BOOKS

Scroll to find titles in our various series, including:

The Legacy Series in Short Fiction

The Linda Nemec Foster First Book Award for Poetry

The Portage Poetry Series

The Back Home Series in Creative Nonfiction

The Heritage Series

Legacy Series Header.png

New Releases

Fall 2026

$24.95 \| Nov 2026 220 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-81-2 The Loneliness of Glass Kathleen Furin Featuring women on the borders, Kathleen Furin’s stories show how a deepening understanding of inner truths can challenge one’s social belonging, and how this tension between inner and outer selves serves or destroys. Grappling with complicity, the characters in *The Loneliness of Glass* struggle as they learn how an intent to “save” others is often fraught with hypocrisy and can lead to self-destruction. --- “Incandescent . . . Furin is a major new talent.” —Jonathan Vatner author of Carnegie Hill	$24.95 \| Nov 2026 220 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-56-0 Ask Me About the Money Keith Lesmeister With profound empathy, searing details, and propulsive scenes, these stories introduce situations at once simple and profound, strange and familiar. From railroad tracks, to cheap motels, from garage sales to cow pastures, Keith Pilapil Lesmeister tunes our hearts to the powerful frequency of money. --- “Deeply felt, generous, big-hearted stories by one of the most exciting and talented short story writers out there.” —Andrew Porter author of The Imagined Life	$24.95 \| Nov 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-88-1 There's No Way to Know Mary Alice Hostetter “Readers familiar with any small town in America will recognize the colorful inhabitants of Tanner’s Gap, West Virginia. From the gossiping quilters to the young women with dreams of taking over the local diner to the high school basketball star who just wants to get out of town, Hostetter has woven these unflinching stories together with lyrical threads of loss, jealousy, and loneliness. These are the men and women who stay, who leave, who are left behind, and I promise when you get to the end, you’ll want more.” —Clifford Garstang author of In an Uncharted Country	$24.95 \| Nov 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-87-4 Aboard the Old Buoy Andrew Rihn “Rihn has crafted a collection of picaresque tales that pull no punches (infused with the spirit of Robert E. Howard’s boxing stories) about the hangdog Steve Costigan, Jr. They are brisk with action, roguish characters, barflies, and stings of physical comedy like we haven’t seen since the days of Chaplin and Keaton. I don’t want to overstate it, but these are Melvillean tales focused on the pugilist rather than the sailor, punctuated with sharp prose and keen thoughts.” —Kyle Winkler author of The Ship of Death
$24.95 \| Nov 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-86-7 Never Mind Your Good Reasons BettyJoyce Nash "These stories are packed full of longing, regret, and resignation and glimmers of hope and resilience. They open readers’ eyes to the everyday struggles of people one might pass on the street, on the bus, in a parking lot who might not be given a chance of a second glance. Nash finds gravity in those characters. She holds a tenderness for the ordinary, the woebegone, the beaten down and writes with poignancy, humor, and empathy." —Debra A. Daniel author of In the Dark Eyes of the Rabbit	$22.95 \| Nov 2026 120 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-74-4 Summer & Other Stories Tamara Skidmore Six stories follow the life of Ruby, a Michigan girl living, struggling, and searching in San Francisco in Tamara Skidmore’s raw and moving story cycle. Her Midwestern memories intrude upon her California present, haunting and helping her as she wonders about the great heights and darkness in her life. Starkly real and exacting in its endurance and spirit, *Summer & Other Stories* is a soulful exploration of a woman’s dangerous proximity to ruin and rebirth. --- “Compellingly intimate.” —Stuart Dybeck author of The Coast of Chicago	$24.95 \| Nov 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-85-0 Welcome to North Bank Phillip Sterling "At times devastating, beautifully sorrowful and at others bitterly joyful, Sterling has captured the complexities of smalltown life that one should never confuse for 'the simple life.' This is to say that what really gets these wives, husbands, smalltown business owners and politicians, door-to-door salesmen and lovers from one day to the next is hope. There is nothing more human than that." —RS Deeren author of Enough to Lose	$23.95 \| Nov 2026 150 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-84-3 Abandon Storm Ainsely "A raw and immersive debut that follows a drifting narrator through a fractured underground world of music, addiction, friendships, and fleeting revelations. . . . the work further pushes boundaries and captures a new generation searching for meaning while standing at the edge of collapse. Weaving lyrical and realistic lines, Ainsely is a writer who unflinchingly explores the fragile spaces between creativity and self-destruction, hope and nihilism, connection and isolation." —John Chavez author of City of Slow Dissolve
$24.95 \| Oct 2026 224 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-67-6 Mervelous Freaks of Nature! Alyson Mosquera Dutemple From oddballs and lonely hearts living on the fringes of suburbia to stunning abnormalities pulled out from Mother Nature’s bag of tricks, *MARVELOUS FREAKS OF NATURE! is a delightfully sly study of the shadowy crannies of the human heart. A dazzling debut so full of life it hurts. --- “Continually amazes, sometimes quietly and sometimes with the force of a bomb.” —Mary Grimm* author of Transubstantiation	$24.95 \| Oct 2026 216 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-57-7 Tradeoffs David Galef From the minor to the magnificent, *Tradeoffs* follows its many characters toward their various conclusions—sometimes logical, sometimes absurd, yet always true. Intricate in its construction and thrilling in its breadth, *Tradeoffs* pays off. --- “Masterful . . . compelling and thought-provoking.” —Francine Witte author of Radio Water	$25.95 \| Oct 2026 238 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-77-5 Bullies & Cowards Kevin Grauke What makes a bully? What makes a coward? Who determines what makes a person one or the other? How does one avoid being either? *Bullies & Cowards* reveals the darkness and courage buried in each of us. --- “As brutal as it is beautiful. . . . Without question, Grauke is one of our finest short story writers today.” —Jonathan Danielson author of The Lowest Basin	$24.95 \| Oct 2026 216 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-76-8 Secrets and Other Hobbies Mary Hannah Terzino Serious and darkly humorous, noble and morally ambiguous, achingly vulnerable and always memorable, Mary Hannah Terzino’s debut lays bare an indelible and realistic Midwest. --- “Gutting and complex . . . a literary coup for all those who love the Midwest.” —Katey Schultz author of Still Come Home
$23.95 \| Oct 2026 152 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-79-9 The Great Silence Daniel Scott Set in isolated monasteries, in the cabs of snowplows, in maximum-security prisons and junior-high locker rooms and windowless Manhattan apartments, the bracing, innovative stories in Daniel Scott’s *The Great Silence* expose and exalt human longing amidst the push and promise of American life. --- “A beautiful, moving collection.” —Karen E. Bender author of The Words of Dr. L	$24.95 \| Oct 2026 208 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-80-5 And Night Shall Come David J. Rank The stories in David J. Rank’s debut collection reveal what things wait in the shadows beyond human vision: creatures best left alone, monsters lurking within ourselves, and dark emotions ready to erupt from tormented souls. --- “Full of wit and dark humor, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury.” —Sarah Read *Bram Stoker Award Winner*	$24.95 \| Oct 2026 196 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-70-6 Tollund Man Jeff Esterholm "This book whispers and explodes, sings then kicks down the door." —Luis Alberto Urrea *Pulitzer Prize Finalist* “Esterholm writes my kind of crime fiction—tough, tender, and as rich as marrow.” —Peter Farris author of The Devil Himself	$24.95 \| Oct 2026 174 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-75-1 Rumors of Peace Hope Coulter Biting, canny, and tender, *Rumors of Peace* conjures a group of characters who, amid many kinds of upheaval, spin the magic of stories to make sense of their lives. --- “Coulter swiftly summons not only vanished times and places but entire lives into being.” —Kevin Brockmeier author of The Ghost Variations

$24.95 | Nov 2026

220 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-81-2

The Loneliness of Glass

Kathleen Furin

Featuring women on the borders, Kathleen Furin’s stories show how a deepening understanding of inner truths can challenge one’s social belonging, and how this tension between inner and outer selves serves or destroys. Grappling with complicity, the characters in The Loneliness of Glass struggle as they learn how an intent to “save” others is often fraught with hypocrisy and can lead to self-destruction.

---

“Incandescent . . . Furin is a major new talent.”

—Jonathan Vatner

author of Carnegie Hill

$24.95 | Nov 2026

220 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-56-0

Ask Me About the Money

Keith Lesmeister

With profound empathy, searing details, and propulsive scenes, these stories introduce situations at once simple and profound, strange and familiar. From railroad tracks, to cheap motels, from garage sales to cow pastures, Keith Pilapil Lesmeister tunes our hearts to the powerful frequency of money.

---

“Deeply felt, generous, big-hearted stories by one of the most exciting and talented short story writers out there.”

—Andrew Porter

author of The Imagined Life

$24.95 | Nov 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-88-1

There's No Way to Know

Mary Alice Hostetter

“Readers familiar with any small town in America will recognize the colorful inhabitants of Tanner’s Gap, West Virginia. From the gossiping quilters to the young women with dreams of taking over the local diner to the high school basketball star who just wants to get out of town, Hostetter has woven these unflinching stories together with lyrical threads of loss, jealousy, and loneliness. These are the men and women who stay, who leave, who are left behind, and I promise when you get to the end, you’ll want more.”

—Clifford Garstang

author of In an Uncharted Country

$24.95 | Nov 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-87-4

Aboard the Old Buoy

Andrew Rihn

“Rihn has crafted a collection of picaresque tales that pull no punches (infused with the spirit of Robert E. Howard’s boxing stories) about the hangdog Steve Costigan, Jr. They are brisk with action, roguish characters, barflies, and stings of physical comedy like we haven’t seen since the days of Chaplin and Keaton. I don’t want to overstate it, but these are Melvillean tales focused on the pugilist rather than the sailor, punctuated with sharp prose and keen thoughts.”

—Kyle Winkler

author of The Ship of Death

$24.95 | Nov 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-86-7

Never Mind Your Good Reasons

BettyJoyce Nash

"These stories are packed full of longing, regret, and resignation and glimmers of hope and resilience. They open readers’ eyes to the everyday struggles of people one might pass on the street, on the bus, in a parking lot who might not be given a chance of a second glance. Nash finds gravity in those characters. She holds a tenderness for the ordinary, the woebegone, the beaten down and writes with poignancy, humor, and empathy."

—Debra A. Daniel

author of In the Dark Eyes of the Rabbit

$22.95 | Nov 2026

120 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-74-4

Summer & Other Stories

Tamara Skidmore

Six stories follow the life of Ruby, a Michigan girl living, struggling, and searching in San Francisco in Tamara Skidmore’s raw and moving story cycle. Her Midwestern memories intrude upon her California present, haunting and helping her as she wonders about the great heights and darkness in her life. Starkly real and exacting in its endurance and spirit, Summer & Other Stories is a soulful exploration of a woman’s dangerous proximity to ruin and rebirth.

---

“Compellingly intimate.”

—Stuart Dybeck

author of The Coast of Chicago

$24.95 | Nov 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-85-0

Welcome to North Bank

Phillip Sterling

"At times devastating, beautifully sorrowful and at others bitterly joyful, Sterling has captured the complexities of smalltown life that one should never confuse for 'the simple life.' This is to say that what really gets these wives, husbands, smalltown business owners and politicians, door-to-door salesmen and lovers from one day to the next is hope. There is nothing more human than that."

—RS Deeren

author of Enough to Lose

$23.95 | Nov 2026

150 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-84-3

Abandon

Storm Ainsely

"A raw and immersive debut that follows a drifting narrator through a fractured underground world of music, addiction, friendships, and fleeting revelations. . . . the work further pushes boundaries and captures a new generation searching for meaning while standing at the edge of collapse. Weaving lyrical and realistic lines, Ainsely is a writer who unflinchingly explores the fragile spaces between creativity and self-destruction, hope and nihilism, connection and isolation."

—John Chavez

author of City of Slow Dissolve

$24.95 | Oct 2026

224 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-67-6

Mervelous Freaks of Nature!

Alyson Mosquera Dutemple

From oddballs and lonely hearts living on the fringes of suburbia to stunning abnormalities pulled out from Mother Nature’s bag of tricks, MARVELOUS FREAKS OF NATURE! is a delightfully sly study of the shadowy crannies of the human heart. A dazzling debut so full of life it hurts.

---

“Continually amazes, sometimes quietly and sometimes with the force of a bomb.”

—Mary Grimm

author of Transubstantiation

$24.95 | Oct 2026

216 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-57-7

Tradeoffs

David Galef

From the minor to the magnificent, Tradeoffs follows its many characters toward their various conclusions—sometimes logical, sometimes absurd, yet always true. Intricate in its construction and thrilling in its breadth, Tradeoffs pays off.

---

“Masterful . . . compelling and thought-provoking.”

—Francine Witte

author of Radio Water

$25.95 | Oct 2026

238 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-77-5

Bullies & Cowards

Kevin Grauke

What makes a bully? What makes a coward? Who determines what makes a person one or the other? How does one avoid being either? Bullies & Cowards reveals the darkness and courage buried in each of us.

---

“As brutal as it is beautiful. . . . Without question, Grauke is one of our finest short story writers today.”

—Jonathan Danielson

author of The Lowest Basin

$24.95 | Oct 2026

216 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-76-8

Secrets and Other Hobbies

Mary Hannah Terzino

Serious and darkly humorous, noble and morally ambiguous, achingly vulnerable and always memorable, Mary Hannah Terzino’s debut lays bare an indelible and realistic Midwest.

---

“Gutting and complex . . . a literary coup for all those who love the Midwest.”

—Katey Schultz

author of Still Come Home

$23.95 | Oct 2026

152 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-79-9

The Great Silence

Daniel Scott

Set in isolated monasteries, in the cabs of snowplows, in maximum-security prisons and junior-high locker rooms and windowless Manhattan apartments, the bracing, innovative stories in Daniel Scott’s The Great Silence expose and exalt human longing amidst the push and promise of American life.

