debut Short Stories 2021: The PEN America Dau Prize is available here, and wherever books are sold. Catapult magazine is doing an interview series with all of the winners, which you can read here. Debut writers, nominations for the 2022 prize are open through November 15th, so ask your editor to nominate you if you’re eligible!

Digital micro-chap

Autocorrect Suggests “Tithe,” a wee chap of 10 poems, is available now via Ghost City Press.

Ghost City Press selected my digital micro-chapbook for inclusion in their 2021 Summer Series. If you're interested in poems as meditations, poems as trances, Baba Yaga, hacking into the mainframe, and repurposed public domain images, come on down! Available here for the low price of FREE, or you can hit that donate button.

WHAT TO MISS WHEN by Leigh Stein is available now!

Cover design and animation by Michael Salu (houseofthought.io)

On the heels of last summer’s hit novel Self Care, Leigh Stein’s long-awaited second poetry collection (and fifth book) is out now! What to Miss When is a 21st-century Decameron about pop culture, mortality, and the internet, written during the Coronavirus pandemic. You can order it here or from your favorite indie bookstore.

Leigh spoke about the book on NPR’s Morning Edition, and we’re doing an event tonight with Brooklyn Poets on what it was like to write and edit an entire poetry collection during the first six months of the pandemic.

Across social media, readers are describing What to Miss When as "a cathartic, playful, devious little read," what would happen if "Inside by Bo Burnham was an episode of Gossip Girl," and "a sometimes-chilling, sometimes-hilarious time capsule of a year that none of us saw coming... It feels like laughing with a friend after the end of the world."

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THIS TIME CAPSULE HOLDS:

Panic kept on you at all times like a passport

Boccaccio's Brigata and the Brat Pack

Malaise confessed in sexy baby voices

Perfume spritzed inside plague-doctor mask

Cringe as onomatopoeia

A mermaid gown of Clorox wipes

Juicy thoughtcrime thrown to a tiger

Post-it stating, Body positivity, ever heard of it?

The last Achilles of the twentieth century

Even the most virtuous with their breeches on their heads

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“I am so thankful for [Stein’s] brain—and these poems.” —Emily Burack, Alma 

“In her dazzling new collection, Leigh Stein has managed to create art from the mess of modern life, with poems both elegiac and flippant in equal measure . . . She manages to imbue each poem with just enough levity to keep the reader from losing hope. I cannot recommend this collection highly enough.” —The Voracious Bibliophile

“What To Miss When is hilarious and absolutely horrifying. If you think the quarantine habits you developed are unique and charming, read this book to be put in your place. But I beg of you, gift that to yourself, it’ll make you feel less alone. ‘I’m a feminist, I got the memo,’ is Stein’s perfect disclaimer when shouting the things so many of us are afraid to even whisper. It’s a specific kind of book that helps us remember how things were, that serves as a map for our children to understand why we are the way we are. This book is one of them.” —Olivia Gatwood, author of Life of the Party

"Early on, the speaker says she 'must be some basic bitch to click / ‘Decameron and Chill?’ in Town and Country,' and we know we’re in for a ride through the pandemic that has some 'mischief' in it. It’s this mischief, Stein’s relentlessly refreshing humor about the 'new normal'—equal parts rueful self-deprecation and excoriating cultural critique—that makes this book such a worthy artifact of the American experience of the pandemic." —Jason Koo, founder and executive director of Brooklyn Poets

“Initially, you may think these poems are witty. They Are. Upon reflection, you may decide these poems are piercingly honest reflections of contemporary desires, run headlong into a plague year. They are. In the dark of a sleepless night, you may feel that these poems saw through your ironic façade and got at something deeper. They did.”—Keith Mosman, Powell's Books (Portland, OR)