We’re excited to share this year-end roundup of novels, novellas, short story collections, and fiction anthologies published in 2023 by independent literary publishers! (Read our year-end roundups for nonfiction, poetry, children’s books, and art and drama as well.)
Novels
The Kudzu Queen by Mimi Herman
Regal House Publishing | January 10, 2023
The Kudzu Queen tells the story of “the self-proclaimed Kudzu King, who arrives in rural North Carolina in the spring of 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu; and of Mattie Lee Watson, the fifteen-year-old who falls in love with him—until she discovers Mr. Cullowee, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side.”
Someone Speaks Your Name by Luis García Montero
Translated from the Spanish by Katie King
Swan Isle Press | January 15, 2023
In this coming-of-age novel, “León discovers that, under the repressive Franco dictatorship, people, places, and events are not always what they seem.”
The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel
Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
New Vessel Press | January 17, 2023
According to Patrick Nathan, Gardel’s National Book Award–winning novel “reminds its readers of an uncomfortable truth: that even a life of regret can be a beautiful one.”
Tell Me One Thing by Kerri Schlottman
Regal House Publishing | January 31, 2023
Tell Me One Thing “examines power, privilege, and the sacrifices one is willing to make to succeed as it tells the story of a provocative photograph, the struggling artist who takes it, and its young and troubled subject.”
Night Letter by Sterling Watson
Akashic Books | January 31, 2023
Ninth Letter is “a taut thriller set in Florida’s desolate panhandle, part coming-of-age story, all hard-boiled noir.”
Eye Brother Horn by Bridget Pitt
Catalyst Press | January 31, 2023
This novel “is the heart-wrenching story of how two children born of vastly different worlds strive to forge a true brotherhood with each other and with other species, and to find ways to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the colonial expansion project.”
The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier
Translated from the French by Daniel Levin Becker
Transit Books | February 7, 2023
Mauvignier’s novel is “a deft unraveling of the stories we hide from others and from ourselves, a gripping tale of the violent irruptions of the past into the present.”
Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison
Coach House Books | February 7, 2023
According to Jen Craig, “In Falling Hour, an immensity is condensed into a single day, a single park, a single empty frame.”
Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner
Graywolf Press | February 7, 2023
This novel “explores the phantasmagoric nature of contemporary life, especially for nonbinary migrants, and daringly revises how solidarity and justice might be sought and won.”
Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras
Translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins
Coach House Books | February 14, 2023
According to Sonia Sarfati, this novel is “a tale that is both beautiful and cruel, like only fairy tales can be. One that is deep and rich in what is found within and between the lines.”
The Ice Sings Back by M Jackson
Green Writers Press | February 20, 2023
Jackson’s debut novel is “a story of how four women make sense of the everyday extraordinary traumas that contour their lives, and how their individual strengths come together to sing a fierce hymn of survival.”
At the Hour between Dog and Wolf by Tara Ison
Ig Publishing | February 21, 2023
According to Robert Olen Butler, this is “a deeply resonant work of art driven by the central yearning in the greatest literary narratives: the yearning for a self, for an identity, for a place in the world.”
In the Fall They Leave by Joanna Higgins
Regal House Publishing | February 21, 2023
In the Fall They Leave is “a wartime story of moral courage. It is also a love story in which two children figure as well as a beloved teacher, a German lieutenant, and a piano.”
Unleash Press | March 1, 2023
Carson’s novel “explores appropriation and masking as the means through which an undiagnosed autistic woman builds a functional identity, burying her true one in the process.”
A Noble Cunning: The Countess and the Tower by Patricia Bernstein
History Through Fiction | March 7, 2023
This historical fiction novel tells “of one woman’s tremendous courage and incomparable wit in trying to rescue her husband from the Tower of London the night before he is to be executed.”
Translated from the German by Lucy Jones
Transit Books | March 7, 2023
Reimann’s first novel to appear in English is “a story of sibling love ruptured by the Iron Curtain.”
The Beautiful Misfits by Susan Reinhardt
Regal House Publishing | March 7, 2023
Set “in the gorgeous mountains of Asheville, N.C.,” this novel will “give hope to those with addicted sons and daughters.”
Indigo Field by Marjorie Hudson
Regal House Publishing | March 14, 2023
In this novel, Hudson “lays out the boundaries of a field that contains the soul of the South, and leads us to a day of reckoning.”
Biggest Little Girl by Jodi Angel
Madville Publishing | March 21, 2023
In Angel’s debut novel, “14-year-old Joey has run away from home in smalltown California in search of anything better.”
Before All Who Have Ever Seen This Disappear by Michael Gills
Madville Publishing | March 21, 2023
Gills’s fifth novel “plumbs the depths of the Stepwell family tendency toward theatrical catastrophe.”
The Green Mage: The First Chronicle of Tessia Dragonqueen by Michael Simms
Madville Publishing | March 21, 2023
In this fantasy novel, “Tessia, a skilled hunter, recruits three friends…and sets out on a quest to find a legendary dragon who lives in the mountains.”
American Gospel by Miah Jeffra
Black Lawrence Press | March 24, 2023
In this novel, “three voices braid together a portrait of a neighborhood in flux, the role of community and violence in our time, and the struggles of a very real and oft misunderstood city.”
Player’s Vendetta by John Lantigua
Arte Público Press | March 31, 2023
In this mystery novel, an investigation “reveals an assortment of suspicious characters who were in Havana when the Players were killed, including a former Cuban spy now living in Little Havana.”
The Sky above the Roof by Nathacha Appanah
Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan
Graywolf Press | April 4, 2023
Appanah’s novel “is both a portrait of a fractured family and a poetic exploration of the ways we break apart and rebuild.”
The Purchased Bride by Peter Constantine
Deep Vellum | April 4, 2023
Set in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, this novel “relates the story of Maria, a Greek girl who was bought when she was fifteen by a much older, wealthy Ottoman man.”
Spring in Siberia by Artem Mozgovoy
Red Hen Press | April 4, 2023
Set in Russia in 1985, Spring in Siberia is “a coming-of-age novel that, in the darkest of times, glows with hope and the yearning for freedom to be oneself.”
Sweet Undoings by Yanick Lahens
Translated from the French by Kaiama L. Glover
Deep Vellum | April 11, 2023
In this novel set in Port-au-Prince, “violence never consumes. It finds its counterpart in a ‘high-pitched sweetness,’ a sweetness that overwhelms Francis, a French journalist.”