---

“A beautiful, moving collection.”

—Karen E. Bender

author of The Words of Dr. L

$24.95 | Oct 2026

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-80-5

And Night Shall Come

David J. Rank

The stories in David J. Rank’s debut collection reveal what things wait in the shadows beyond human vision: creatures best left alone, monsters lurking within ourselves, and dark emotions ready to erupt from tormented souls.

---

“Full of wit and dark humor, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury.”

—Sarah Read

Bram Stoker Award Winner

$24.95 | Oct 2026

196 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-70-6

Tollund Man

Jeff Esterholm

"This book whispers and explodes, sings then kicks down the door."

—Luis Alberto Urrea

Pulitzer Prize Finalist

“Esterholm writes my kind of crime fiction—tough, tender, and as rich as marrow.”

—Peter Farris

author of The Devil Himself

$24.95 | Oct 2026

174 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-75-1

Rumors of Peace

Hope Coulter

Biting, canny, and tender, Rumors of Peace conjures a group of characters who, amid many kinds of upheaval, spin the magic of stories to make sense of their lives.

---

“Coulter swiftly summons not only vanished times and places but entire lives into being.”

—Kevin Brockmeier

author of The Ghost Variations

Series List

$22.95 \| Apr 2026 118 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-36-2 Hands Pardeep Toor What happens if hard work doesn’t pay off and dreams don’t come true? *Hands* follows Hans, a downtrodden and aimless immigrant pursuing the so-called American Dream by any means necessary. --- “Brilliant . . . a beautiful work of art.” —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah *National Book Award Finalist*	$24.95 \| Apr 2026 206 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-37-9 I Felt My Life With Both My Hands Jessica Treadway These stories affirm the significance of our most inner selves, and the possibility of grace in human connection. --- “A writer with an unsparing bent for the truth.” *—The New York Times Book Review*	$24.95 \| Apr 2026 180 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-38-6 This Is How We Speak Rebecca Reynolds What do we owe one another? Rebecca Reynolds tells stories within stories of parents, children, turmoil, and forgiveness. --- “Vibrant and alive and necessary.” —Mary Miller author of Always Happy Hour
$24.95 \| Apr 2026 208 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-39-3 Your Place in This World Jake La Botz What does it mean to find your place in this world? Jake La Botz burrows his way deep into the challenges of revelation, showing how change can bless us and curse us, and ultimately save us. --- “Engrossing . . . excellent.” —Adventures in Americana	$24.95 \| Apr 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-42-3 All That It Seems Jim Landwehr Eclectic, relevant, and earnestly human at every turn, Jim Landwehr’s stories sparkle with magic and fantasy, hum with technology and history, and celebrate human triumph in troubling times. --- “Brimming with life, humor and heartbreak.” —Frank Bures author of Pushing the River	$24.95 \| Apr 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-43-0 Lafferty, Looking for Love Dennis McFadden People like Terrance Lafferty because he's harmless. All the trouble he gets into, all his predicaments, are usually self-inflicted, and happen only because he's on that most elemental of quests: he's looking for love. And, as you might guess, he's looking in all the wrong places. --- “Charming.” —Foreword Reviews	$24.95 \| Apr 2026 225 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-44-7 All Gone Now Michael Caleb Tasker Examines lives touched by absent parents, escaped convicts, and looming hurricanes in slowly changing worlds, peopled with beaten souls that refuse erosion. --- “Brings to life the wounded and the lost, and the yearning within the human heart.” —Michael Sela author of The Restorer	$24.95 \| Mar 2026 174 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-21-8 Apple & Palm Patricia Henley The town of Whistle Pig, like the mountains that surround it, can appear unchanging, as immutable as geography. The lives of the characters in Patricia Henley's linked stories contrast with that predictability. Apple & Palm is a provocative close-up examination of aging, memory, and desire. --- "Stirring." —Booklist	$24.95 \| Mar 2026 220 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-35-5 Bodies in Bags Jamey Gallagher Jamey Gallagher’s stories, steeped in desperation and told in tough but tender voices, are about the effects of—and the compulsion to—violence. *Bodies in Bags, with its flex and fever, is so visceral you can smell it. --- “Steel-hinged and hard-won.” —Benjamin Drevlow* author of Honky
$27.95 \| Mar 2026 288 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-40-9 A Green Glow On the Horizon Dawn Burns Exposes the complicated, often contradictory yearnings and compulsions, griefs and grievous missteps of our fellow human beings. --- “Tender, funny, and masterful” —Bonnie Jo Campbell *National Book Award Finalist*	$24.95 \| Feb 2026 228 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-25-6 Yes, No, I Don't Know Kathryn Gahl Stories that form a luminous patchwork of Midwestern strivers, lovers, and dreamers in thorny circumstances. Controlled, tender, and masterful, Gahl weaves despair and hope into a single thread of healing grace. --- “Brimming with compassion.” —Larry Watson New York Times Bestselling Author	$24.95 \| Feb 2026 218 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-22-5 How We Do Things Here Matt Cashion Matt Cashion’s cast of slow-learners reveals how we try (and fail) and retry to forge meaningful connections in the troubled spaces we’re so desperate to share. --- “Surprising, very funny, and brimming with compassion.” —Lori Ostlund author of Are You Happy?	$23.95 \| Feb 2026 156 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-24-9 Release of Information Kali White VanBaale Exploring marital roles, complex family legacies, abuse, and generational trauma, the interconnected characters and stories move through time and space, as VanBaale catches ordinary people in extraordinary moments of revelation. --- "Striking and haunting." —Booklist	$24.95 \| Feb 2026 178 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-34-8 The Price of Their Toys John P. Loonam John P. Loonam builds a mosaic of modern life, charged with the arrogance of youth, the despair of aging, and the prices we pay along the way. --- “A vivid, powerful coming-of-age tale, a story of stories.” —Frank Haberle author of Downlanders	$24.95 \| Feb 2026 162 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-23-2 Neon Steel Jennifer Maritza McCauley Magical realist and neon-lit, McCauley faithfully follows a group of nerds and the magic that excites them, bringing to life a city and a state of being. --- “These linked stories are valentines to Black culture, Blerds (Black nerds), and Pittsburgh. . . . A fun homage to anime.” —Kirkus Reviews
$24.95 \| Feb 2026 208 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-27-0 The Divide Evan Morgan Williams Set in the Mountain West, place is not just a backdrop; it is a provocation, an invitation to hope, and a mirror to reflect either consolation or indifference, depending on the case. --- "A collection of memorable character studies with a good sense of presence—and absence." —Kirkus Reviews	$24.95 \| Dec 2025 212 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-13-3 We Should Be Somewhere By Now Stephen Tuttle With singular style and grace, Stephen Tuttle explores what it means to be a stranger in familiar places and among familiar people. --- “Intensely visible and invisible at once, Tuttle probes questions about our relationships and the ways we live and grieve.” —Aimee Bender author of The Color Master	$24.95 \| Dec 2025 228 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-17-1 These Are My People Steve Fox Finalist Edna Ferber Fiction Award *Wisconsin Writers Awards* Whirling and wondrous, these stories show Steve Fox at the peak of his powers.	$25.95 \| Dec 2025 242 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-18-8 A Day Doesn't Go By When I Don't Have Regrets J. Malcolm Garcia Hard-boiled tales of characters living well below the radar of the people around them, but redemption might be right around the corner as long as the will to search for it still exists. --- “Deft and moving.” —Andria Williams author of The Longest Night	$24.95 \| Dec 2025 174 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-20-1 The Caged Man Calvin Mills Unnatural events pivot unremarkable people into surreal conflicts and resolutions in *The Caged Man, Calvin Mills’ debut collection. Through his characters’ isolation, grief, and longing, Mills makes us see the fantastic in the mundane. --- "Intricate . . . effortless storytelling." —T.C. Boyle* *National Book Award Finalist*	$25.95 \| Nov 2025 258 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-11-9 The Plan of Chicago Barry Pearce Shortlisted, Fiction *William Saroyan International Prize* Finalist, Fiction *Foreword INDIES* *Book of the Year*
$24.95 \| Nov 2025 172 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-12-6 Burner and Other Stories Katrina Denza Katrina Denza writes women in conflict. Wrestling with connections and disconnections, highs and lows, and the vagaries of modernity, Burner and Other Stories shows us how we live today. --- “Seductive, smart, and funny.” —Jill McCorkle author of Old Crimes	$24.95 \| Nov 2025 160 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-14-0 Trust Issues K.P. Davis Winner International Impact Book Awards *Contemporary Fiction* The twenty sharp, poignant, and biting stories in Trust Issues comprise a stunning beacon for hard-headed folk fighting to be heard when nobody listens.	$24.95 \| Oct 2025 182 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-08-9 Western Terminus Michael Keefe In tales tinged with magical realism, Michael Keefe's characters find themselves caught in the limbo between self-discovery and self-destruction. --- "These stories explore moments of transition and revelation with profound wisdom, empathy, and precision." —Kimberly King Parsons *National book Award Finalist*	$24.95 \| Oct 2025 202 pp\| Paperback 978-1-968148-09-6 Guardians & Saints Diane Josefowicz We’re born unfinished, in need of everything—love, food, attention, care. The linked stories in Guardians & Saints explore the ways in which modern orphans fail to thrive. --- “Gorgeously rhythmic and constantly surprising.” —Beth Bosworth author of The Source of Life and Other Stories	$24.95 \| Oct 2025 194 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-04-1 Like Human Janet Goldberg Janet Goldberg’s mesmeric stories pit people against their loved ones, their landscapes, the fluid boundaries of safety, and ultimately, the vagaries of love. --- "An intimate, exquisitely observed collection . . . mesmerizing." —Stephanie Cowell *American Book Award Winner*	$24.95 \| Oct 2025 208 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-10-2 Adult Children Laurence Klavan Finalist da Vinci Eye Award *Eric Hoffer Awards* People deal with a world out of kilter, as Edgar Award-winning Laurence Klavan weaves together threads of humanity and strangeness to dizzying and heartfelt effects.

$22.95 | Apr 2026

118 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-36-2

Hands

Pardeep Toor

What happens if hard work doesn’t pay off and dreams don’t come true? Hands follows Hans, a downtrodden and aimless immigrant pursuing the so-called American Dream by any means necessary.

---

“Brilliant . . . a beautiful work of art.”

—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

National Book Award Finalist

$24.95 | Apr 2026

206 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-37-9

I Felt My Life With Both My Hands

Jessica Treadway

These stories affirm the significance of our most inner selves, and the possibility of grace in human connection.

---

“A writer with an unsparing bent for the truth.”

—The New York Times Book Review

$24.95 | Apr 2026

180 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-38-6

This Is How We Speak

Rebecca Reynolds

What do we owe one another? Rebecca Reynolds tells stories within stories of parents, children, turmoil, and forgiveness.

---

“Vibrant and alive and necessary.”

—Mary Miller

author of Always Happy Hour

$24.95 | Apr 2026

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-39-3

Your Place in This World

Jake La Botz

What does it mean to find your place in this world? Jake La Botz burrows his way deep into the challenges of revelation, showing how change can bless us and curse us, and ultimately save us.

---

“Engrossing . . . excellent.”

—Adventures in Americana

$24.95 | Apr 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-42-3

All That It Seems

Jim Landwehr

Eclectic, relevant, and earnestly human at every turn, Jim Landwehr’s stories sparkle with magic and fantasy, hum with technology and history, and celebrate human triumph in troubling times.

---

“Brimming with life, humor and heartbreak.”

—Frank Bures

author of Pushing the River

$24.95 | Apr 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-43-0

Lafferty, Looking for Love

Dennis McFadden

People like Terrance Lafferty because he's harmless. All the trouble he gets into, all his predicaments, are usually self-inflicted, and happen only because he's on that most elemental of quests: he's looking for love. And, as you might guess, he's looking in all the wrong places.

---

“Charming.”

—Foreword Reviews

$24.95 | Apr 2026

225 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-44-7

All Gone Now

Michael Caleb Tasker

Examines lives touched by absent parents, escaped convicts, and looming hurricanes in slowly changing worlds, peopled with beaten souls that refuse erosion.

---

“Brings to life the wounded and the lost, and the yearning within the human heart.”

—Michael Sela

author of The Restorer

$24.95 | Mar 2026

174 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-21-8

Apple & Palm

Patricia Henley

The town of Whistle Pig, like the mountains that surround it, can appear unchanging, as immutable as geography. The lives of the characters in Patricia Henley's linked stories contrast with that predictability. Apple & Palm is a provocative close-up examination of aging, memory, and desire.

---

"Stirring."

—Booklist

$24.95 | Mar 2026

220 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-35-5

Bodies in Bags

Jamey Gallagher

Jamey Gallagher’s stories, steeped in desperation and told in tough but tender voices, are about the effects of—and the compulsion to—violence. Bodies in Bags, with its flex and fever, is so visceral you can smell it.

---

“Steel-hinged and hard-won.”

—Benjamin Drevlow

author of Honky

$27.95 | Mar 2026

288 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-40-9

A Green Glow On the Horizon

Dawn Burns

Exposes the complicated, often contradictory yearnings and compulsions, griefs and grievous missteps of our fellow human beings.

---

“Tender, funny, and masterful”

—Bonnie Jo Campbell

National Book Award Finalist

$24.95 | Feb 2026

228 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-25-6

Yes, No, I Don't Know

Kathryn Gahl

Stories that form a luminous patchwork of Midwestern strivers, lovers, and dreamers in thorny circumstances. Controlled, tender, and masterful, Gahl weaves despair and hope into a single thread of healing grace.

