Author Amy Pence shares her “silver linings playbook” to publishing past a certain age and how being a late-bloomer can be a plus.
News & Review Type: News
Amy Pence featured in Writer’s Digest!
David Eggleton’s poem, THE NAVIGATORS, from his collection, LIFTING THE ISLAND, selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2025!
David Eggleton is a poet of Papālagi, Rotuman and Tongan descent, with ancestral connections to the villages of Motusa and Ma’ufanga. He lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin and was the New Zealand Poet Laureate between August 2019 and August 2022. The Wilder Years: Selected Poems was published by Otago University Press in 2021. He is a co-editor of Katūīvei: Contemporary Pasifika Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand, published by Massey University Press in 2024. His most recent poetry collection, Lifting the Island, in which ‘The Navigators’ appears, was published by Red Hen Press in Pasadena, California in September 2025.
Rebecca Chace’s TALKING TO THE WOLF listed in Oldster Magazine!
This is Rebecca Chace’s fifth book and third novel, and her first that isn’t with a Big Five publisher. “At a time that is not easy for publishing literary fiction I am thrilled to be with my first indie press for this book. I have felt so much enthusiasm and support for this novel.”
Kristen Millares Young interviewed on Seattle City of Literature!
Tune in for an exclusive inside look at Kristen Millares Young’s upcoming memoir, DESIRE LINES!
New poetry from David Mason featured in Narrative Magazine!
David Mason, former poet laureate of Colorado, is the author of numerous books, including Cold Fire (Red Hen, 2026), The Sound: New and Selected Poems, Ludlow: A Verse Novel, and The Country I Remember, winner of the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award. Born in Bellingham, Washington, he earned a PhD from the University of Rochester. He lives in Tasmania, the island state of Australia
MER Bookshelf – March 2026
In this rich new collection, Molly Fisk braids together the ordinary tasks of love and work in 1875, a century we’ve almost forgotten but whose human concerns are universal and timeless. Fisk describes the journey of newlyweds Phoebe and Miles Imlay from their birthplace in central Oregon to California’s Surprise Valley. These are quiet, lyrical poems building a private world of intimacy and effort in alternating voices. From sawing timber, turning the heel of a sock, and measuring a pie’s baking with verses of a song, through sex, pregnancy, and childbirth, the couple’s first year of marriage working side by side is offered to us in resonant, unexpected detail.
Molly McCloy talks about her upcoming memoir, NINE GRUDGES, on KJZZ Phoenix!
Tucson storyteller Molly McCloy loves telling stories about hard things. She’s done it on stage and in print. Her memoir, “Nine Grudges: The Spiteful Origins of the Happiest Dyke on Earth” will be published later this year.
Maurya Simon interviewed by Sean Singer on his Substack, The Sharpener!
Maurya Simon’s The Blue Bridge, her twelfth volume of poems, will appear in 2026 (Etruscan Press). Her earlier volume, The Wilderness: New and Selected Poems, received the 2019 Independent Booksellers Association’s Gold Medal in Poetry. Simon’s opera libretto, “Tamar,” with choral music by French American composer, Eliane Aberdam, premiered at the University of Rhode Island.
Amy Pence discusses her upcoming novel YELLOW in an interview with ArtsATL!
During Hurricane Irma in 2017, a 90-foot oak tree split and fell into the middle of Amy Pence’s cottage in the old fishing village of Pine Lake, Georgia. A beam came down and hit her squarely in the head, knocking her unconscious. She kept hearing a voice telling her to get up. As she came to and saw the devastation, her mind went to unexpected, revelatory places. She recalls that she thought two things: “This is how people die,” and then, smiling, “I might die, and could death possibly be amazing? I almost laughed.”
Luke Goebel’s KILL DICK featured in Our Culture Magazine’s list of most anticipated books of spring 2026
It’s finally warming up here in Washington, DC, and earlier this month was the first instance I was able to comfortably sit on our roof and read. With a coffee in tow and the knowledge that soon, I’ll spend (brighter!) nights out here, I got through my spring stack, featuring the return of literary giants Ben Lerner and David Sedaris, thoughtful narratives from animal POVs, and, randomly, two essay collections about some of my homes so far (Florida and San Diego). Enjoy our selections, and let us know which ones you picked up.
April Ossmann interviewed on the Derate the Hate podcast!
April Ossmann discusses poetry collection, WE with Derate the Hate podcast.
Amy Pence’s YELLOW listed on Bookstr!
Yellow is a slow-bloom speculative novel and quietly cosmic. It’s a book about how long childhood wonders and wounds can linger, how the universe keeps whispering even when we stop listening, and how some encounters (especially the strange, soft, glowing ones) leave their color on us forever.
Molly McCloy interviewed on The ARTWIFE Podcast!
Molly McCloy discusses her upcoming memoir, NINE GRUDGES: THE SPITEFUL ORIGINS OF THE HAPPIEST DYKE ON EARTH with Hannah Harlee.
Amy Pence’s YELLOW listed in Deep South Magazine!
It’s 1973: summer of the Watergate hearings and Skylab’s launch into space when 12-year-old Z discovers an unclassified slime mold growing in her Louisiana backyard. Something compels her deep coherence with this magical creature—until an incident with a serial killer at the lake disrupts their connection. Both mystifying and metaphorical, Yellow becomes a guiding force for her brother Clem, a New Orleans seeker.
Luke Goebel’s KILL DICK listed in the New York Post!
This satirical literary thriller has shades of Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. A 19-year-old NYU dropout returns home to Brentwood to laze about and enjoy popping prescription pills. But when addicts around Los Angeles keep getting murdered, she finds her father and his tie to an opioid manufacturer may somehow be connected to the crimes