Kidnapped: A Story in Crimes by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
Translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz
Deep Vellum | April 25, 2023
This novel set in the 1980s and ’90s “results in a drama worthy of a daytime soap opera: medical deceit, identity scams, and falsified death abound.”
The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio
Translated from the Finnish by Mia Spangenberg
Two Lines Press | April 25, 2023
This novel is “an enigmatic work of autofiction set in a time of leftist politics and criminalized sexuality.”
Coach House Books | April 25, 2023
In this novel, Winkler “moves between the present day and Grim’s 1908-9 tour of Australia, bending genres and histories into a kaleidoscopic investigation of pain, masculinity, and narrative.”
Box Turtle Press | April 29, 2023
In Hoffman’s novel, “the poet Maud Diamond not only indulges in reefer madness in her Beresford bathroom, but takes a much younger live-in lover, a handsome Russian (would-be-famous) artist, to the horror of her precocious children.”
Stretched Love by Gordon Blitz
Tofu Ink Arts Press | May 1, 2023
Blitz’s third novel “plunges us into the passionate marriage of a couple in their thirties, Warren and Rebecca, and her troubled younger gay brother, Paul.”
The Kirschbaum Lectures by Seth Rogoff
Sagging Meniscus Press | May 1, 2023
In this novel, a professor “embarks on a twelve-week journey into his past and toward the heart of his literary life, 1990s Berlin, where art and dreams surged with the raw energy of utopian aspirations.”
Graywolf Press | May 2, 2023
Porter’s latest book is “a novel about guilt, rage, imagination, and boyhood, about being lost in the dark and learning you’re not alone.”
Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü
Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Transit Books | May 2, 2023
“Set across the rambling orchards of a childhood in the Turkish provinces and the smoke-filled cafes of European capitals,” this novel “offers a sensual, unflinching portrayal of a woman’s sexual encounters and psychological struggle.”
American Arcadia by Laura Scalzo
Regal House Publishing | May 2, 2023
In this novel set in New York City in 1985, “two young women are out to seek their fortunes… one in the upper reaches of the World Trade Center, and the other in the basslines of Jaco Pastorius.”
Professor Schiff’s Guilt by Agur Schiff
Translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen
New Vessel Press | May 9, 2023
This “darkly comic” novel “examines economic inequality and the global refugee crisis, as well as the memory of transatlantic chattel slavery and the Holocaust.”
Water Music: A Cape Cod Story by Marcia Peck
Sea Crow Press | May 9, 2023
In this novel set on Cape Cod, twelve-year-old Lily Grainger “finds her family suddenly adrift.”
Like the Appearance of Horses by Andrew Krivak
Bellevue Literary Press | May 9, 2023
This novel “immerses us in the intimate lives of a family whose fierce bonds have been shaped by the great conflicts of the past century.”
Out of the Sugar Factory by Dorothee Elmiger
Translated from the German by Megan Ewing
Two Lines Press | May 9, 2023
Elmiger’s novel “is a staring contest with History: an effort to map the resonances and frictions introduced to the world by the sugar industry. ”
The War Ends at Four by Rosanna Staffa
Regal House Publishing | May 10, 2023
In this novel, “an Italian acupuncturist in Minneapolis comes to terms with the Italy she left behind and the America she found.”
Texas Review Press | May 15, 2023
In this novel, “after 20 years of traveling throughout the U.S., Millie Morrison returns to her hometown to make sense of the experiences and relationships that have shaped her life.”
Sagging Meniscus Press | May 15, 2023
The protagonist in Taylor’s novel “finds a pit bull puppy by the side of the road and gets a job at a boxing manufacturer.”
Book*hug Press | May 16, 2023
This novel follows “an isolated and inexperienced teenager on the cusp of adulthood struggling to craft an identity for herself—especially as the artist she wants to be.”
Loose in the Bright Fantastic by E.B. Moore
Frayed Edge Press | May 16, 2023
Moore’s novel is “a heartfelt story of family ties that get stretched under duress but never quite break.”
An Unclean Place by Barbara Barrow
Lanternfish Press | May 16, 2023
According to Melanie Finn, “An Unclean Place is a simmering, sinister backyard thriller: trust shape-shifts into malevolence, those most familiar to us become monsters.”
Bamboo Ridge Press | May 20, 2023
According to Frank Zafiro, this noir mystery novel set in Honolulu “grabs you by the throat right away and doesn’t ever let go.”
You Shall See the Beautiful Things: A Novel & A Nocturne by Steve Amick
Acre Books | May 26, 2023
In this novel set in the fishing village of Scheveningen in 1889, Amick “envelops his characters in the world of night and dreams.”
The Boy in the Rain by Stephanie Cowell
Regal House Publishing | June 1, 2023
In this novel set in 1903, “Robbie, a shy young art student, meets the twenty-nine-year-old Anton who is running from memories of his brutal childhood and failed marriage.”
The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life by Rune Christiansen
Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson
Book*hug Press | June 6, 2023
Winner of the Brage Prize, this novel “is a quiet, beautiful exploration of solitude and how we relate to other beings.”
The Sound of Rabbits by Janice Deal
Regal House Publishing | June 6, 2023
This novel “tells the story of Ruby, a bright woman with a love of music who thought that leaving the small town where she grew up would ensure her happiness.”
Hub City Press | June 6, 2023
Franks’s new novel is “about two young women contending with unplanned pregnancies in different eras.”
Translated from the Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan
New Vessel Press | June 6, 2023
Where I Am is a novel “about life abroad in a cultural setting not one’s own: Reut is an Israeli translator living in Paris with a French husband and their child.”
Not Anywhere, Just Not by Ken Sparling
Coach House Books | June 6, 2023
According to Brian Evenson, Sparling’s novel “is an ostensibly quiet book that slowly and carefully unnerves and unsettles you—both because of its precise swapping out of reality and because of just how familiar it so often seems.”
Translated from the Chinese by Natascha Bruce
Graywolf Press | June 6, 2023
Owlish is “a fantastically eerie debut novel that is also a bold exploration of life under oppressive regimes.”
Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys by Aaron Tucker
Coach House Books | June 6, 2023
In this apocalyptic novel, Tucker “looks at the violence of our contemporary masculinity, and its deep roots in shaping our culture.”
Parade of Streetlights by Itua Uduebo
Read Furiously | June 6, 2023
Uduebo’s novel “is a captivating exploration of the millennial experience,” in which “Kola explores his adopted home of New York City and all aspects of his world with candor and humor.”