---

“Brimming with compassion.”

—Larry Watson

New York Times Bestselling Author

$24.95 | Feb 2026

218 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-22-5

How We Do Things Here

Matt Cashion

Matt Cashion’s cast of slow-learners reveals how we try (and fail) and retry to forge meaningful connections in the troubled spaces we’re so desperate to share.

---

“Surprising, very funny, and brimming with compassion.”

—Lori Ostlund

author of Are You Happy?

$23.95 | Feb 2026

156 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-24-9

Release of Information

Kali White VanBaale

Exploring marital roles, complex family legacies, abuse, and generational trauma, the interconnected characters and stories move through time and space, as VanBaale catches ordinary people in extraordinary moments of revelation.

---

"Striking and haunting."

—Booklist

$24.95 | Feb 2026

178 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-34-8

The Price of Their Toys

John P. Loonam

John P. Loonam builds a mosaic of modern life, charged with the arrogance of youth, the despair of aging, and the prices we pay along the way.

---

“A vivid, powerful coming-of-age tale, a story of stories.”

—Frank Haberle

author of Downlanders

$24.95 | Feb 2026

162 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-23-2

Neon Steel

Jennifer Maritza McCauley

Magical realist and neon-lit, McCauley faithfully follows a group of nerds and the magic that excites them, bringing to life a city and a state of being.

---

“These linked stories are valentines to Black culture, Blerds

(Black nerds), and Pittsburgh. . . . A fun homage to anime.”

—Kirkus Reviews

$24.95 | Feb 2026

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-27-0

The Divide

Evan Morgan Williams

Set in the Mountain West, place is not just a backdrop; it is a provocation, an invitation to hope, and a mirror to reflect either consolation or indifference, depending on the case.

---

"A collection of memorable character studies with a good sense of presence—and absence."

—Kirkus Reviews

$24.95 | Dec 2025

212 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-13-3

We Should Be Somewhere By Now

Stephen Tuttle

With singular style and grace, Stephen Tuttle explores what it means to be a stranger in familiar places and among familiar people.

---

“Intensely visible and invisible at once, Tuttle probes questions about our relationships and the ways we live and grieve.”

—Aimee Bender

author of The Color Master

$24.95 | Dec 2025

228 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-17-1

These Are My People

Steve Fox

Finalist

Edna Ferber Fiction Award

Wisconsin Writers Awards

Whirling and wondrous, these stories show Steve Fox at the peak of his powers.

$25.95 | Dec 2025

242 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-18-8

A Day Doesn't Go By When I Don't Have Regrets

J. Malcolm Garcia

Hard-boiled tales of characters living well below the radar of the people around them, but redemption might be right around the corner as long as the will to search for it still exists.

---

“Deft and moving.”

—Andria Williams

author of The Longest Night

$24.95 | Dec 2025

174 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-20-1

The Caged Man

Calvin Mills

Unnatural events pivot unremarkable people into surreal conflicts and resolutions in The Caged Man, Calvin Mills’ debut collection. Through his characters’ isolation, grief, and longing, Mills makes us see the fantastic in the mundane.

---

"Intricate . . . effortless storytelling."

—T.C. Boyle

National Book Award Finalist

$25.95 | Nov 2025

258 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-11-9

The Plan of Chicago

Barry Pearce

Shortlisted, Fiction

William Saroyan International Prize

Finalist, Fiction

Foreword INDIES

Book of the Year

$24.95 | Nov 2025

172 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-12-6

Burner and Other Stories

Katrina Denza

Katrina Denza writes women in conflict. Wrestling with connections and disconnections, highs and lows, and the vagaries of modernity, Burner and Other Stories shows us how we live today.

---

“Seductive, smart, and funny.”

—Jill McCorkle

author of Old Crimes

$24.95 | Nov 2025

160 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-14-0

Trust Issues

K.P. Davis

Winner

International Impact Book Awards

Contemporary Fiction

The twenty sharp, poignant, and biting stories in Trust Issues comprise a stunning beacon for hard-headed folk fighting to be heard when nobody listens.

$24.95 | Oct 2025

182 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-08-9

Western Terminus

Michael Keefe

In tales tinged with magical realism, Michael Keefe's characters find themselves caught in the limbo between self-discovery and self-destruction.

---

"These stories explore moments of transition and revelation with profound wisdom, empathy, and precision."

—Kimberly King Parsons

National book Award Finalist

$24.95 | Oct 2025

202 pp| Paperback

978-1-968148-09-6

Guardians & Saints

Diane Josefowicz

We’re born unfinished, in need of everything—love, food, attention, care. The linked stories in Guardians & Saints explore the ways in which modern orphans fail to thrive.

---

“Gorgeously rhythmic and constantly surprising.”

—Beth Bosworth

author of The Source of Life and Other Stories

$24.95 | Oct 2025

194 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-04-1

Like Human

Janet Goldberg

Janet Goldberg’s mesmeric stories pit people against their loved ones, their landscapes, the fluid boundaries of safety, and ultimately, the vagaries of love.

---

"An intimate, exquisitely observed collection . . . mesmerizing."

—Stephanie Cowell

American Book Award Winner

$24.95 | Oct 2025

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-10-2

Adult Children

Laurence Klavan

Finalist

da Vinci Eye Award

Eric Hoffer Awards

People deal with a world out of kilter, as Edgar Award-winning Laurence Klavan weaves together threads of humanity and strangeness to dizzying and heartfelt effects.

$24.95 | May 2025

196 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-84-4

The Hopefuls

Elizabeth Oness

From award-winning writer Elizabeth Oness comes a new collection of rapturous and compelling stories about ordinary people and their joys, slights, families, and failures.

---

“In Oness’s hands, even the smallest, most ordinary lives loom large.”

—David Jauss

author of Glossolalia

$24.95 | May 2025

180 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-83-7

Never Stop Exiting

Michael Hopkins

Finalist, Edna Ferber Fiction Award

Wisconsin Writers Awards

Finalist, Short Fiction

American Book Fest

Michael Hopkins’ dazzling mix of stories helps us see the world as if through beginner’s eyes, a prism where the refractions usher in light and life.

$24.95 | May 2025

212 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-81-3

Broken Heart Syndrome

Anne Colwell

Death doesn’t end relationships in Broken Heart Syndrome but transforms them. Colwell's characters live lives haunted by ghosts, and yet they all eventually choose to suture up their despair for a chance at restoration.

---

"Nothing less than thrilling."

—Liam Callanan

author of When in Rome

$24.95 | May 2025

168 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-82-0

The Mexican Messiah

Jay Kauffmann

Stories of faith, chance, and haunting grace from a striking new voice, The Mexican Messiah glows with life and darkens with shadow.

---

"A work of wonderment."

—Vanessa Blakeslee

author of Perfect Confition

$24.95 | Mar. 2025

182 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-65-3

Close to a Flame

Colleen Alles

Named one of

Literary Hub’s

100 Notable Small Press Books 2025

Finalist, Fiction

Society of Midland Authors

Finalist, Short Fiction

NIEA

$24.95 | Mar. 2025

228 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-71-4

American Animism

Jamey Gallagher

Named one of

Literary Hub’s

100 Notable Small Press Books 2025

Finalist

Grand Prize

Eric Hoffer Awards

Veering between realism and magical realism, each story in American Animism, the astonishing debut collection from Jamey Gallagher, illuminates something necessary, something true.

$24.95 | Feb. 2025

198 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-74-5

Soaked

Toby LeBlanc

One word describes Louisiana fifty years from now after climate change intensifies: Soaked. Laughing in the face of oblivion, lending a hand to the hopeless, adapting in spite of tragedy, and enduring when everything else is gone, is what the people of Louisiana, Toby LeBlanc’s people, do best.

---

“Deeply intimate and significantly important.”

—Southern Review of Books

$24.95 | Feb. 2025

230 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-64-6

The Continental Divide

Bob Johnson

Named one of

Literary Hub’s

100 Notable Small Press Books 2025

Longlist, PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

Finalist, Fiction

Society of Midland Authors

$24.95 | Feb. 2025

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-63-9

Keeping What's Best Left Kept Secret

David Ricchiute

Finalist, Fiction

Chicago Writers Association Awards

Stirring and elegant, Keeping What’s Best Left Kept Secret probes the force of untold secrets on the daily business of making do. In these stories, David Ricchiute uncovers deception teeming with self-deception, and the final returns have much to do with the accidental chemistry of fate.

$22.95 | Feb. 2025

146 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-73-8

Shocker in Gloomtown

Dan Libman

Bursts of humor, pathos, and absurdity people the tales in Shocker in Gloomtown, as Dan Libman continues his exploration into the strange fissures of Midwestern surrealism.

---

“Quick, funny, touching, serious, sometimes surreal, with a distinctive colloquial voice.”

—Stephen Dixon

National Book Award nominee

$24.95 | Feb. 2025

174 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-52-3

The Correct Response

Manfred Gabriel

In The Correct Response, Manfred Gabriel artfully blends the fantastic and the real, culminating in surreal but heartfelt tales of longing, love, and loss against the backdrop of modern America.

---

“A short-story collection with characters so real they might just grab you by the shirt collar.”

—Jim Guhl

author of South of Luck

$24.95 | Feb. 2025

198 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-70-7

The Path of Totality

Marie Zhuikov

United by the power of appearances to deceive and captivate, Marie Zhuikov’s tales glisten with the magic and menace of everyday lives.

---

“Love, in its numerous forms romantic, parental, devotional, inspirational, and desperate has a lingering presence in Zhuikov's collection of tales.”

—Booklist

$24.95 | Jan. 2025

182 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-62-2

The Three Devils

William Luvaas

With grit and grace, chaos and compassion, angst and absolution, The Three Devils makes us reckon with the maelstrom, all while wrestling with the longings of the busted and beautiful human heart.

---

“As human as it is haunting . . . mesmerizing and deeply unsettling.”

—Necessary Fiction

$24.95 | Nov. 2024

244 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-48-6

Welcome Back to the World

Rob Davidson

Winner, Short Fiction

NIEA

In stories of finding life anew in ever-changing circumstances, Rob Davidson’s soaring prose reminds us that hope is visible in the darkest of times.

---

"An impressive set of stories from a skilled observer of the human animal."

—Kirkus Reviews

$24.95 | Nov. 2024

240 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-39-4

Greyhound Cowboy

Ken Post

In his perceptive debut, Ken Post peeks into frailty, confrontation, and friendship, illuminating the fascinating and fragile details that make up our lives.

---

“This little book is big in many ways .”

—Kim Heacox

author of Jimmy Bluefeather

$26.95 | Nov. 2024

244 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-48-6

Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse

Heidi Bell

Winner, Fiction

Chicago Writers Association Awards

Runner-Up, Short Story/Anthology
Midwest Book Awards

Finalist, Short Fiction

NIEA

Finalist, First Horizon Award, Eric Hoffer Awards

$24.95 | Oct. 2024

164 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-42-4

The Waterman

Gary Schanbacher

With powerful and salty prose, Gary Schanbacher shows how the decisions we make reverberate through the decades of our lives and affect not only our destiny but also the destinies of those around us.

---

“Imaginative and evocative . . . an engrossing reading experience.”

—Rocky Mountain Reader

$24.95 | Oct. 2024

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-46-2

Close Call

Kim Suhr

Carefully crafted, surprising, and humane, the stories in Kim Suhr’s Close Call unveil emotion in tight spaces, hearts in turmoil, and the searching soul of the Midwest.

---

“A fresh take on love, hate, jealousy, faith, loss, fear, conformity, and disappointment.”

—Wisconsin Writers Association

"Close Call gets us close—we slip in and out of various bodies just in time to start squirming."

—Maggie Ginsberg

author of Still True

$24.95 | Oct. 2024

176 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-45-5

The Silver State Stories

Michael Darcher

Amidst the casinos of Reno, Nevada, the “Biggest Little City in the World,” Michael Darcher introduces us to the dealers, workers, and patrons of the Aces Oasis Casino. Steady, assured, and compassionate, he shows us more than high rollers and underbellies. He gives us real people.

---

“Exquisitely funny, wry, and tender. This book is hard to put down.”

—Corrina Wycoff

author of Damascus House

$24.95 | Oct. 2024

184 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-44-8

What We Might Become

Sara Reish Desmond

Winner, Short Story Collection

Storytrade Book Awards

Bronze Medal, Short Story - Fiction

IPPY Awards

Deft and moving, What We Might Become shares the uncertainty about how we ought to live in transitional moments and, perhaps more desperately, forever.

---

"Desmond's stories are so real, so painfully true."

—Necessary Fiction

$24.95 | Aug. 2024

252 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-41-7

An Instinct for Movement

Michael Mattes

From a blighted Mid-Atlantic city to pre-millennium San Francisco to the hills of California pot country to a woodland outpost in the Pacific Northwest: with each new dislocation, Michael Mattes strives for clarion, momentary truths born of human comedy.

---

“One of the best collections of riveting, character driven short stories I’ve ever read.”

—Robert Dugoni

New York Times Best-Selling Author

$24.95 | Apr. 2024

200 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-20-2

The Machine We Trust

Tim Conrad

Winner, Short Story/Anthology
Midwest Book Awards

In The Machine We Trust, narrators and characters come of age in a surreal American landscape—sometimes late, sometimes unsuccessfully. With exacting prose that searches and clutches, Tim Conrad exposes the cracks where hearts are broken, and redemption is just one chance away.

---

“Gloriously imaginative and utterly compelling.”

—Thisbe Nissen

author of How Other People Make Love

$26.95 | Apr. 2024

242 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-34-9

Salt Folk

Ryan Habermeyer

Finalist, Short Fiction

Association for Mormon Letters Awards

Melancholically absurd, the salty women and foolhardy men in Ryan Habermeyer’s reimagined American West confront catastrophes large and small, magical and mundane, with grotesque optimism and quixotic tenderness.