From the Longing Orchard by Jessica Jopp
Red Hen Press | June 13, 2023
This novel “shows us the ways in which a young woman and those she loves all must contend with a longing of some kind and how they seek from each other, and sometimes find, the needed balm.”
Acacia: a book of wonders by Vincent James
Texas Review Press | June 15, 2023
This novel “tells the story of Petra Caldwell, the matriarch of Acacia, a new religious movement located in a densely wooded East Texas thicket.”
Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace by Tracey D. Buchanan
Regal House Publishing | June 20, 2023
According to Jayne Moore Waldrop, “A hint of magic and mystery propels this story of a grouchy, lonely woman named Minerva Place as she discovers important lessons about life, death, and forgiveness.”
Mr. Either/Or: All the Rage by Aaron Poochigian
Etruscan Press | June 20, 2023
This novel-in-verse “features ‘you’ the reader as a secret agent in Manhattan in which poetic rhythms cue and accompany action-scenes.”
The Proprietor’s Song by Janet Goldberg
Regal House Publishing | July 4, 2023
The Proprietor’s Song is a novel “about devastating grief and renewed hope, all set among some of California’s most remote and haunting landscapes.”
Bellevue Literary Press | July 4, 2023
The tenth stand-alone book in The American Novels series follows Ralph Waldo Emerson “coming to terms with the loss of memory, the cost of inaction, and the end of life.”
Café Unfiltered by Jean-Philippe Blondel
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
New Vessel Press | July 11, 2023
In this novel spanning twenty-four hours, “a medley of characters retrace the fading patterns of their lives after a long disruption from Covid.”
Men in My Situation by Per Petterson
Translated from the Norwegian by Ingvild Burkey
Graywolf Press | July 11, 2023
Newly released in paperback, this novel is a “tender, merciless portrait of a life going to pieces.”
Regal House Publishing | July 11, 2023
“Obsessed with the girl next door, a woman seeks to heal her maternal grief by secretly pretending she is the girl’s mother” in Sary’s novel.
An Atavic Fear of Hailstorms by João Reis
Long Day Press | July 18, 2023
In this novel following a car crash, “a man obsesses about the decisions that brought him there, including the fate of woman he was driving to see.”
An Invitation to the Party by MJ Werthman White
Regal House Publishing | July 18, 2023
In this debut novel, “Garnet will turn seventy in a few months and she wants no fuss made. Her family is determined to ignore her wishes and throw a big surprise party.”
Madrona Books | August 1, 2023
Weft is a novel “that will leave its crescent nail marks on us long after we’ve boxed up and returned our skeletons to the closet.”
Down Here We Come Up by Sara Johnson Allen
Black Lawrence Press | August 1, 2023
This debut novel “captures the convergence of three women who must weigh what’s unpalatable against what’s best for their children.”
Sweetbitter by Reginald Gibbons
JackLeg Press | August 1, 2023
Gibbons’s debut novel, set in east Texas in 1910, “plumbs sacrifice, fear, and the loss of one’s identity, bringing the anguish of the two young lovers to life.”
This Brutal House by Niven Govinden
Deep Vellum | August 1, 2023
This novel is “set across the arc of an active protest and the lives behind it—a group of silent Mothers, and one of their children now working for the city.”
The Boys by John Calvin Hughes
Regal House Publishing | August 1, 2023
In this novel, a college student “embarks on a series of increasingly bizarre and violent adventures, ultimately resulting in murder.”
Red Hen Press | August 1, 2023
In Skerrett’s novel, “a grieving Hector Peterson and his estranged father Winston Telemacque arrive on the lush island of Dominica in 2017 to spread his mother’s ashes when Hurricane Maria strikes.”
Story by Erasmus Yang by Scott Shibuya Brown
JackLeg Press | August 15, 2023
This novel “takes a comic look at one ambitious man’s efforts to promote a fraudulent war memorial, thereby almost precipitating international conflict. ”
Echoes, or The Insistence of Memory by Tom Shachtman
Madville Publishing | August 15, 2023
In this novel, a millennial writer “delves into family mysteries—Civil War–era slaveholding, madness, and theft of artifacts.”
Beneath the Sands of Monahans by Charles Alcorn
Deep Vellum | August 22, 2023
This novel is “the tale of a stone-cold frontiersman blasting across his beloved Texas highways attempting to retain his sense of daring and independence among friends, family, bookies and under-reported enemies.”
Bellevue Literary Press | August 22, 2023
Charyn’s novel “reflects the lost world of Manhattan’s Lower East Side—the cradle of Jewish immigration during the first years of the twentieth century—in a dark mirror.”
The Big Game is Every Night by Robert Maynor
Hub City Press | August 22, 2023
Maynor’s novel “shines a harsh light on the ways American men are steeped in violence, and how hard it can be to shake loose the toxic norms that unchecked can keep us all so far apart.”
Dead Men Cast No Shadows by Sergio Ramirez
Translated from the Spanish by Daryl R. Hague
McPherson & Company | September 1, 2023
In Volume 3 of The Managua Trilogy, “Inspector Dolores Morales undertakes a dangerous journey back into Nicaragua, hunted by agents of the secret police.”
Woodhall Press | September 5, 2023
In this novel, “Margo Sharpe has a terrible secret. At 16, she played a role in her parents’ violent deaths on Cape Cod.”
Heart of Stone by David W. Burns
Woodhall Press | September 5, 2023
Burns’s novel follows “a modern-day Medusa, making a living in Chicago as a hitwoman for hire.”
The Secrets of Still Waters Chasm by Patricia Crisafulli
Woodhall Press | September 5, 2023
The second novel in the Ohnita Harbor Mystery Series is “a collision course with yet another murder and people who will stop at nothing.”
The 3rd Thing | September 5, 2023
In this novel, “two women set out through the haze of social and environmental collapse in search of fertile soil.”
Regal House Publishing | September 5, 2023
This novel “dramatizes one family’s terror-filled crisis even as it explores the boundaries of familial and erotic love.”
The Deadly Trade by Barbara Kyle
Woodhall Press | September 5, 2023
According to C. S. O’Cinneide, “Kyle masterfully weaves together mystery, suspense, and advocacy in a thought-provoking and heart-pounding thriller.”
Finding His Way Home by Katie Mongelli
Woodhall Press | September 5, 2023
According to Elizabeth B. Splaine, “Finding His Way Home is a celebration of the most important aspects in our lives (family, love, friendship).”
Graywolf Press | September 5, 2023
Patel’s debut novel “offers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchy’s hold on us, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.”
One Soldier’s Minute by Teresa M. Shafer
Woodhall Press | September 5, 2023
In this novel, a sniper at the end of his military career “recalls those who lost their lives for him and how many lives he had taken since.”
The Last Window-Giraffe by Peter Zilahy
Translated from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson
Sandorf Passage | September 5, 2023
Zilahy’s autobiographical fiction “serves up the absurdity of all manner of authoritarianism that resonates as much today as it first did upon publication in 1999.”
Mountain Lion Blues by Adam Greenfield
Pelekinesis | September 8, 2023
Mountain Lion Blues is “a surreal, dark comedy about the obstacles we place in our way that keep us from the love, success and well-being we’ve been taught since childhood are ours to expect.”
OKPsyche by Anya Johanna DeNiro
Small Beer Press | September 12, 2023
In DeNiro’s novel, “an unnamed trans woman is on an epic journey to find the place where she belongs.”
Feminist Press | September 12, 2023
This debut novel “is an intimate sprawl of memory, migration, and queer desire—charting the messy layers of love and loss that constitute a life.”
Fishing for the Little Pike by Juhani Karila
Translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers
Restless Books | September 12, 2023
In this novel, “a young woman’s annual pilgrimage to her home in Lapland to catch an elusive pike in three days is complicated by a host of mythical creatures, a murder detective hot on her trail, and a deadly curse hanging over her head.”
Cursebreakers by Madeleine Nakamura
Red Hen Press | September 12, 2023
In this novel, a professor of magic “must survive his own failing mental health and a tenuous partnership with a dangerous ally in order to save the city of Astrum from a spreading curse.”
Self-Portrait in Green by Marie NDiaye
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
Two Lines Press | September 12, 2023
In this tenth-anniversary edition of the “genre-defying classic,” NDiaye “combs through all the menacing, beguiling, and revelatory memories submerged beneath the consciousness.”
That Time of Year by Marie NDiaye
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
Two Lines Press | September 12, 2023
According to Abby Walthausen, this novel “is a rumination on (and a cackle at) the stark differences between privileged urban and disenfranchised provincial life.”
Snakes of St. Augustine by Ginger Pinholster
Regal House Publishing | September 12, 2023
In this novel, the theft of two snakes “coincides with the disappearance of a troubled young man named Gethin Jacobs.”
The Last Election by Andrew Yang and Stephen Marche
Akashic Books | September 12, 2023
The Last Election is “a unique political thriller about an outlandish yet frighteningly possible—even probable—scenario in America’s near future.”
Steady Diet of Nothing by Cynthia Cruz
Four Way Books | September 15, 2023
Cruz’s novel “follows a teenage girl, Candy, after her arrival at the Blue House—an abandoned home inhabited by other children seeking shelter from the world.”
Sister Golden Calf by Colleen Burner
Split/Lip Press | September 19, 2023
According to Alexis Smith, the sisters in this novel “face questions of longing and belonging, of how to care for each other and themselves, and of what artifacts to carry as they carry on.”
Graywolf Press | September 19, 2023
Wong’s novel “follows an impenetrable rectangle as it changes hands in a collapsing metropolis, causing confluences, conflicts, rifts, and disasters.”
The Legend of Baraffo by Moez Surani
Book*hug Press | September 26, 2023
In this novel, “a boy named Mazzu grapples to understand the motivations of Babello, a man imprisoned for an act of arson.”
Yesteryear by Stephen G. Eoannou
Santa Fe Writers Project | October 1, 2023
Eoannou’s novel “takes us on a magical journey leading to an icon’s debut, a show that provided hope to Americans during the country’s darkest days.”
Her: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha
Gival Press | October 1, 2023
In this novel, Ha “weaves the lives of individuals we come to know and care about into the saga of Vietnamese-and American-history.”
Blood in the Holler by David Sangiao-Parga
Woodhall Press | October 2, 2023
In this novel, pro wrestlers “find themselves held captive on a farm, unsure of what will happen and desperate to escape.”
Dorothy, a publishing project | October 3, 2023
Set in Auckland in 2016, this novel “moves over the course of one night through the hopes, misapprehensions, resentments, and regrets of a small group of fashion-industry workers, divided by generation and class.”
Dorothy, a publishing project | October 3, 2023
In this novel, a young mother’s day with her baby “becomes entwined with Fielding’s novel, with other books and ideas, and with questions about class and privilege, housing and caregiving, and the support structures that underlie durational forms of codependency, both social and artistic.”
Dying For A Second Chance by Jenn Chapman
Woodhall Press | October 3, 2023
In this thriller, a woman killed in a car crash comes back to life in the body of the crash’s other victim.
Life After Love by Lorraine Cover
Woodhall Press | October 3, 2023
Life After Love is “a story of letting go, moving on, the people you meet along the way, and above all trusting in the timing.”
The Killer’s Kid by Adelene Ellenberg
Woodhall Press | October 3, 2023
In this psychological thriller, “Mickey Quinn, a wife-killer and bar owner, decides he will control the destiny of his only son.”
Washington Writers’ Publishing House | October 3, 2023
This novel is “a coming-of-age journey toward redemption and self-awareness, skirting the lines between spirituality, skepticism, and faith.”
The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann by Virginia Pye
Regal House Publishing | October 3, 2023
Set in Gilded Age Boston, this novel follows “a successful woman author of romance and adventure novels who becomes a champion of women’s rights as she takes on the literary establishment and finds her true voice.”
Restless Books | October 3, 2023
Illustrated by Kaitlin Chan, this new edition of Stoker’s classic features a foreword by Alexander Chee and an introduction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Sadie X by Clara Dupuis-Morency
Translated from the French by Aimee Wall
Book*hug Press | October 10, 2023
This novel “explores humanity’s relationship to the rest of the world, and the role of rationale—and its limits in our multilayered, regenerative existences.”
Traveling a Slant Rhyme by Christine Davis Merriman
Green Writers Press | October 10, 2023
In this novel, “Lissa Power, stripped of her identity as dutiful daughter, flees the narrow walls of her American farmhouse and escapes to France, seeking freedom and independence.”
Down the Steep by A. D. Nauman
Regal House Publishing | October 10, 2023
Down the Steep “elegantly scrutinizes the horrors of the Jim Crow south, heroism gone awry, and the family and home you can never fully flee.”
Green Writers Press | October 17, 2023
Aleshire’s novel “examines our nation’s ongoing and foolish quest to celebrate a utopian vision of itself while at the same time ignoring the horrors of slavery and its consequences.”