---

"Habermeyer writes with the existential despair of Samuel Beckett, the nightmarish humor of Franz Kafka, the discomfiting imagination of Ben Marcus, and the dark precision of Gordon Lish and his acolytes."

—Dialogue

$24.95 | Apr. 2024

192 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-19-6

The Commission of Inquiry

Patrick Nevins

Eclectic in its breadth and startling in its power, The Commission of Inquiry investigates life, death, and other matters, as Patrick Nevins delivers twenty stories built to surprise, challenge, and even change us.

---

"Nevins moors his impressive range of subjects with profound insights into who we are.”

—Jennifer Wortman

author of This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love.

$24.95 | Apr. 2024

190 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-21-9

Gridlock

Brett Biebel

There’s a 200-mile long traffic jam on I-94, and people are going to be stuck there for days. Maybe weeks. Told in striking, kinetic flashes, Brett Biebel’s Gridlock explores the event, its origins in American political, athletic, and romantic institutions, and its impact on all the individual lives that go on in its shadow.

---

“Dazzling.”

—Chris Bachelder

National Book Award Finalist

$24.95 | Nov. 2023

178 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-09-7

Maximum Speed

Kevin Clouther

Maximum Speed moves across time and point of view to dramatize youth’s aftershocks. The unifying presence in three characters’ lives is Billy, an apprentice drug dealer in South Florida. His improbable appearance twenty years after his death reconnects Nick, Andrea, and Jim with each other and with the shared sacred of their past.

---

“Wonderfully evocative.”

—Booklist

Reach Her in This Light_Front Cover2.png

$24.95 | Nov. 2023

184 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-13-4

Reach Her in This Light

Jane Curtis

Four women living in Madison, Wisconsin. Four lives woven together by Jane Curtis, in her vibrant and explorative debut. Told with flashes of song, sensuality, and sincerity, Reach Her in This Light unfolds as a fiery and empathetic mosaic of lives lived, as four women each search for their own kind of freedom.

---

“Despite upheaval, these women are centered and true, never bitter or jaded.”

—Indianapolis Star

Spirit in My Shoes_Front Cover_FINAL.jpg

$24.95 | Nov. 2023

208 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-10-3

The Spirit in My Shoes

John Michael Cummings

In tales that conjure comparisons to John Updike, Raymond Carver, and William Gay, The Spirit in My Shoes tells the truth about loneliness, relationships, and the common struggles we all face with prose both precise and vibrant.

---

"Funny, touching, and at times surprising.”

—Kali White

author of The Monsters We Make

$24.95 | Oct. 2023

212 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-08-0

The Effects of Urban Renewal on Mid-Century America and Other Crime Stories

Jeff Esterholm

Honored Fiction

Wisconsin Library Association

On the Third Coast, the shores of Lake Superior, Jeff Esterholm explores what happens when people slip their moorings and are set adrift.

---

“Compact and succinct, fresh and interesting.”

—Wisconsin Writers Association

$24.95 | Oct. 2023

184 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-12-7

Fugitive Daydreams

Leah McCormack

Blending elements of fiction and nonfiction, Fugitive Daydreams dares to challenge the boundaries of the short story by blurring the lines between convention and experimentation. With power and stylistic inventiveness, Leah McCormack embraces the absurd while refusing to look away from painful truths.

---

"Furious, melancholy, and tender.”

—Leah Stewart

author of What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw

$24.95 | Oct. 2023

234 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-07-3

What Makes You Think You're Supposed to Feel Better

Jody Hobbs Hesler

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

---

"Thoughtfully crafted and skillfully realized."

—Necessary Fiction

$24.95 | Apr. 2023

204 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-35-9

Hoist House

Jenny Robertson

With power and compassion, Jenny Robertson weaves tales that explore the precarity of immigrant life, worker exploitation, the tensions and dangers inherent in growing up, and the ephemeral nature of the American Dream.

---

"Stories driven by muscled, energetic prose, the sort of prose honed by years of manual labor. ”

—North American Review

$24.95 | Feb. 2023

192 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-33-5

Finding the Bones

Nikki Kallio

Longlist, Edna Ferber Fiction Award

Wisconsin Writers Awards

Finalist, Short Fiction

American Book Fest

Finalist

Cygnus Award in Science Fiction

$24.95 | Feb. 2023

200 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-36-6

Where Are Your People From?

James B. De Monte

Spanning ninety years, Where Are Your People From? explores the fellowship and hardship of Midwest Italian-Americans in the

post-industrial Appalachian region of Ohio through the eyes of a son of immigrants. With authenticity, humor, and grace, De Monte delivers a truly American story.

---

"Elegiac and brimming with vivid, immediate life."

—Varley O'Connor

author of The Master's Muse

$21.95 | Feb. 2023

146 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-34-2

Self-Defense

Corey Mertes

Crackling with lyricism, hard-bitten truths, and soaring prose, the twelve stories in Corey Mertes’s Self-Defense follow their down-on-their-luck protagonists through life’s narrow passes to its snow-covered valleys below.

---

"The stories are as addictive as the throw of the dice or turn of the cards that Mertes' gambling addicts can't resist."

—West Trade Review

$24.95 | Jan. 2023

234 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-76-4

Sometimes Creek

Steve Fox

Winner, Zona Gale Short Fiction Award

Wisconsin Writers Awards

Winner, Short Fiction

American Book Fest

Finalist, Indie Fiction

Chicago Writers Association Awards

$24.95 | Jan. 2023

184 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-77-1

The Plagues

Joe Baumann

Frogs, flies, blood, and boils descend upon a cast of primarily young, LGBTQ+ characters, all searching in some way for love and acceptance amidst burgeoning sexual awakenings. Equal parts playful and personal, Joe Baumann’s The Plagues does more than recast the past; it charts a way forward.

---

"Imaginative, heartfelt, and brilliant."

—Aura Martin

author of Butterflies Over Flame

$21.95 | Nov. 2022

220 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-72-6

Kind of Blue

Christopher Chambers

The stories in Kind of Blue juke and jive in an unpredictable voice-driven romp. With the sound and rhythm of language driving each tale, Christopher Chambers gives voice to the working- and middle-class worlds of the American Midwest and the South.

---

"It’s the kind of book best read out there in the world, amongst the commotion of life."

—Wisconsin People & Ideas

$28.95 | Nov. 2022

374 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-73-3

The Clayfields

Elise Gregory

In The Clayfields, Elise Gregory’s powerful debut, the lives of three women are threaded together through the changing backdrops of farming communities in the twenty-first century. Where country churches are closing and old man bars are turning into wineries, an eclectic mix of characters must decide to evolve with new forces or leave their settler roots for new lives.

---

"Gregory offers hope for rural life. . . . An unforgettable, subtly powerful portrait."

—Wisconsin People & Ideas

$21.95 | Mar. 2022

148 pp | Paperback

978-1-7377390-4-3

Evangelina Everyday

Dawn Burns

Mixing humor and sincerity, Dawn Burns roots her debut collection firmly in the minutiae of Midwestern life, focusing on the inner life of one who suffers the annoyances of a Midwestern lifestyle in a manner all her own, a manner filled with anxious contemplation of the worth of her life.

---

"Evangelina is the kind of book you want to curl up with. . . . Many Midwestern women can relate to Evangelina and her hopes and desires."

—Memoirous

$21.95 | Jan. 2022

268 pp | Paperback

978-1-733308-67-0

Township

Jamie Lyn Smith

With honesty and empathy, Jamie Lyn Smith closely examines the strains that intimate family ties put on lives worn raw by collective history. Ultimately, the nine stories in Township interrogate the notion of reconciliation, examining whether people can truly change and if forgiveness is possible.

---

"Township leaves readers considering their own existence—their purpose, their failures, and the vulnerability required to find fulfillment."

—Prairie Schooner

$18.95 | Dec. 2021

202 pp | Paperback

978-1-733308-64-9

Responsible Adults

Patricia Ann McNair

Distinguished Favorite, Fiction

Independent Press Awards

In Responsible Adults, farms fail, families break apart, and work is hard to come by. The characters in Patricia Ann McNair's fictional Midwestern towns are fueled by grief and hope, loss and desire.

---

"Edgy, empathically imagined, and strongly crafted."

—Booklist

$17.95 | Dec. 2020

236 pp | Paperback

978-1-733308-61-8

Great Escapes from Detroit

Joseph O'Malley

In Great Escapes from Detroit, Joseph O'Malley tells stories of families living in Detroit. In an imperfect city that beckons and repels, these characters probe the ever-shifting terrain of the human heart, where the tenacious pull and push of love, trepidation, and occasional joy plays out as they navigate the opposing impulses that exist in all families: to embrace their circumstances, or to escape.

---

"Luminous with what lesser writers miss: the magic and the splendor of the commonplace come alive."

—Lee Martin

Pultizer Prize Finalist

$18.95 | Dec. 2019

242 pp | Paperback

978-0984673-97-1

Nothing to Lose

Kim Suhr

Finalist, Short Story

Next Generation Indie Book Awards

Personal and powerful, Kim Suhr's Nothing to Lose shows us a region filled with real people: less than perfect, plagued with doubts, always reaching.

---

"It seems as if Kim Suhr doesn't invent characters; rather, she channels them."

—Sandra Scofield

National Book Award Finalist

$18.95 | Dec. 2018

200 pp | Paperback

978-1-733308-94-0

The Appointed Hour

Susanne Davis

The luminous interconnected stories in The Appointed Hour shine a compassionate light on a changing rural America, spanning generations and locations by exploring the emotions that accompany life's trials. The heart-wrenching challenges draw Susanne Davis's characters together in feelings of love, loss, hope, and community, united throughout history by the place they call home.

---

"These characters are astonishing and distinctive, and the situations, settings and narratives are haunting, vibrant and irresistible."

—The Day

New Release

February 2026

$20.95 | February 2026 | 74 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-45-4

Under the Honey Locusts

Kakie Pate

Winner of the inaugural Linda Nemec Foster First Book Award for Poetry

“A collection of thresholds and rooms, these are poems made of landscapes and objects and longings that seem to shimmer even in the half-lit house of grief. . . . Every place we enter feels charged and changed, haunted and blessed by the vision and care of such a poet. The world needs its true artists; Kakie Pate is one of them.”

—Allison Seay

author of To See the Queen

“In a time when many poems adopt the tonal equivalent of clamor in an effort to be heard, along comes Kakie Pate’s Under the Honey Locusts, a first book of understated lyrics that belie the urgency of their rich emotional depths. . . . At once painfully tuned to our ‘unbelonging’ and mindful that ‘when the sun sets, / the light still remains, victorious,’ her poems read like messages etched in bark, so finely crafted they appear indelible having become part of the living tree.”

—Daniel Tobin

author of Dusk, Empire: New and Selected Poems 1987–2024

Portage Poetry Series Header.png

New Releases

Fall 2026

$21.95 \| Sept 2026 100 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-58-4 Light in the Evergreens Lex Runciman “Thoughtful, generous, and fully present.” —Hilary Menos author of Berg	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 86 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-61-4 Smooth Side, Rough Side Arthur Vogelsang “Vogelsang's good, nasty poems evoke the America of Norman Rockwell.” —John Ashberry *Pulitzer Prize Winner*	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 80 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-60-7 Birds Sing, Anyway Clay Matthews “A cataloguing and a witnessing to the patterns and progressions of a life.” —Marianne Worthington author of The Girl Singer	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 100 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-59-1 Running Lights Michael Lauchlan “A sweet balm; a consoling tributary, gentling through a world that, like a torrent, so often threatens to sweep us away.” —Kelly Fordon *author of What Trammels the Heart***	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 120 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-62-1 Whatever Dimness or Brightness Rae Gouirand “Carefully wrought poems that sing, revel, glow, and delight.” —Julie R. Enzer	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 106 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-65-2 No Lost Feast Jacob Boyd “Filled with music, humility, and heart.” —Sarah Rose Nordgren author of Palace of Subatomic Bliss
$22.95 \| Sept 2026 98 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-63-8 Advice for the Boys Garrett Stack “These are poems of mortality, of loss, of generational nuance and dissonance and wisdom in the landscape of contemporary American violences.” —Diane Seuss *Pulitzer Prize Winner*	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 84 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-64-5 Botrytis Bruce Cohen “The book is a wind phone, and we, its readers, are only overhearing its memories, jokes, and wonder.” —Darcie Dennigan author of Palace of Subatomic Bliss	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 90 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-66-9 Jackie Robinson's Real Gone Matthew Johnson “Johnson has given us a baseball book that understands and plays the blues. Baseball is a game of joy and sadness.” —E. Ethelbert Miller author of If God Invented Baseball: Poems	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 120 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-69-0 Space Stations Heather Dubrow “Dubrow’s poetic lobbies invite us into a various imaginary real estate, hers and ours—space stations on the route to other possible lives.” —D.E. Green author of Catastrophizing in Catastrophe	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 130 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-68-3 Lake: Love Poems Jeff Fearnside “The scope is large and Fearnside’s lines sing with passion and authenticity.” —Allan Peterson *National Book Award Finalist*