Coach House Books | October 17, 2023
Berger’s novel is “a reverse cautionary tale about a young woman exploring the boundaries of sex and belonging in the early 2000s.”
Half a Cup of Sand and Sky by Nadine Bjursten
Alder House Books | October 17, 2023
This debut novel is “a masterful portrait of one woman’s search for love and belonging cast against a nuanced backdrop of political turmoil.”
Man, Underground by Mark Hummel
Regal House Publishing | October 17, 2023
This dark comedy “will leave readers contemplating both the disruptions and the potential transformative power found in random acts of kindness.”
the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life by Alcy Leyva
Green Writers Press | October 17, 2023
In Leyva’s novel, “sixteen-year-old Maji’s New York world is falling apart, and he sets out to sea in search of a miracle.”
I, Lloyd Stollman by Rob Sullivan
Black Heron Press | October 17, 2023
In this debut literary crime novel, “the protagonist passes himself off as various characters he has invented, but whose personalities then dominate his own.”
The Penny Mansions by Steven Mayfield
Regal House Publishing | October 24, 2023
In this historical fiction novel set in a gold rush town, “residents agree to sell four abandoned mansions for a penny apiece if the buyers will stay in town long enough to be counted in the 1920 census.”
Sarra Copia: A Locked-in Life by Nancy Ludmerer
WTAW Press | October 25, 2023
Sarra Copia: A Locked-in Life is historical fiction “based on the life of the title character, who was confined in the Jewish ghetto in Venice from her birth in 1592 until her death forty-nine years later.”
Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls
Transit Books | October 31, 2023
In this novel, “a man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and ultimately finds himself stuck at the end of a forest road.”
Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls
Transit Books | October 31, 2023
The three volumes of Jon Fosse’s Septology—The Other Name, I is Another, and A New Name—collected here in a new paperback release, are “a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience.”
Huizache Women by Estella Gonzalez
Arte Público Press | October 31, 2023
In this novel set in Mexico, Texas, and California, “three generations of women grapple with the complexities of love.”
Testimony of a Shifter by Emma Pérez
Arte Público Press | October 31, 2023
In this nonlinear narrative, Pérez “offers a fascinating speculative novel about alternate histories, while pondering race, discrimination and transgender people.”
Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera
Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Two Lines Press | November 7, 2023
Cross-Stitch is a “debut novel of female friendship and coming-of-age.”
The Manning Girl by Catherine Browder
Regal House Publishing | November 7, 2023
Browder’s novel “reimagines George Eliot’s 1860 fable, Silas Marner, and places it in a contemporary Midwestern frame.”
Catalyst Press | November 7, 2023
This novel is “the saga of the four Taha sisters, and the indomitable matriarch who carried her daughters—and her community—through times of drought and violence in their Harare neighborhood.”
In the Morning, the City Is the Prairie by Rob Roensch
Belle Point Press | November 7, 2023
This coming-of-age novel follows “a soulful yet aimless twenty-something” in Oklahoma City who is confronted by a family health crisis.
Cane: A New Critical Edition by Jean Toomer
The 3rd Thing | November 7, 2023
The 100th anniversary critical edition of Toomer’s masterpiece is “an invitation to wonder, speculate, imagine and create.”
As The Andes Disappeared by Caroline Dawson
Translated from the French by Anita Anand
Book*hug Press | November 14, 2023
This autobiographical, coming-of-age novel “probes the plurality of identity, elucidating the interwoven complexities of immigrating to a new country.”
We Go Liquid by Christian TeBordo
Long Day Press | November 14, 2023
In this novel, a boy receives an email that “may be a message from his mother beyond the grave or it may be spam offering free movie tickets.”
Coach House Books | November 14, 2023
Pervatory is “a novel about Berlin: a city for artists and libertines, a perfect place to find love and madness.”
Pilgrims 2.0 by Lindsey Harding
Acre Books | November 15, 2023
Pilgrims 2.0 is “a novel following four passengers on a luxury cruise line that promises complete reinvention through plastic surgery.”
Texas Review Press | November 15, 2023
Churn “mines the uncanny to tell a story of rural Kansas” in this novel spanning “from the plains of rural Kansas to hundred-acre towns, the end of the universe to its primordial breath.”
The Quality of Mercy by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
Catalyst Press | November 19, 2023
The final novel in the City of Kings trilogy, set in South Africa, follows “the investigation of Spokes Moloi, the first black chief inspector in the City of Kings, who on the eve of his retirement is handed one final crime.”
Alice B. Toklas Is Missing by Robert Archambeau
Regal House Publishing | November 28, 2023
In this novel, “young Midwesterner Ida Caine arrives in Paris with her husband Teddy, a would-be Hemingway who thinks he can adventure first and write later.”
MyLifeandMyLife by Melinda Mátyus
Translated from the Hungarian by Jozefina Komporaly
Ugly Duckling Presse | December 1, 2023
In this experimental novel, Mátyus “zooms in on the loneliness of socially ostracized women, and is preoccupied with the psychological makeup of those experiencing confinement and forced captivity.”
Grove/Atlantic | December 5, 2023
Winner of the 2023 Booker Prize, this novel is “a terrifying, suspenseful vision of an Ireland careening towards authoritarianism.”
The Simple Art of Killing a Woman by Patrícia Melo
Translated from the Portuguese by Sophie Lewis
Restless Books | December 5, 2023
Melo’s novel “conjures the epidemic of femicide in Brazil, the power women can hold in the face of overwhelming male violence, the resilience of community despite state-sponsored degradation, and the potential of the jungle to save us all.”
Regal House Publishing | December 5, 2023
Ott’s novel follows “a man looking to flee the past, barely old enough to drink and looking to rediscover himself after several tours in Afghanistan as a POW prison guard.”
The Crocodile Bride by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen
Hub City Press | December 5, 2023
Newly released in paperback, this debut novel is “a heartbreakingly tender coming-of-age tale and a lyrical, haunting reflection on generational trauma.”
One Thousand & One by Kari Hukkila
Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston
Contra Mundum Press | December 31, 2023
One Thousand & One is “a philosophical, essayistic novel about catastrophes, both natural and man-made, about humans’ ability to respond to catastrophes by thinking or, at the very least, simply managing to survive.”
Novellas
The Path Home by A. J. Pellegrino
Read Furiously | February 7, 2023
The sixth novella in Read Furiously’s One ‘n Done series is “a queer reimagining of the classic Persephone and Hades myth filled with magic and true love.”
Simple Gimpl: The Definitive Bilingual Edition by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Restless Books | March 14, 2023
This is a new, bilingual edition of Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer’s canonical novella “about a hapless yet charmingly resilient baker named Gimpl, who resists taking revenge on the town that makes him the butt of every joke.”
Black Sun Lit | April 4, 2023
According to David Lau, “With a vocabulary more alarmingly varied than entire shelves of contemporary verse, this manual against all pieties hammers the conspiracy of marketable somethings.”
Mon Dieu, Love by Jane V. Blunschi
Texas Review Press | April 15, 2023
Set in Baton Rouge, this novella follows “a pair of sisters stuck in a non-stop loop of relationship mistakes, attempts at sobriety from drugs, alcohol, and general lesbian drama, and accidental, unwelcome emotional growth.”
The Impostor by Edgard Telles Ribeiro
Translated from the Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings and Margaret A. Neves
Bellevue Literary Press | June 13, 2023
This collection includes two novellas: “Blue Butterflies of the Amazon” and “The Imposter,” in which a man travels with his wife through Italy and recalls a family legend about an uncle who was swallowed by Mt. Vesuvius.
Late Nights at Full Moon Records by Sarah Edmonds
Thirty West Publishing House | September 23, 2023
In this novella, a 19-year-old is finally taken in by an elderly couple who “only have one rule: don’t go in the basement.”
Thirty West Publishing House | September 23, 2023
Haeger’s novella follows “two men navigating the tenuous space between devastation and oblivion.”
Thirty West Publishing House | September 23, 2023
This novella’s unnamed narrator, who believes he is a lizard person, is “sent to a coastal resort for intensive therapy to confront the truth of his peculiar identity.”
Numamushi: A Fairy Tale by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh
Lanternfish Press | October 17, 2023
According to Thersa Matsuura, this novella is “a hauntingly beautiful tale of friendship, family, healing, and transformation.”
Fiction Chapbooks
Promiscuous Ruin by Julian Mithra
WTAW Press | March 9, 2023
In Mithra’s short fiction chapbook, “deer hunters Lemuel and Lars hitch up as backwoods companions” and “edge closer to a blizzard of repressed desire.”
Bamboo Dart Press | April 15, 2023
The forty “things” in this collection include “Story as thing. The soul of things. The essence of narrative. Bare bones. Blind alleys. Unanswered questions. And poems, a few pantoums and haiku too.”
Bamboo Dart Press | May 25, 2023
Presto “chronicles the adventures of an employee for a temp agency as he goes out on what often seem like absurd assignments.”
Maybe This Is What I Deserve by Tucker Leighty-Phillips
Split/Lip Press | June 20, 2023
In this short fiction chapbook, Leighty-Phillips “builds a world filled with wonder and tells a new story of working-class, rural living.”
Ten More Things About Us by Nancy Welch
Black Lawrence Press | September 18, 2023
In three stories, Welch illuminates “the very particular lives of women who labor to care for family as devastating illness frays familial ties and tests social consciousness.”
Short Fiction Collections
Twice-Born World: Stories of Lithuania by Wendell Mayo
Deerbrook Editions | January 8, 2023
In this short fiction collection, Mayo “captures the fractured, mournful soul of modern Lithuania like no other writer,” exploring themes of “grief, loneliness, the impossibility of communication, the inexplicability of desire.”
A New Race of Men from Heaven by Chaitali Sen
Sarabande Books | January 17, 2023
A New Race of Men from Heaven is a collection of stories “about characters who wander but are never truly lost.”
But Now Am Found by Patricia Horvath
Black Lawrence Press | February 11, 2023
This short fiction collection is animated by the question, “What happens when one’s illusions unravel?”
Translated from the Croatian by Jennifer Zoble
Feminist Press | February 14, 2023
In this short fiction collection, “eleven stories interweave feminist critique and science fiction into an irreverent portrait of our past, present, and future.”
Autumn House Press | February 24, 2023
The characters in this short fiction collection “stand ready with their dogs (or memories of them), to take the next step.”
Mississippi River Museum by Keith Pilapil Lesmeister
WTAW Press | March 2, 2023
According to Benjamin Anastas, this short fiction collection “is a gut punch of an American story, set in a corner of northeast Iowa that simmers with menace and a slow-moving beauty.”
Lost Reflection by Dennis Callaci
Bamboo Dart Press | March 5, 2023
The seven stories in this collection “are sewn together with characters whose reflections on the past are not to be trusted.”
The Hole in the Ocean by Kathleen March
Veliz Books | March 8, 2023
In this short fiction collection, “March’s brief and intimate stories keenly tease mundanity into existential, stark, and oftentimes hilarious buoyancy.”
Nights from this Galaxy by Wil Weitzel
Sarabande Books | March 14, 2023
Weitzel’s short fiction collection “captures the spirit of a wild and wonderful planet, while acknowledging our shared fragility and the imminent grief that binds us all.”
Bodies in Recline by Michael C. Keith
Pelekinesis | March 20, 2023
Bodies in Recline “contains microfiction tales that probe the experience and struggle of humans as they attempt to retain their sanity in a world that frequently conspires against their effort to do so.”
Phantom Advances by Mary Lynn Reed
Split/Lip Press | March 20, 2023
In this short fiction collection, “young queer women travel America’s back roads, roaming through the South, Midwest, New York, and California, while questions of gender and identity ride shotgun.”
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
Graywolf Press | March 21, 2023
The characters in Herrera’s new story collection “inhabit imagined futures that reveal the strangeness and instability of the present.”
Songs for the Gusle by Prosper Mérimée
Translated from the French by Laura Nagle
Frayed Edge Press | March 21, 2023
First published in 1827, La Guzla “purported to be a collection of folktales, ballad lyrics, and travel narratives compiled and translated into French by an anonymous traveler returning from the Balkans.”
Patterns of Orbit by Chloe N. Clark
Baobab Press | April 4, 2023
In this short fiction collection, Clark navigates “a potent concoction of science fiction, folktale, and horror.”
The Geography of First Kisses by Karin Cecile Davidson
Kallisto Gaia Press | April 4, 2023
The fourteen stories in this collection “are tethered to the bays and backwaters of southern Louisiana, the fields of Iowa and Oklahoma, the pine woods of Florida.”
No God Like the Mother by Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher
Forest Avenue Press | April 4, 2023
Winner of the Oregon Book Award for Fiction, No God Like the Mother “follows characters in transition, through tribulation and hope.”