Series List

$21.95 \| Jan 2026 96 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-30-0 Time Traveling Kate Deimling “The collection opens and opens, leaving room for Deimling’s own stories and ours.” —Lance Larsen author of Making a Kingdom of It former Poet Laureate of Utah	$21.95 \| Jan 2026 110 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-32-4 Little Joy Matthew Murrey “A book of prayers for finding joy in little things.” —Athena Kildegaard author of Prairie Midden	$19.95 \| Jan 2026 78 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-29-4 When I Was Baptized in Missouri Dirt Chad Parmenter “A book that reaches for God without losing hold of chickens or cicadas.” —Rodney Jones *National Book Critics Circle Award Winner*	$19.95 \| Jan 2026 84 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-31-7 The Worse For Wear Jenna Goldsmith “A celebration of poetry as one of our flawed humanity’s greatest, redeeming habits.” —Robin LaMer Rahija author of Inside Out Egg	$21.95 \| Jan 2026 94 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-33-1 The Vinegar in Our Hearts Jesse DeLong "Maximalist and minimalist, brilliant and tender.” —Brad Richard author of Turned Earth	$21.95 \| Jan 2026 98 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-28-7 Mouth Amorak Huey “Bby turns despairing and lusty, deeply funny, and—always—restoratively human.” —Sandra Beasley author of Made to Explode
$21.95 \| Sept 2025 124 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-01-0 Pandora's Prairie Katherine Hoerth “Poignant, deeply personal, honest, and insightful. . . . This poetry is timeless and rich.” —David M. Parsons *2011 Texas State Poet Laureate*	$19.95 \| Sept 2025 96 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-97-4 Temporary Shelters Grant Clauser "Line by line, these poems produce moments of pristine beauty . . . that simply stunt your breath." —Jack B. Bedell author of Ghost Fores	$21.95 \| Sept 2025 118 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-98-1 The Weather of Our Names Cal Freeman "Dazzling . . . Midwestern philosophy at its best.” —Chicago Review of Books	$21.95 \| Sept 2025 116 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-15-7 An Introduction to Error Deirdre Lockwood "A brainy, passionate, wildly original book.” —Rosanna Warren author of Hindsight	$24.95 \| Sept 2025 120 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-07-2 tic tic tic Heidi Seaborn "Gently and magically reorients our eyes, turns us toward the light of awareness where language is action." —Major Jackson author of Razzle Dazzle	$21.95 \| Sept 2025 132 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-03-4 And the Heart Will Not Quicken Russell Thorburn “Forward-looking." —Margaret Rozga author of Restoring Prairie
$21.95 \| Sept 2025 116 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-02-7 Wildfire Corie Rosen “Very few poets writing today have Rosen’s range. In her work, we get both Frank Capra and Orpheus. The micro and the macro.” —Ishmael Reed *National Book Award Finalist*	$21.95 \| Sept 2025 114 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-16-4 Lost Cathedral Hannah Rodabaugh "Rich, verdant, blisteringly clear-eyed poems." —Catherine Wagner author of Nervous Device	$19.95 \| August 2025 82 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-95-0 Even the Sky Kevin Thomason “Thomason works irony into grace, leading us to unexpected revelations of a world, often our own, that does not rhyme.” —James Brasfield author of Cove	$19.95 \| August 2025 94 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-06-5 The Underdream Aiyana Masla “Captivating, innovative, and grounded.” —Larkin Christie author of gather all your supple creatures	$21.95 \| August 2025 102 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-96-7 Exile Is Home Elvis Alves "A Brooklyn fever dream." —Michelle Reale author of Season of Subtraction	$22.95 \| August 2025 134 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-00-3 How We Argue Sharon Rose-Kouros “Insightful, challenging, and creative.” —Nancy Seubert

$21.95 | Jan 2026

96 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-30-0

Time Traveling

Kate Deimling

“The collection opens and opens, leaving room for Deimling’s own stories and ours.”

—Lance Larsen

author of Making a Kingdom of It

former Poet Laureate of Utah

$21.95 | Jan 2026

110 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-32-4

Little Joy

Matthew Murrey

“A book of prayers for finding joy in little things.”

—Athena Kildegaard

author of Prairie Midden

$19.95 | Jan 2026

78 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-29-4

When I Was Baptized in Missouri Dirt

Chad Parmenter

“A book that reaches for God without losing hold of chickens or cicadas.”

—Rodney Jones

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

$19.95 | Jan 2026

84 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-31-7

The Worse For Wear

Jenna Goldsmith

“A celebration of poetry as one of our flawed humanity’s greatest, redeeming habits.”

—Robin LaMer Rahija

author of Inside Out Egg

$21.95 | Jan 2026

94 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-33-1

The Vinegar in Our Hearts

Jesse DeLong

"Maximalist and minimalist, brilliant and tender.”

—Brad Richard

author of Turned Earth

$21.95 | Jan 2026

98 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-28-7

Mouth

Amorak Huey

“Bby turns despairing and lusty, deeply funny, and—always—restoratively human.”

—Sandra Beasley

author of Made to Explode

$21.95 | Sept 2025

124 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-01-0

Pandora's Prairie

Katherine Hoerth

“Poignant, deeply personal, honest, and insightful. . . . This poetry is timeless and rich.”

—David M. Parsons

2011 Texas State Poet Laureate

$19.95 | Sept 2025

96 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-97-4

Temporary Shelters

Grant Clauser

"Line by line, these poems produce moments of pristine beauty . . . that simply stunt your breath."

—Jack B. Bedell

author of Ghost Fores

$21.95 | Sept 2025

118 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-98-1

The Weather of Our Names

Cal Freeman

"Dazzling . . . Midwestern philosophy at its best.”

—Chicago Review of Books

$21.95 | Sept 2025

116 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-15-7

An Introduction to Error

Deirdre Lockwood

"A brainy, passionate, wildly original book.”

—Rosanna Warren

author of Hindsight

$24.95 | Sept 2025

120 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-07-2

tic tic tic

Heidi Seaborn

"Gently and magically reorients our eyes, turns us toward the light of awareness where language is action."

—Major Jackson

author of Razzle Dazzle

$21.95 | Sept 2025

132 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-03-4

And the Heart Will Not Quicken

Russell Thorburn

“Forward-looking."

—Margaret Rozga

author of Restoring Prairie

$21.95 | Sept 2025

116 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-02-7

Wildfire

Corie Rosen

“Very few poets writing today have Rosen’s range. In her work, we get both Frank Capra and Orpheus. The micro and the macro.”

—Ishmael Reed

National Book Award Finalist

$21.95 | Sept 2025

114 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-16-4

Lost Cathedral

Hannah Rodabaugh

"Rich, verdant, blisteringly clear-eyed poems."

—Catherine Wagner

author of Nervous Device

$19.95 | August 2025

82 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-95-0

Even the Sky

Kevin Thomason

“Thomason works irony into grace, leading us to unexpected revelations of a world, often our own, that does not rhyme.”

—James Brasfield

author of Cove

$19.95 | August 2025

94 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-06-5

The Underdream

Aiyana Masla

“Captivating, innovative, and grounded.”

—Larkin Christie

author of gather all your supple creatures

$21.95 | August 2025

102 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-96-7

Exile Is Home

Elvis Alves

"A Brooklyn fever dream."

—Michelle Reale

author of Season of Subtraction

$22.95 | August 2025

134 pp | Paperback

978-1-968148-00-3

How We Argue

Sharon Rose-Kouros

“Insightful, challenging, and creative.”

—Nancy Seubert

$21.95 | April 2025

94 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-79-0

Torrential

Jayne Marek

“In sometimes quiet, often dazzling language, these poems remind us of the fragility and beauty of our ‘brief ravenous lives.’”
—Melissa Kwasny
author of The Cloud Path

$24.95 | April 2025

160 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-86-8

Users with Access

Brandon Krieg

“Brandon Krieg overfills the role of poet and presses hotly toward oracle.”
—Caroline Manring
author of Ceruleana

$21.95 | April 2025

110 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-80-6

Another Native Tongue

Susan Riley Clarke

“A tribute to a brilliant poet and kinder friend, and a must-read for all who desire an authentic life, no matter the cost.”

—Anne M. Dichele

author of Ankle Deep and Drowning

$22.95 | April 2025

138 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-85-1

Dining on Salt

Wayne Lee

Poetry Society of Virginia – Celebrating Over 100 Years of Poetry in Virginia

Winner, North American Book of the Year, Poetry Society of Virginia

$21.95 | April 2025

100 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-88-2

Flu Season

Katie Kalisz

“Kalisz humbly comforts us as she enables us to realize that maintenance with ever-present dread is love.”

—Jack Ridl

author of Saint Peter and the Goldfinch

$21.95 | April 2025

108 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-89-9

No Trouble Staying Awake

Teresa J. Scollon

Finalist, Poetry

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year

$19.95 | March 2025

86 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-78-3

Catch & Release

Lauren Crawford

“Eloquent and gutsy, Lauren Crawford’s poems are intimate and unsettling. Few young poets are so gifted and sagacious.”

—Susan Kinsolving

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

$19.95 | March 2025

92 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-66-0

Steelhead

Lauren K. Carlson

"A deeply satisfying book to read, filled to the brim with spot-on imagery and set adrift with well-timed phrasing and lines and sudden pauses that make the entire flow come alive with love and candor.”

—Maurice Manning

Pulitzer Prize Finalist

$21.95 | Jan. 2025

100 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-58-5

The Coronation of the Ghost

Benjamin Gantcher

“Visceral, humane, contrarian, often wildly funny or bracingly matter-of-fact . . . brilliant.”

—D. Nurkse

author of A Country of Strangers

$21.95 | Jan. 2025

102 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-72-1

Red Camaro

Dwaine Rieves

“A fine collection about making sense of the broken, masculine, and wild.”

—Nadia Arioli

author of Mother Fur and Be Still

$19.95 | Jan. 2025

80 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-61-5

The Stone Tries to Understand the Hands

Susannah Sheffer

"Susannah Sheffer is a tremendously gifted poet. Her poems are deftly crafted, luminous.”

—Eduardo C. Corral

Yale Younger Series of Poets Prize Winner

$21.95 | Sept. 2024

98 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-79-0

Love as an Invasive Species

Ellen Kombiyil

"A gorgeous book of resilience, hope, and love—especially love.”

—Lynn Melnick

author of Refusenik

$19.95 | Sept. 2024

98 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-56-1

They Were Horrible Cooks

Allison Whittenberg

“With honesty, humanity, and wit, They Were Horrible Cooks intermixes historical themes and everyday traumas, boldly laying bare the realities and ironies of a dog-eat-dog world.”

—Tiya Miles

National Book Award Winner

$19.95 | Sept. 2024

82 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-55-4

The New Life

Wendy Wisner

Finalist, Poetry

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year

$19.95 | Sept. 2024

88 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-57-8

Cuttings

Hannah Dow

“Deep-rooted in beauty, strength, and a luminously acute mind, these lyrics contemplate what love is . . . with a startling and sustained grace that makes these poems lustrous as pearls.”

—Amy Gerstler

National Book Award Finalist

$19.95 | Sept. 2024

86 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-59-2

Forgive the Animal

Sarah Pape

“This beautiful book is ultimately about the idea of home—the home of the body, the home of family, the home of a place—and how home must be incessantly fought-for, earned, and saved.”

—Rick Barot

author of Moving the Bones

$21.95 | Sept. 2024

106 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-53-0

Where Babies Come From

Ori Fienberg

"These pieces are things of meaning, things of hidden meaning and overt meaning, things of wordplay and sound and light and great sadness and understanding and they are very, very good.”

—Amber Sparks

author of And I Do Not Forgive You

$21.95 | May 2024

100 pp | 2nd. Ed. Pbk

978-1-960329-29-5

The Blue Divide

Linda Nemec Foster

"Rich with closely observed detail, narrative depth, and poignant historical reflections, this is a generous and beautiful collection."

—Publishers Weekly

$21.95 | May 2024

118 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-47-9

Restoring Prairie

Margaret Rozga

“Rozga’s poems hauntingly sing of cumulative loss and the power of nature to bring truth to our wounds.”

—Jennifer Morales

author of Meet Me Halfway

$21.95 | May 2024

124 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-37-0

The Velvet Book

Rae Gouirand

Finalist, Lesbian Poetry

Lambda Literary Awards

$21.95 | May 2024

114pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-36-3

A Bright Wound

Sarah A. Etlinger

"A delicate and tender examination of the many conflicting facets of the self as daughter, wife, mother, and lover as well as an interrogation of family history, memory, faith, and landscape.”

—Heathen Derr-Smith

author of THRUST

$21.95 | April 2024

106 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-38-7

Table with Burning Candle

Julia Paul

“Deeply moving, this requiem, this elegy chronicling the stages of grief through multiple lyric modes, these pages are as musical as they are heartbreaking.”

—Ilya Kaminsky

author of Deaf Republic

$24.95 | Feb. 2024

182 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-23-3

Poetic People Power

Tara Bracco (ed.)

Winner, Poetry: Anthology, International Book Awards

Finalist, Performing Arts, NIEA

$21.95 | Feb. 2024

120 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-26-4

Listening to Mars

Sally Ashton

“Loss and wonder, dread and awe gyrate throughout the book, spinning like heavenly bodies, the poet equally rigorous and tender in her search for words that make the world look like what it feels like.”

—Holly Iglesias

author of Angles of Approach

$21.95 | Feb. 2024

125 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-35-6

Do Not Feed the Animal

Hikari Miya

“A ferocious debut.”
—Michael Chang
author of Synthetic Jungle

$18.95 | Feb. 2024

88 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-30-1

Dear Lo

Brady Bove

“An intimate, beautifully written poetry collection filled with vivid, dream-like imagery.”
—Tanya Taylor
author of Why I Tell You Everything

$21.95 | Feb. 2024

104 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-28-8

The Trouble with Being a Childless Only Child

Michelle Meyer

“Delicate, brutal, bitterly funny, and haunting.”

—Jacqueline West

author of Candle and Pin

$21.95 | Feb. 2024

114 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-22-6

Happy Everything

Caitlin Cowan

Silver Medal, Poetry

IPPY Awards

Finalist, Medal Provocateur

Eric Hoffer Awards

$18.95 | Feb. 2024

78 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-32-5

Glitter City

Bonnie Jill Emanuel

“Spare, intense, searching . . . Emanuel writes in burst after burst of light.”