Urban Folk Tales by Y. Rodriguez
Read Furiously | April 4, 2023
Urban Folk Tales is “a work of fiction based upon the true life experiences of the people who live in the working poor and working class neighborhoods of New York City.”
Of This World by Benjamin Kessler
Game Over Books | April 11, 2023
According to Gabriel Urza, “Kessler has a gift for capturing fleeting, vivid moments that indelibly reveal a character’s deepest fears or desires in a flash.”
A Present Past: Titan and Other Chronicles by Sergei Lebedev
Translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis
New Vessel Press | April 11, 2023
The eleven stories in this collection “share a mystical topography in which the legacy of totalitarian regimes is ever-present—from Katyn to Chechnya, from Lithuanian KGB documents to the streetscape of unified Berlin, from the fragments of family history to the echoes of foot soldiers in Russia’s wars of aggression.”
Boomtown Girl by Shubha Sunder
Black Lawrence Press | April 14, 2023
Set in the Bangalore region of South India, Boomtown Girl “explores the ambitions, delusions, and struggles of people navigating a rapidly developing city.”
Places Like These by Lauren Carter
Book*hug Press | April 18, 2023
This short fiction collection “plumbs the vast range of human reactions to those things which make us human—love, grief, friendship, betrayal, and the intertwined yet contrasting longing for connection and independence.”
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due
Akashic Books | April 18, 2023
In these fourteen stories, “Due further cements her status as a leading innovator in Black horror and Afrofuturism.”
The Sorrows of Others by Ada Zhang
A Public Space Books | May 9, 2023
The Sorrows of Others is a short story collection “about people confronted with being outsiders—as immigrants, as revolutionaries, and even, often, within their own families.”
The Great American Everything by Scott Gloden
Hub City Press | May 16, 2023
The Great American Everything is “a short story collection exploring the bounds of contemporary family and how we move forward in a world so often changed by loss.”
Human Sacrifices by María Fernanda Ampuero
Translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle
Feminist Press | May 16, 2023
The twelve stories in this collection “contemplate the nature of exploitation and abuse, illuminating the realities of those society consumes for its own pitiless ends.”
The Visibility of Things Long Submerged by George Looney
BOA Editions | May 23, 2023
Looney’s short fiction collection “explores the essential nature of faith while plumbing the gritty secrets of the human heart.”
Above Discovery by Jennifer Falkner
Invisible Publishing | May 23, 2023
In this debut short fiction collection, “past and present glancingly converge, making the familiar outlines of myth, history, and everyday life seem suddenly strange.”
Sleep Tight Satellite by Carol Guess
Tupelo Press | June 1, 2023
According to Randall Brown, in these short stories “Guess builds the most wondrous word-nests, each one holding something precious.”
The Ghosts of Other Immigrants by Maija Mäkinen
New American Press | June 6, 2023
The characters in Mäkinen’s short stories about migration “are marked by heritage and the pasts that follow them wherever they go.”
Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu
Translated from the Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao
Feminist Press | June 6, 2023
In this debut short fiction collection, Pasaribu “blends together speculative fiction and dark absurdism, drawing from Batak and Christian cultural elements.”
EastOver Press | June 6, 2023
In these short stories, Rinard “introduces an eclectic group of women attempting to claim their own space and to find meaning in the mundanity of relationships, eating, shopping, grieving, searching, and dropping a kid off at college.”
Translated from the Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen and Jeremy Tiang
Two Lines Press | June 13, 2023
In these connected short stories, “Xu’s characters observe as others like them—workers, students, drifters, and the just plain unlucky—get by the best ways they know how.”
Fat Time and Other Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen
Graywolf Press | June 20, 2023
This short story collection “about Black lives in the past, present, and future” combines “speculative history and tender, painful depictions of Black life in urban America.”
Ubulembu and Other Stories by J. Eric Smith
Unleash Press | July 1, 2023
Ubulembu and Other Stories is a collection of seventeen tales “exploring the existential nature of being, or not being, human.”
Read Furiously | July 11, 2023
The stories in this collection “eclipse the many different sides of the American experience, from riding on the school bus to the backdrop of Disneyland to the lives we live.”
Beer-Breath Kisses by Damon McKinney
Belle Point Press | July 11, 2023
In this collection of flash fiction and nonfiction, “McKinney weaves his own family narratives within fictionalized landscapes of reservation life.”
Here in the Night by Rebecca Turkewitz
Black Lawrence Press | July 21, 2023
The thirteen stories in Turkewitz’s debut collection “traverse a boarding school in the Vermont woods, the jagged coast of Maine, an attic in suburban Massachusetts, an elevator stuck between floors, and the side of an unlit highway in rural South Carolina.”
Feeling for Eggs by Elizabeth Patton
Clare Songbirds Publishing House | August 1, 2023
In this short fiction collection, “Patton’s crisp prose and dry humor invite the reader into a cross-section of a time in history and the women who journey through it.”
And Dogs to Chase Them by Ray Trotter
EastOver Press | August 1, 2023
In this short fiction collection, “ordinary humans are pushed to do things in out-of-the-ordinary ways.”
I’m Here: Alaska Stories by David Nikki Crouse
Red Hen Press | August 8, 2023
The stories in this collection “dramatize life in the Alaskan interior, describing the difficult lives of people in Fairbanks, Alaska, as they move through the long, brilliant days of summer into the deep winter months.”
The Beggar’s Coin: Short Stories of Vietnam & the Epic Poem, The ‘Nam by Lee Henschel, Jr.
Shipwreckt Books | August 21, 2023
This short fiction collection “gives the reader a hard-wired account of what Lee did, what he saw, and more than anything else, what he was thinking during his tour in Vietnam.”
When the Night Breathes Electric by Max Talley
Borda Books | September 1, 2023
The stories in Talley’s collection “range from the fantastical to crime fiction to haunted fables to science fiction.”
Child Craft by Amy Cipolla Barnes
Belle Point Press | September 5, 2023
This hybrid prose collection “explores family relationships—typically from the perspectives of mother and daughter—and the ways that we continually shape them into something that can either help or harm us.”
Strange Attractors: The Ephrem Stories by Janice Deal
New Door Books | September 12, 2023
In Deal’s linked story collection, “everyday people navigate the uncertainties of life in the American heartland, seeking order in chaos with a very human mix of resilience and folly.”
Her Body Among Animals by Paola Ferrante
Book*hug Press | September 12, 2023
In this debut short fiction collection “merging horror, fairy tales, pop culture and sci-fi, women challenge the boundaries placed on their bodies.”
Hub City Press | September 12, 2023
Hill’s debut short fiction collection “delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South.”
Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival by JoeAnn Hart
Black Lawrence Press | September 15, 2023
In these stories, “the climate crisis arrives not just as strange and violent weather, but as upheavals in our political and emotional climates as well.”
You Were Watching from the Sand by Juliana Lamy
Red Hen Press | September 19, 2023
You Were Watching from the Sand is “a collection in which Haitian men, women, and children who find their lives cleaved by the interminably strange bite back at the bizarre with their own oddities.”
Book*hug Press | September 19, 2023
Anecdotes is “a hybrid collection in four parts examining the pressing realities of sexual violence, abuse, and environmental collapse.”
So Many People, Mariana by Maria Judite de Carvalho
Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
Two Lines Press | October 10, 2023
These short stories are “tough, unflinching accounts of women trapped by a culture that values them as workers or wives but not as people.”
Discount Ceremony by Timothy Day
Game Over Books | October 10, 2023
Day’s short fiction collection “explores friendship, arrested development, loneliness, and compromised dreams, played out against a series of surreal backdrops by turns comically absurd and strikingly bleak.”
Histories of Memories by Shome Dasgupta
Belle Point Press | October 17, 2023
This hybrid prose collection “is a testament to the burdens as well as the delights of our own narratives—how they keep us tied to each other whether we realize it or not.”
Blessed Hands by Frume Halpern
Translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Frayed Edge Press | October 17, 2023
The stories in this collection “present the lives of protagonists who are working-class poor, social outcasts, and those experiencing illness, disability, and racism.”
Translated from the French by Kit Schluter
Black Sun Lit | October 17, 2023
In this short fiction collection, “the limits of excess themselves are stifling, erotic immoderation no longer satisfies, and worldly anguish reveals itself as ever crueler, more evident.”
LittlePuss Press | October 17, 2023
The seven stories in this collection are “about young transgender life from the Upper Midwest to New York City.”
The Neorealist in Winter by Salvatore Pane
Autumn House Press | October 23, 2023
The Neorealist in Winter is a collection of eleven short stories “that explore what it means to be human in an age of media oversaturation.”
The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories by Kij Johnson
Small Beer Press | October 24, 2023
This short fiction collection features “speculative and experimental stories that explore animal intelligences, gender, and the nature of stories.”
Midnight Self by Adrian Van Young
Black Lawrence Press | October 27, 2023
This short fiction collection “explores the dissociation of being human and the humanity of being monstrous.”
Is It So? Glimpses, Glyphs, & Found Novels by Kevin McIlvoy
WTAW Press | November 7, 2023
McIlvoy’s final work of fiction showcases his “artistic dedication to the irreal, the carnivalesque, to ghost stories, fairy tales, the short short form-writing that thrives in the edges, margins, and borderlands.”
At Night He Lifts Weights by Kang Young-sook
Translated from the Korean by Janet Hong
Transit Books | November 14, 2023
This short fiction collection “offers a disquieting vision of a society grappling with ecological catastrophe and unplaceable forms of loss.”
Footnote to Doggerel by Tom Driscoll
Rocket Science Press | December 11, 2023
Driscoll’s latest short fiction collection “will take the reader back and forth in time and geography, from WWII to the rain forest of the Congo, the Pisgah Mountains of North Carolina to the looping dreamscapes of organ failure.”
Fiction Anthologies
Coolest Stories Press | January 10, 2023
In the second volume of this annual short fiction anthology edited by Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey, “America’s most talented storytellers share their most interesting, engaging, unputdownable work.”
Kelp Books | January 13, 2023
The noir in this anthology edited by David M. Olsen “features old school legends, alongside the brightest emerging writers in the game.”
This Side of the Divide: New Lore of the American West
Baobab Press | February 7, 2023
This Side of the Divide: New Lore of the American West is the second installment in the anthology series “attempting to capture the newness, vastness, territoriality, and sense of transience alive in the American West.”
What’s Next? Short Fiction in Time of Change
Green Writers Press | February 21, 2023
This short fiction anthology, edited by Sharyn Skeeter, asks, “‘what’s next’ in our relationships, environment, societies, politics, and everything else that touches our lives.”
Two Lines Press | April 11, 2023
According to Shailja Patel, this first collection of Swahili fiction in English translation is “an absorbing sampler of the literary feast available in Africa’s most widely spoken language.”
Akashic Books | May 2, 2023
This anthology of noir based in Austin, Texas—edited by Scott Montgomery, Hopeton Hay, and Molly Odintz—features short stories by Gabino Iglesias, Ace Atkins, Amanda Moore, Jeff Abbott, Scott Montgomery, Richard Z. Santos, Alexandra Burt, Lee Thomas, Miriam Kuznets, Jacob Grovey, Chaitali Sen, Molly Odintz, Amy Gentry, and Andrew Hilbert.
Radix Media | June 13, 2023
Many Worlds, or The Simulacra—edited by Cadwell Turnbull and Josh Eure—is “an anthology of reality-bending stories from a one-of-a-kind collective of authors building a shared multiverse.”
A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers
Akashic Books | September 5, 2023
In this anthology edited by Joyce Carol Oates, writers including Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, and Megan Abbott “explore, subvert, and reinvent one of the most vital subgenres of horror.”
Soul Jar: 31 Fantastical Tales by Disabled Authors
Forest Avenue Press | October 17, 2023
Edited by Annie Carl, this anthology features stories by disabled authors, “imagining such wonders as a shapeshifter on a first date, skin that sprouts orchid buds, and a cereal-box demon.”
Coolest Stories Press | October 24, 2023
The third volume of the annual short story anthology—edited by Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey—features fiction by Cynthia Weiner, Tara Laskowski, D. W. Gregory, and Matthew Goldberg.
Already Gone: Forty Stories of Running Away
Alan Squire Publishing | November 14, 2023
Edited by Hannah Grieco, this anthology is “a collection of runaway stories that explores what it means to fly, to flee, to escape—to search for who we are.”
Graphic Novels
Nothing Is a Cure by Jeff Horwat
Wolfson Press | January 23, 2023
The protagonist in this wordless graphic novel “explores a disorienting checker-board terrain that is strewn with bones even as vines and flowers burst through the cracks.”
No Evil Is Wide by Randall Watson
Madville Publishing | August 15, 2023
This graphic novel is “the violent story of an unnamed narrator, the prostitute he is tasked to ‘find,’ and Carpenter Wells, a man who has lost his soul and wanders, empty, unable to quench his desire.”