—David Groff

author of Live in Suspense

$21.95 | Feb. 2024

106 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-27-1

Sadness of the Apex Predator

Dion O'Reilly

“A tour de force . . . wonderful and necessary poems.”

—Denise Duhamel

author of Second Story

$21.95 | Jan. 2024

130 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-31-8

The Watching Sky

Judy Brackett Crowe

Winner, Poetry

Nebraska Book

Awards (2025)

$18.95 | Jan. 2024

78 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-18-9

Lake, River, Mountain

Mark B. Hamilton

“Hamilton holds life as close as the shining flower. . . . This is a wise, tough, and joyful collection.”

—Ann Fisher-Wirth

author of Paradise Is Jagged

$21.95 | Jan. 2024

134 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-17-2

Let It Be Told in a Single Breath

Russell Thorburn

"I know I can always turn to the poems of Russell Thorburn to make me believe that poetry does indeed matter.”

—Peter Markus

author of When Our Fathers Return to Us as Bird

$21.95 | Nov. 2023

98 pp | 2nd. Ed. Pbk

978-1-960329-11-0

Talking Diamonds

Linda Nemec Foster

"[Foster's] works here are exceptional and gleaming, serving as a reminder that even experts can excel beyond their own greatness."

—The Grand Rapids Press

$21.95 | Sept. 2023

100 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-06-6

The Green Vault Heist

David Salner

“The Green Vault Heist is not only a beautiful book, it is great company.”

—John Skoyles

Ploughshares

$21.95 | Sept. 2023

106 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-02-8

We Are Reckless

Christy Prahl

“An ode to the imperfection of our brief lives, a tribute to how we break apart and come back together, complete with beautiful scars.”

—Jessica Walsh, author of Book of Gods and Grudge

$21.95 | Sept. 2023

90 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-03-5

Everything Waits

Jonathan Graham

“A book rich with grace and music.”

—Eduardo C. Corral

author of Slow Lightning

$18.95 | Sept. 2023

84 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-05-9

There is a Corner of Someplace Else

Caleb Michael Jones

"Soothing, startling, tender, moving, and insightful.”

—Henry Hughes

author of Back Seat with Fish

$18.95 | May 2023

84 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-00-4

Silent Letter

Gail Hanlon

“Hanlon’s poems radiate energy and vibrant life.”

—Jennifer Barber, author of The Sliding Boat Our Bodies Made

$21.95 | May 2023

92 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-38-0

Always a Body

Molly Fuller

"Desperately sexy and beautifully deranged—dare to live with them a while and they will disturb you, comfort you, and change you.”

—Michelle Lewis

author of Animul/Flame

$21.95 | May 2023

106 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-39-7

Fulgurite

Catherine Kyle

"Fluid and porous, these poems have a witchy, spellbound nature. These pieces float.”

—Allison Titus

author of High Lonesome

Bowed As If Laden With Snow_Front Cover.png

$21.95 | May 2023

106 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-37-3

Bowed As If Laden With Snow

Megan Wildhood

“For Megan Wildhood, life hasn’t gone unnoticed. . . . by her poems I’m not just moved, but transported, transformed.”

—Don Haggerty

$18.95 | March 2023

84 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-32-8

The Body Is Burden and Delight

Sharon White

"A book filled with wit and wonder . . . with all that moves under the ice of knowing.”

—Elaine Terranova

author of The Diamond Cutter’s Daughter

$21.95 | March 2023

110 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-31-1

Bone Country

Linda Nemec Foster

Distinguished Favorite

NYC Big Book

Awards

$21.95 | March 2023

96 pp | Paperback

978-1-960329-01-1

New Wilderness

Jenifer DeBellis

Winner

Independent Author Awards, Literary Global

$21.95 | March 2023

82 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-79-5

Monarch

Heather Bourbeau

"A book of loud screams and silent introspection. Bourbeau has shared with us something of incredible power.”

—Chiwan Choi

author of my name is wolf

$18.95 | March 2023

84 pp | Paperback

979-8-986966-30-4

Not Just the Fire

R.B. Simon

"These poems are gorgeous and necessary and sing the deep truths and lessons of a warrior who has returned with both the wounds and the wisdom of experience.”

—Jenn Givhan

author of Belly to the Brutal

$20.95 | Sept. 2022

134 pp | Paperback

978-1-737739-09-8

Mourning

Dokubo Goodhead

"An unflinching examination of loss, grief, and yearning for ancestral roots . . . a work which angers yet soothes us in our times of need.”

—Genaro Ky Lý Smith

author of The Land South of the Clouds

$18.95 | Sept. 2022

108 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-75-7

The Walk to Cefalù

Lynne Viti

The poems reassure us: the journey is worth it.”

—George Franklin

author of Noise of the World

$21.95 | Sept. 2022

172 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-71-9

The Found Object Imagines a Life

Mary Catherine Harper

“Authentic, perceptive, and sensitive.”

—Mark B. Hamilton

author of Confronting the Basilisk

$18.95 | Sept. 2022

82 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-70-2

Naming the Ghost

Emily Hockaday

"A powerhouse of small, intense, sometimes brutal, always brilliant poems.”

—Jane Yolen

author of Kaddish

$18.95 | Sept. 2022

82 pp | Paperback

979-8-986144-70-2

Holding My Selves Together

Margaret Rozga

Finalist, Edna Muedt Poetry Book Award

Wisconsin Writers Awards

$19.95 | Apr. 2022

162 pp | Paperback

978-1737739-06-7

Messengers of the Gods

Kathryn Gahl

"Gahl's poems are filled with the sweet but hard liquor of life."

—Karla Huston

Wisconsin Poet Laureate (2017-2018)

$18.95 | Mar. 2022

118 pp | Paperback

978-1737739-03-6

After the 8-Ball

Colleen Alles

"Should everyone read this beautiful book? As I see it, yes."

—W. Todd Kaneko

author of This Is How the Bone Sings

$18.95 | Dec. 2021

102 pp | Paperback

978-1733308-69-4

Broken On the Wheel

Barbara Costas-Biggs

"A perceptive, masterful debut."

—Maggie Smith

author of Good Bones

$18.95 | Dec. 2021

126 pp | Paperback

978-1733308-68-7

Sparks and Disperses

Cathleen Cohen

"Cathleen Cohen's life and poetry are a passionate expression of dedication to everything we need to live whole and meaningful lives.

—John Fox

Institute for Poetic Medicine

$18.95 | Dec. 2021

102 pp | Paperback

978-1737739-00-5

Careful Cartography

Devon Bohm

Winner, First Horizon Award, Eric Hoffer Awards (2022)

$14.95 | May 2020

102 pp | Paperback

978-1733308-62-5

Lost and Found Departments

Heather Dubrow

"A dexterous and quite moving poetry collection . . . an ode to poetic craft."

—Rowan Ricardo Phillips

National Book Award finalist

$9.99 | May 2019

114 pp | Paperback

978-0966848-88-5

The Almost-Children

Cassondra Windwalker

"Taut, beautiful, and oft-haunting . . . unforgettable."

—Seven Jane

author of The Isle of Gold

Meditations of a Beast by Kristine Ong Muslim | Goodreads

$12.99 | Dec. 2016

83 pp | Paperback

978-0966848-83-0

Meditations of a Beast

Kristine Ong-Muslim

"Each poem leaves a bruise. Each verse slips right into your ear—eel-like—and never leaves."

—Chicago Review of Books

Back Home Series Header.png

New Releases

Fall 2026 | Spring 2026

$23.95 | August 2026 | 160 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-72-0

Mostly Woodcock

Joe Knight

“Knight turns loss into opportunity as he reconnects with people and places, especially through woodcock hunting, the bird and activity that for decades helped nurture his relationship with the outdoors. From hot Montana grasslands to alder thickets and icy rivers in Wisconsin, you’ll be captivated and uplifted by this sterling example of a man and his dog navigating life’s bumpy roads and hunting up the best it has to offer.”

—Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“An honest book.”

—Dave Carlson, Wisconsin Conservation

Hall of Fame Inductee

“A delightful stroll through the western Wisconsin woods. . . . pull your chair up to the woodstove, pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage, and settle in for a comfortable evening.”

—Christine Thomas, developer of “Becoming an Outdoors Woman”

$25.95 | August 2026 | 236 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-52-2

Departures

Marcia Williams

Marcia Williams grew up neither wanted nor loved. Important life choices followed: leaving home at sixteen, college, career, first husband, and even that lover. At age fifty-six she must either lead the life her mother wanted or escape the dysfunction and light out on her own. What Williams discovers in the process, along with her own self-worth, helps her recognize her mother’s passionate desire for legitimacy in a swirl of generational trauma. Departures charts the pain of parental decisions felt across decades, and how Williams chose life out of turmoil.

---

“A leave-taking and a reckoning—a journey toward hope, healing, and the companionship of a heart as true as her own.”

—Kim Barnes, Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

$25.95 | August 2026 | 252 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-51-5

Water Finds a Way

Dave Hardin

Might there be a smaller story running like a hidden stream through the second of our nation’s two great, storied waves of migration from the rural South to the industrial Midwest? Water Finds a Way is a reflection on the enduring bond between David Hardin and his father, a poor Southern migrant, to Detroit, Michigan, in the middle of the last century. A bond forged in generational suffering, shame, and fear, but annealed in love’s timeless persistence. It is the story of two men who long for home, for a sense of belonging, for something lost in the chasm that yawns between them.

---

“A sanguine, bittersweet tale that delves deeply into our inherent need to belong.”

—John Smolens, author of Possession(s)

$27.95 | March 2026 | 270 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-48-5

Powder Plant

Carolyn Dallmann

For thirty years, Carolyn Dallmann held down various positions at the Badger Army Ammunition Plant, in Sauk County, Wisconsin. A major manufacturer of gunpowder and other nitrocellulose-based propellants, Badger played a vital and controversial role in the life of central Wisconsin throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. Follow Dallmann as she recounts her time there, from water testing, chemistry, and auditing, to explosions, the Vietnam War, bombings, and environmental decline. Told with immediacy and tenderness, Powder Plant is not only a rich personal history but also a remarkable catalogue of a world in chaos.

---

“Finally, a woman who actually worked in America’s military-industrial complex tells her story. It’s gritty, fascinating, and completely absorbing. If you love memoirs that uncover hidden histories, don’t miss this one.”

—Linda Saether, author of What We Can’t Forget

$27.95 | March 2026 | 270 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-26-3

Hound Dog

M.L. Liebler

From award-winning Detroit poet M.L. Liebler comes a heartfelt, thumping, and wide-ranging memoir of a life lived with music, muses, and the magic of the written word. From Elvis and Bob Dylan, to Robbie Robertson, Hüsker Dü, and Eminem, Liebler treads his well-traveled road using musical signposts that have defined a generation of artists. Throughout, his love for family, friends, and faith shine brightest, and we bear witness to the life of a man who has spent over fifty years championing artistic expression in all its forms. Hound Dog is nothing less than the album of M.L. Liebler’s life.

---
“M.L. Liebler is the poet laureate of America's working class.”

—Michael Moore, Oscar-Winning Filmmaker

“M.L. Liebler is an unstoppable force of nature, the likes of which neither the world of poetry nor the world of music, has ever seen.”

—Jim Daniels, author of An Ignorance of Trees

Fall 2025

$22.95 | August 2026 | 150 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-82-9

Early Season

Ron Davis

Ron Davis wrote memoirs, outdoors features, local histories, and commentaries about growing up and growing old in Wisconsin for nearly fifty years. Over that period, he squeezed in a full-time career teaching high school and then university classes in writing, photography, and video production while also working as a social media writer for the tourism industry in Northwest Ontario and as an associate editor and columnist for BMW Owners News. In addition to Owners News, his writing has been featured by Wisconsin Life, BMW Motorcycle Magazine, Volume One, Our Wisconsin, On the Level, Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine, The Badger Sportsman, Midwestern Motorcycling, and The Voice (National Writing Project). His essays have also been heard regularly on Wisconsin Public Radio. He passed away in 2025. Early Season is a collection of his best Wisconsin writing, from years of living and working there.

$21.95 | October 2025 | 132 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-05-8

In the Room at the Top of the World

Ben McCormick

Finalist, Blei/Derleth Nonfiction Book Award

Wisconsin Writers Awards

Most of us know people from Milwaukee because they left: Oprah, Gene Wilder, Liberace. Milwaukee is too small to be a global hub, yet it’s too big to be idyllic. Good things happen there—great things don’t. Ben McCormick left it full of promise for writing grad school and in 2021 sulked to Oregon with no great novel or acclaim. And in the first six weeks his live-in relationship imploded, his first niece was born back home, and he witnessed Milwaukee’s great thing: the Milwaukee Bucks’ NBA title. Told through each playoff game, McCormick’s sprint of a lyrical memoir is about the alchemy of emotions and fandom, aging into someone we didn’t plan to be, and returning to a Midwest that makes us, breaks us, and makes us all over again.

---
“Ben finds the humor, joy, and grit of the Midwest, but the soul of the book will hit any heart away from home.”

—Charlie Berens

Comedian & New York Times Bestselling Author

$24.95 | August 2025 | 180 pp

Paperback | 978-1-960329-91-2

An Ignorance of Trees

Jim Daniels

A Michigan Notable Book 2025

In his debut collection of nonfiction, Jim Daniels writes about trees, backyard swing sets, above-ground swimming pools, pets, and hoarding, carrying his beloved Detroit with him wherever he goes. A memoir in essays doubling as a rich and textured biography of place, An Ignorance of Trees enriches the terrain of the Midwest with heart, as bruised and beautiful as ever.

---

“To an essential catalogue of poems, Jim Daniels adds these essays on life’s riddles and mysteries. A more than worthy work in words”

—Thomas Lynch

National Book Award Finalist

“Daniels is probably the most introspective and sensitive tough guy writing today.”

—Sue William Silverman

author of How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences

$24.95 | August 2025 | 190 pp

Paperback | 978-1-960329-94-3

Water Spell

Catherine Broadwall

Water Spell is, at its heart, a work of bibliotherapy. In this practice, counselors prescribe books as they would medicine, using stories as entry points for reflection, confrontation of pain, and eventual healing. Catherine Broadwall acts as both doctor and patient throughout her debut memoir, suturing her own wounds. While bibliotherapy and ekphrasis-writing inspired by visual art-are often reserved for traditional, canonically-approved texts, here Broadwall applies them to things like Pixar films, music videos, fairy tales, and video games. She democratizes these tools, showing that a reader's delight in any narrative can spark profound revelation and growth.

---

“A balm, a salve, for the way observing is processing, is creating, and a reminder that the myth of healing’s finality is as inscrutable as a mermaid living on dry land. ”

—Katie Fuller

author of Careful

Series List

$23.95 \| May 2025 150 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-90-5 Our Bodies Are Mostly Water Katherine Riegel Katherine Riegel finds a way through her grief in her compassionate and lyrical memoir of her sister’s life and death. Her sister-grief becomes a conduit for grief of all kinds, as she navigates a new life inundated with sadness but bright with memory. --- "Riegel’s intelligent, thoughtful voice infuses the memoir with warmth, compassion, and grace.” —Anne Panning author of Dragonfly Notes: A Memoir	$24.95 \| Mar. 2025 222 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-92-9 You Shoulda Been Here Last Week Ted J. Rulseh Ted Rulseh guides you through a lifetime of angling in You Shoulda Been Here Last Week: the joys, thrills, and failures; the moments of wonder; treasured times with friends and family. --- “Rulseh understands the Northwoods mindset that makes some folks . . . abandon city life and eke out a less stressful living above the tension line.” —Dan Small host of Outdoor Wisconsin	$23.95 \| Mar. 2025 156 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-77-6 Table Talk & Second Thoughts Michael Martone With wit and humor, Michael Martone writes his life as one of brief bites, effervescent episodes, and meaningful meals illuminated by the luminaries on the other side of the table. --- “Martone is one of the few writers who was born in Indiana, writes about Indiana, and eats in Indiana, but meanwhile, he seems to have been everywhere else, too, meeting all the best writers.” —Bonnie Jo Campbell *National Book Award Finalist*	$29.95 \| Mar. 2025 280 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-92-9 The Past Ten Donald Quist, Kali White VanBaale, & Bailey Gaylin Moore (eds.) Based on the Past-Ten.com website created and launched by executive editor Donald Quist in 2017, The Past Ten features a wide range of writers all answering the same question, where were you on this day ten years ago? --- “A reflective mosaic, made up of some of the most exciting voices in American literature today.” —Jaquira Díaz	$32.95 \| Oct. 2024 322 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-15-8 Wildlifer Neil F. Payne Payne guides readers through an analysis of wildlife management as a profession. From the influence of Aldo Leopold and John Muir, to wildlife education, habitat diversity, and the value of conservation, Payne provides an exhaustive study of not only a profession, but also a way of life, and how it must be preserved. --- “Marvelous writing-and exciting coverage over many years." —Estella Leopold	$24.95 \| Sept. 2024 230 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-50-9 Points of Tangency Scott Russell Morris Within the pages of Points of Tangency, a sequence of brilliant personal essays, Scott Russell Morris, a closeted queer Mormon, tells the story of meeting and then marrying his now wife. His story, told with grace, compassion, and dexterity, forges the framework of a life lived, and lives living together, in our mysterious and dynamic present. --- “ Big hearted and quietly humorous. This book is a gift.” —Sarah Viren author of To Name the Bigger Lie
$24.95 \| Sept. 2024 184 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-49-3 This Season, The Next: A Memoir Casey Knott Part DIY, part memoir, part musing, This Season, The Next finds Casey Knott at several intersections: starting over after a divorce, meeting the love of her life, blending a family, and finding and remodeling an urban farm complete with chickens and a much beloved pet turkey. --- “A luminous, lyrical memoir.” —Thomas Maltman author of The Land and Little Wolves	$27.95 \| Aug. 2024 264 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-51-6 Lessons in Geography Phillip Sterling Lessons in Geography chronicles how Phillip Sterling's formative years in Northwest Lower Michigan not only inspired him to be a writer but also profoundly influenced his creative and critical perspectives. --- “Rich with language, alive with memory, and moving with the experiences of a rural everyday Michigan life.” —M. L. Liebler author of I Want to Be Once	$24.95 \| May 2024 230 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-40-0 We Come from Good Stock Kay Oakes Oring From marriage and children, to prosperity, loss, and reclamation, the Oakes clan represents the peril and promise of staking a claim, starting a family, and watching the things you build become eternal. --- “This moving book inspires us to explore the stories found in our own family trees, wherever we are from.” —Joelle Frazer author of *The Territory of Men*	$32.95 \| Jan. 2024 304 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-25-7 The Arc of the Escarpment Robert Root With great detail and a sincere dedication to place, Robert Root encourages us to pay attention to the land beneath our feet and value its preservation as we travel back through time and appreciate the scale of the history of the landscape around us. --- “Root reveals a stunning breadth of history held in shapes that glaciers made.” —Christine Stewart-Nuñez author of Chrysopoeia	$28.95 \| Jan. 2024 288 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-33-2 Squatter Yolanda DeLoach Finalist Autobiography/Memoir, Storytrade Book Awards Between heartache and the realization that a relationship was never as it seemed, Yolanda DeLoach pushes herself toward Wisconsin’s historic Ice Age Trail, a place of friendship and, ultimately, forgiveness. --- “A courageous journey.” —*Door County Pulse*	$22.95 \| Dec. 2023 148 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-24-0 Soul of the Outdoors Dave Greschner With humor and heart, Soul of the Outdoors treks along the trails of one’s outdoor adventures and, ultimately, the trails of our lives. --- “Greschner writes of the world in the way I wish to see it: with knowledge, authenticity, and reverence most of all.” —B.J. Hollars author of Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds
$28.95 \| Sept. 2023 272 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-14-1 From the Heart: The Story of Matrix John Harmon From the Heart brings you into the inner workings of a highly influential music group, the jazz fusion ensemble Matrix, as well as closer to the man who made it all happen. --- “No John Harmon, no Matrix. A high point in all of our lives. Hail to the Chief.” —Kurt Dietrich author of Wisconsin Riffs: Jazz Profiles from the Heartland	$24.95 \| Aug. 2023 228 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-99-8 The Long Fields Anne-Marie Oomen Finalist, Memoir *Foreword INDIES* *Book of the Year* Anne-Marie Oomen’s sixth essay collection celebrates rural life as she experienced it growing up on a farm and then into an adulthood marked by both wandering and homing. --- “Beautiful language and elegant images." —Debra Gwartney author of Live Through This	$24.95 \| Aug. 2023 272 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-04-2 Kick Out the Bottom Erik Mortenson & Christopher Kramer Amidst the ruins of Detroit, two seekers question all that they thought they knew as they struggle to achieve spiritual awakening in this collaborative memoir. --- “A heady mixture of punkish aesthetics and neo-hip mysticism. They give us a Detroit that was on the edge of massive re-transformation even as they were themselves on their way to new modes of living.” —Aldon Lynn Nielsen	$29.95 \| Feb. 2023 296 pp \| Paperback 979-8986144-78-8 Wrong Tree Jeff Wilson During his 30+ year career in wildlife management, Jeff Wilson found himself atop eagle nests, deep in bear dens, tracking furbearers on snow covered forest roads, and spending nights under the stars banding loons. His adventures (or misadventures) in wildlife biology, are incredibly informative, entertaining, and occasionally hilarious. --- “A beacon for the next generation to preserve its ties to the land." —Rocky Barker *Pulitzer Prize Finalist*	$24.95 \| Nov. 2022 240 pp \| Paperback 979-8986144-74-0 At the Lake Jim Landwehr In At the Lake, stories of fishing and kayaking, a single mother and growing teenagers, and parents wanting what’s best for their children weave a larger tale of the cabin experience in the Upper Midwest. With fifteen rich personal histories, Jim Landwehr delivers a memoir filled with humor, warmth, and reverence for life up North. --- “A heartwarming collage of personal yet universal memories." —Patricia Skalka author of the Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries	$19.95 \| Apr. 2022 94 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-08-1 Body Talk Takwa Gordon Blending poetry and nonfiction prose into a hybrid memoir brimming with humanity, Takwa Gordon’s Body Talk explores being bipolar, Black, a refugee, a woman, a Muslim, a child sexual abuse survivor, and a first-generation college student in America. --- “An artistic, poignant portrait of vulnerability, self love, and survival." —Aitch Alexander author of My Body Is a Junkyard
$32.95 \| Apr. 2022 378 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-02-9 North Freedom Carolyn Dallmann With the clarity of sharp memory and the innocence of youthful charm, Carolyn Dallmann takes readers on a nostalgic journey through family, farming, and growing up in North Freedom. --- “Dallmann captures the innocence of a little girl growing up on a farm in a small rural Wisconsin community.” —Keri Olson author of Find Your Heart, Follow Your Heart	$21.95 \| Apr. 2022 174 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-07-4 The In-Between State Martha Lundin Martha Lundin's essays in The In-Between State forward a compassionate analysis of bodies: queer bodies, bodies of water, bodies that are hated, and bodies that deserve love. --- “This collection marks the arrival of a thrilling new voice in American literature.” —May-lee Chai *American Book Award winner*	$16.95 \| Mar. 2021 130 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-65-6 Ohio Apertures Robert Miltner Robert Miltner traces his life from early childhood onward, offering a template for understanding the impact of place, region, family, literacy, and cultural influence on the shaping of a Midwest identity. --- “Ohio Apertures represents storytelling at its lyric best." —Barbara Sabol author of Solitary Spin

$32.95 | May 2026 | 276 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-53-9

The Yesterdays of Grand Rapids

Charles E. Belknap | edited by Colleen Alles

Originally published in 1922, Captain Charles E. Belknap’s The Yesterdays of Grand Rapids is a writer’s love letter to his adored city. Through 101 anecdotal columns, Belknap captured snapshots of life in 1850s Grand Rapids, Michigan, and beyond. His charming portrait was a success—popular then, and beloved by local historians a century later. This new and revised edition supplements the original columns with the nearly fifty that ran in The Grand Rapids Press subsequent to the book’s publication. For the first time, the full scope of his valuable and fascinating vignettes can be appreciated. Contextual essays by Colleen Alles clarify these unique, historic columns while celebrating, too, the extraordinary life of Captain Charles E. Belknap.

---

"Vivid and often humorous."

—David Rowe, The Rapidian

“Belknap’s stories show the humans that make up our history, as individual people with all of their quirks, their hearts, and their faults.”

—Julie Tabberer

Director of the Grand Rapids History Center

$24.95 | May 2026 | 132 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-71-3

From Madison to Mobile: The Diary of Corporal Samuel Burdick, Jr.

edited by Daniel Scharfenberg

From Madison to Mobile is a transcribed historical diary by Samuel Burdick, Jr. (1834–1914) who served in Company D of the 23rd Wisconsin Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War from August 1862 until July 1865. Join Samuel from his enlistment in Albion, Wisconsin as a civilian carpenter and read about his transformation into a soldier in the Union Army. Samuel’s daily entries give both brief and detailed accounts of the life of the everyday Union soldier fighting in the Western Theatre of the American Civil War, their daily hardships, marching, camp life, and of course battles. Samuel’s entries are complimented by annotations by one of Samuel’s descendants, editor Daniel Scharfenberg, who supplies the reader with context to Samuel’s family history, and his postwar life. This work of historical nonfiction is a wealth of knowledge for any reader interested in the American Civil War or the life of the citizen soldier during the war. Samuel’s detailed accounts of his service during the war make this book an ideal addition to any reader or historians’ library.

$24.95 | May 2026 | 156 pp

Paperback | 978-1-968148-54-6

Under the Pines

Ada J. Moore | edited by M. Wade Mahon & Lillian S. Mahon

Ada J. Moore (1832–1877) was the pen name of Ellen Phillips, a resident of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and a widely published poet. She is considered Stevens Point’s unofficial poet laureate. Under the Pines (1875) was her only collection.

---

“The book is made up of upwards of eighty short poems on as many different subjects, some drawn from nature, some from her early associations among the green hills of our own state; some are suggested by her new western home, and some by passing events. They are all full of the poetic element, and as pure as the falling snow-flakes. We know of no book more elevating in its tone, nor one with which those little snatches of time that every one has could be more profitably spent. . . . This little volume is full of gems.”

—Stevens Point Journal

“When Moore writes of love and of little ones passed away we know that her words come from the depths of a mother’s heart. It is genuine joy or real anguish that moves her. . . . Only a poet could do it with so much delicacy and grace.”

—Wisconsin State Journal

Front Jacket.png $12.99 | April 2019 | 272 pp

Paperback | 978-0-984673-96-4

The Wisconsin Idea

Charles McCarthy

Edited by Ross K. Tangedal and Jeff Snowbarger

Charles McCarthy’s The Wisconsin Idea, originally published in 1912, made the phrase “the Wisconsin idea” famous throughout the state and the country. Grounded in thorough research, meticulous detail, and a steadfast belief in the public good, the book is an important historical document of the state of Wisconsin, the Midwest, and the United States. McCarthy’s chronicle of progressive state craft in practice charges those in government to invest in “hope, health, happiness, and justice,” in order to build up, rather than exploit, the resources (both human and natural) of the country, that we may truly prosper as a free people.

This new edition, with informative annotations for contemporary readers, is a must read for scholars and students of progressivism at the turn of the nineteenth century, as well as a must own for those who believe in the power and responsibility of the Wisconsin Idea.

To order directly from the press, please email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

Review

Middle West Review

$21.95 \| Sept 2026 100 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-58-4 Light in the Evergreens Lex Runciman “Thoughtful, generous, and fully present.” —Hilary Menos author of Berg	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 86 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-61-4 Smooth Side, Rough Side Arthur Vogelsang “Vogelsang's good, nasty poems evoke the America of Norman Rockwell.” —John Ashberry *Pulitzer Prize Winner*	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 80 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-60-7 Birds Sing, Anyway Clay Matthews “A cataloguing and a witnessing to the patterns and progressions of a life.” —Marianne Worthington author of The Girl Singer	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 100 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-59-1 Running Lights Michael Lauchlan “A sweet balm; a consoling tributary, gentling through a world that, like a torrent, so often threatens to sweep us away.” —Kelly Fordon *author of What Trammels the Heart***	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 120 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-62-1 Whatever Dimness or Brightness Rae Gouirand “Carefully wrought poems that sing, revel, glow, and delight.” —Julie R. Enzer	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 106 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-65-2 No Lost Feast Jacob Boyd “Filled with music, humility, and heart.” —Sarah Rose Nordgren author of Palace of Subatomic Bliss
$22.95 \| Sept 2026 98 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-63-8 Advice for the Boys Garrett Stack “These are poems of mortality, of loss, of generational nuance and dissonance and wisdom in the landscape of contemporary American violences.” —Diane Seuss *Pulitzer Prize Winner*	$21.95 \| Sept 2026 84 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-64-5 Botrytis Bruce Cohen “The book is a wind phone, and we, its readers, are only overhearing its memories, jokes, and wonder.” —Darcie Dennigan author of Palace of Subatomic Bliss	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 90 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-66-9 Jackie Robinson's Real Gone Matthew Johnson “Johnson has given us a baseball book that understands and plays the blues. Baseball is a game of joy and sadness.” —E. Ethelbert Miller author of If God Invented Baseball: Poems	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 120 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-69-0 Space Stations Heather Dubrow “Dubrow’s poetic lobbies invite us into a various imaginary real estate, hers and ours—space stations on the route to other possible lives.” —D.E. Green author of Catastrophizing in Catastrophe	$22.95 \| Sept 2026 130 pp \| Paperback 978-1-968148-68-3 Lake: Love Poems Jeff Fearnside “The scope is large and Fearnside’s lines sing with passion and authenticity.” —Allan Peterson *National Book Award Finalist*

$23.95 \| May 2025 150 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-90-5 Our Bodies Are Mostly Water Katherine Riegel Katherine Riegel finds a way through her grief in her compassionate and lyrical memoir of her sister’s life and death. Her sister-grief becomes a conduit for grief of all kinds, as she navigates a new life inundated with sadness but bright with memory. --- "Riegel’s intelligent, thoughtful voice infuses the memoir with warmth, compassion, and grace.” —Anne Panning author of Dragonfly Notes: A Memoir	$24.95 \| Mar. 2025 222 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-92-9 You Shoulda Been Here Last Week Ted J. Rulseh Ted Rulseh guides you through a lifetime of angling in You Shoulda Been Here Last Week: the joys, thrills, and failures; the moments of wonder; treasured times with friends and family. --- “Rulseh understands the Northwoods mindset that makes some folks . . . abandon city life and eke out a less stressful living above the tension line.” —Dan Small host of Outdoor Wisconsin	$23.95 \| Mar. 2025 156 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-77-6 Table Talk & Second Thoughts Michael Martone With wit and humor, Michael Martone writes his life as one of brief bites, effervescent episodes, and meaningful meals illuminated by the luminaries on the other side of the table. --- “Martone is one of the few writers who was born in Indiana, writes about Indiana, and eats in Indiana, but meanwhile, he seems to have been everywhere else, too, meeting all the best writers.” —Bonnie Jo Campbell *National Book Award Finalist*	$29.95 \| Mar. 2025 280 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-92-9 The Past Ten Donald Quist, Kali White VanBaale, & Bailey Gaylin Moore (eds.) Based on the Past-Ten.com website created and launched by executive editor Donald Quist in 2017, The Past Ten features a wide range of writers all answering the same question, where were you on this day ten years ago? --- “A reflective mosaic, made up of some of the most exciting voices in American literature today.” —Jaquira Díaz	$32.95 \| Oct. 2024 322 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-15-8 Wildlifer Neil F. Payne Payne guides readers through an analysis of wildlife management as a profession. From the influence of Aldo Leopold and John Muir, to wildlife education, habitat diversity, and the value of conservation, Payne provides an exhaustive study of not only a profession, but also a way of life, and how it must be preserved. --- “Marvelous writing-and exciting coverage over many years." —Estella Leopold	$24.95 \| Sept. 2024 230 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-50-9 Points of Tangency Scott Russell Morris Within the pages of Points of Tangency, a sequence of brilliant personal essays, Scott Russell Morris, a closeted queer Mormon, tells the story of meeting and then marrying his now wife. His story, told with grace, compassion, and dexterity, forges the framework of a life lived, and lives living together, in our mysterious and dynamic present. --- “ Big hearted and quietly humorous. This book is a gift.” —Sarah Viren author of To Name the Bigger Lie
$24.95 \| Sept. 2024 184 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-49-3 This Season, The Next: A Memoir Casey Knott Part DIY, part memoir, part musing, This Season, The Next finds Casey Knott at several intersections: starting over after a divorce, meeting the love of her life, blending a family, and finding and remodeling an urban farm complete with chickens and a much beloved pet turkey. --- “A luminous, lyrical memoir.” —Thomas Maltman author of The Land and Little Wolves	$27.95 \| Aug. 2024 264 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-51-6 Lessons in Geography Phillip Sterling Lessons in Geography chronicles how Phillip Sterling's formative years in Northwest Lower Michigan not only inspired him to be a writer but also profoundly influenced his creative and critical perspectives. --- “Rich with language, alive with memory, and moving with the experiences of a rural everyday Michigan life.” —M. L. Liebler author of I Want to Be Once	$24.95 \| May 2024 230 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-40-0 We Come from Good Stock Kay Oakes Oring From marriage and children, to prosperity, loss, and reclamation, the Oakes clan represents the peril and promise of staking a claim, starting a family, and watching the things you build become eternal. --- “This moving book inspires us to explore the stories found in our own family trees, wherever we are from.” —Joelle Frazer author of *The Territory of Men*	$32.95 \| Jan. 2024 304 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-25-7 The Arc of the Escarpment Robert Root With great detail and a sincere dedication to place, Robert Root encourages us to pay attention to the land beneath our feet and value its preservation as we travel back through time and appreciate the scale of the history of the landscape around us. --- “Root reveals a stunning breadth of history held in shapes that glaciers made.” —Christine Stewart-Nuñez author of Chrysopoeia	$28.95 \| Jan. 2024 288 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-33-2 Squatter Yolanda DeLoach Finalist Autobiography/Memoir, Storytrade Book Awards Between heartache and the realization that a relationship was never as it seemed, Yolanda DeLoach pushes herself toward Wisconsin’s historic Ice Age Trail, a place of friendship and, ultimately, forgiveness. --- “A courageous journey.” —*Door County Pulse*	$22.95 \| Dec. 2023 148 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-24-0 Soul of the Outdoors Dave Greschner With humor and heart, Soul of the Outdoors treks along the trails of one’s outdoor adventures and, ultimately, the trails of our lives. --- “Greschner writes of the world in the way I wish to see it: with knowledge, authenticity, and reverence most of all.” —B.J. Hollars author of Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds
$28.95 \| Sept. 2023 272 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-14-1 From the Heart: The Story of Matrix John Harmon From the Heart brings you into the inner workings of a highly influential music group, the jazz fusion ensemble Matrix, as well as closer to the man who made it all happen. --- “No John Harmon, no Matrix. A high point in all of our lives. Hail to the Chief.” —Kurt Dietrich author of Wisconsin Riffs: Jazz Profiles from the Heartland	$24.95 \| Aug. 2023 228 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-99-8 The Long Fields Anne-Marie Oomen Finalist, Memoir *Foreword INDIES* *Book of the Year* Anne-Marie Oomen’s sixth essay collection celebrates rural life as she experienced it growing up on a farm and then into an adulthood marked by both wandering and homing. --- “Beautiful language and elegant images." —Debra Gwartney author of Live Through This	$24.95 \| Aug. 2023 272 pp \| Paperback 978-1-960329-04-2 Kick Out the Bottom Erik Mortenson & Christopher Kramer Amidst the ruins of Detroit, two seekers question all that they thought they knew as they struggle to achieve spiritual awakening in this collaborative memoir. --- “A heady mixture of punkish aesthetics and neo-hip mysticism. They give us a Detroit that was on the edge of massive re-transformation even as they were themselves on their way to new modes of living.” —Aldon Lynn Nielsen	$29.95 \| Feb. 2023 296 pp \| Paperback 979-8986144-78-8 Wrong Tree Jeff Wilson During his 30+ year career in wildlife management, Jeff Wilson found himself atop eagle nests, deep in bear dens, tracking furbearers on snow covered forest roads, and spending nights under the stars banding loons. His adventures (or misadventures) in wildlife biology, are incredibly informative, entertaining, and occasionally hilarious. --- “A beacon for the next generation to preserve its ties to the land." —Rocky Barker *Pulitzer Prize Finalist*	$24.95 \| Nov. 2022 240 pp \| Paperback 979-8986144-74-0 At the Lake Jim Landwehr In At the Lake, stories of fishing and kayaking, a single mother and growing teenagers, and parents wanting what’s best for their children weave a larger tale of the cabin experience in the Upper Midwest. With fifteen rich personal histories, Jim Landwehr delivers a memoir filled with humor, warmth, and reverence for life up North. --- “A heartwarming collage of personal yet universal memories." —Patricia Skalka author of the Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries	$19.95 \| Apr. 2022 94 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-08-1 Body Talk Takwa Gordon Blending poetry and nonfiction prose into a hybrid memoir brimming with humanity, Takwa Gordon’s Body Talk explores being bipolar, Black, a refugee, a woman, a Muslim, a child sexual abuse survivor, and a first-generation college student in America. --- “An artistic, poignant portrait of vulnerability, self love, and survival." —Aitch Alexander author of My Body Is a Junkyard
$32.95 \| Apr. 2022 378 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-02-9 North Freedom Carolyn Dallmann With the clarity of sharp memory and the innocence of youthful charm, Carolyn Dallmann takes readers on a nostalgic journey through family, farming, and growing up in North Freedom. --- “Dallmann captures the innocence of a little girl growing up on a farm in a small rural Wisconsin community.” —Keri Olson author of Find Your Heart, Follow Your Heart	$21.95 \| Apr. 2022 174 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-07-4 The In-Between State Martha Lundin Martha Lundin's essays in The In-Between State forward a compassionate analysis of bodies: queer bodies, bodies of water, bodies that are hated, and bodies that deserve love. --- “This collection marks the arrival of a thrilling new voice in American literature.” —May-lee Chai *American Book Award winner*	$16.95 \| Mar. 2021 130 pp \| Paperback 978-1-737739-65-6 Ohio Apertures Robert Miltner Robert Miltner traces his life from early childhood onward, offering a template for understanding the impact of place, region, family, literacy, and cultural influence on the shaping of a Midwest identity. --- “Ohio Apertures represents storytelling at its lyric best." —Barbara Sabol author of Solitary Spin

Cornerstone Press

BOOKS

​Scroll to find titles in our various series, including:

New Releases

Fall 2026

The Loneliness of Glass

Kathleen Furin

Ask Me About the Money

Keith Lesmeister

There's No Way to Know

Mary Alice Hostetter

Aboard the Old Buoy

Andrew Rihn

Never Mind Your Good Reasons

BettyJoyce Nash

Summer & Other Stories

Tamara Skidmore

Welcome to North Bank

Phillip Sterling

Abandon

Storm Ainsely

Mervelous Freaks of Nature!

Alyson Mosquera Dutemple

Tradeoffs

David Galef

Bullies & Cowards

Kevin Grauke

Secrets and Other Hobbies

Mary Hannah Terzino

The Great Silence

Daniel Scott

And Night Shall Come

David J. Rank

Tollund Man

Jeff Esterholm

Rumors of Peace

Hope Coulter

Hands

Pardeep Toor

I Felt My Life With Both My Hands

Jessica Treadway

This Is How We Speak

Rebecca Reynolds

Your Place in This World

Jake La Botz

All That It Seems

Jim Landwehr

Lafferty, Looking for Love

Dennis McFadden

All Gone Now

Michael Caleb Tasker

Apple & Palm

Patricia Henley

Bodies in Bags

Jamey Gallagher

A Green Glow On the Horizon

Dawn Burns

Yes, No, I Don't Know

Kathryn Gahl

How We Do Things Here

Matt Cashion

Release of Information

Kali White VanBaale

The Price of Their Toys

John P. Loonam

Neon Steel

Jennifer Maritza McCauley

The Divide

Evan Morgan Williams

We Should Be Somewhere By Now

Stephen Tuttle

These Are My People

Steve Fox

A Day Doesn't Go By When I Don't Have Regrets

J. Malcolm Garcia

The Caged Man

Calvin Mills

The Plan of Chicago

Barry Pearce

Burner and Other Stories

Scroll to find titles in our various series, including: