I find myself overwhelmed yet excited about the year ahead, one that is sure to be timestamped by an amazing offering from the world of indie press, and there’s this insane idea too, the one that’s about providing a space able to highlight as many of them as possible. The feature began originally as an idea born from a discussion online with a number of indie press editors, authors, and readers about the deluge of “best-of” and “most anticipated” features and how the majority of these articles continue to be disproportionately favorable to the larger publishing houses. A lot gets lost in transit among the smaller presses, and I wondered why this was the case; the question I asked had been, Why wasn’t there a comprehensive gathering of what the indie community has to offer? The response was overwhelming, culminating with the publication of the inaugural 2014 edition, which featured over 70 publishers and dozens of indie lit contributors chatting up their most-anticipated titles of the year. I’m proud to offer up the same space, once again with feeling: “The Great 2015 Indie Press Preview,” a compendium of some of the most exciting titles of this year and curated by an array of indie press authorities and it’s companion piece, “The Great 2015 Indie Press Cheat Sheet,” which functions as a comprehensive list of what indie publishing has to offer. Consider both it two parts of a singular whole; consider it an A-to-Z go-to reference for all of your indie book buying needs. With as little as a cursory glance, it’s clear that 2015 will burn bright with new books, and I can’t wait to see how the year unfolds.

—

Liberty Hardy

Mort(e) by Robert Repino

Sebastian is a content housecat living with his humans and hanging out with his dog friend, Sheba, until the Queen of the Ants starts a war against mankind. Now he’s a walking, talking, giant cat named Mort(e), fighting the humans alongside other transformed animals. Mort(e) is against the war, but it enables him to search for Sheba, who got lost when all the fighting started. But Mort(e) worries that if the creatures beat man, they will simply replace them and repeat mankind’s mistakes. Will Mort(e) find his friend and help change the fate of the planet? Repino’s debut comes out swinging a machete and a flamethrower. This is Animal Farm on steroids.

Almost Crimson by Dasha Kelly

CeCe is a young girl struggling to overcome her situation: she lives in poverty with her single mother, who suffers from crippling depression. But she is also a young girl with incredible strength and determination. With amazing heart and depth, Kelly explores CeCe’s world and the people she encounters as she works to free herself from her surroundings and change her seeming destiny. Kelly’s debut is one of rare grace and honesty, and her words are beautiful and moving.

— Liberty Hardy is a bookseller at RiverRun Bookstore and a contributing editor for Book Riot. Reading is her favorite thing to do, and yes, she has cats.

Sam Snoek-Brown

The New Sorrow Is Less Than the Old Sorrow by Jenny Drai

I’m a fan of Jenny Drai’s work in general, but from the glimpses of this new book of poems, I still feel like I’m in for something unexpected, something special. Her sinewy twists of syntax, her exhilarating word associations, her thrilling slaps of imagery: “a number of options loiter on counters. sweet, time-bruised plums. not decisions but placeholders,” she writes in her teaser excerpt. “many, many times I answer to the succinct question how often have you?” her excerpt opens. It’s also how I plan to answer the question of how often I will read and reread her book.

The Guild of Saint Cooper by Shya Scanlon

If the upside-down Seattle Space Needle on Scanlon’s spare cover isn’t intriguing enough, there’s the revelation that the “Saint Cooper” of the title might, in fact, be a reference to everyone’s favorite coffee-swilling Agent from Twin Peaks. And then the tease gets really interesting: “an obscure author in a near-future post-evacuation Seattle who is drawn into writing a revisionist history that sets the book itself unspooling backward into its own alternate history . . .” The whole set-up sounds like some kind of grunge Phillip K. Dick, and if the writing is as distinctive and gripping as Scanlon’s previous work, this one seems destined to become a favorite.

Little Sister Death by William Gay

One of the greatest voices of the new Southern Gothic renaissance, working here with straight-up horror in a centuries-spanning novel about the Bell Witch of Tennessee: I cannot imagine any way for this book to be further in my wheelhouse even if I’d written it myself. I’m doing backflips for this and everything else Dzanc plans to release from Gay in the coming years. Their acquisition of some of his earliest as well as some of his final works is a boon to readers everywhere, and I’m eager to get my hands on all of it, but Little Sister Death is first on my list.

— Samuel Snoek-Brown lives in Portland, OR, where he teaches writing and serves as production editor for Jersey Devil Press. Online, he lives at snoekbrown.com. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of journals, and he is the author of the flash fiction chapbook Box Cutters and of the novel Hagridden, for which he received a 2013 Oregon Literary Fellowship.

Sheldon Lee Compton

Metal Gear Solid by Ashley and Anthony Burch

Boss Fight Books and Michael Kimball teamed up last year to scorch my brain with Galaga. They had me from the first sentence, and I’ve never played that game, not that you have to enjoy it. Can you imagine the “mind-party” I’m having anticipating Metal Gear Solid by Ashley and Anthony Burch, considering I became beautifully obsessed with this game for about a full year of my life? Well, imagine it. Join the party.

Nothing But the Dead and Dying by Ryan W. Bradley

I’ve read pretty much everything Ryan W. Bradley has written since first discovering a short story

of his at Fictionaut several years ago. That first story, “Every Time a Fairy Gets Laid,” put me in instant fan mode. I can’t wait to continue my admiration and read Nothing But the Dead and Dying. Ryan has a quiet talent that eases from the page to become something powerful and lasting. I’m sure this new one will be no different.

— Sheldon Lee Compton is the author of the short story collections The Same Terrible Storm and Where Alligators Sleep. He is the founding editor of Revolution John and survives in Eastern Kentucky.

Shane Cartledge

Nothing Crown by Michael Kazepis

Last year in the Great Indie Press Preview I covered Michael Kazepis’ Long Lost Dog of It in my list of most anticipated titles. Well, I read it, and it was everything I could have hoped for. He’s got an incredible vision and the skills to make it happen. Nothing Crown is a road story about a Palestinian woman making her way to France to become a rapper. Also, he’s turning it into a ‘mixtape’, which means that while he will write the majority of the book, there will be ‘featured artists’ writing short segments within the narrative. Say what? I’ve been sold from the beginning.

Jigsaw Youth by Tiffany Scandal

Tiffany Scandal’s first book, There’s No Happy Ending, was a sad, beautiful, wonderfully imagined apocalypse story. It was dark and grim and surreal. There is such a vivid attention to

detail to her work that you can’t possibly see everything she’s put into it. She’s a puzzler, and Jigsaw Youth sounds like it will continue and build upon the puzzle. It is one of two books marking the debut of the all-female imprint of Broken River Books: Ladybox Books. No doubt, this book will have plenty of raw punk angst, rich details and memorable characters. I’m excited.

— S.T. Cartledge is the bizarro author of House Hunter and Day of the Milkman. He also writes poetry. He enjoys reading bizarro, indie lit, poetry, and manga. He lives in Perth, Western Australia. He believes that the power of the human imagination is a beautiful thing.

Troy Weaver

Last Mass by Jamie Iredell

Jamie Iredell has always been a writer I’ve admired. I started reading little things of his here and there online a few years ago. I was instantly taken in by the honesty, humor, and straight-up

seriousness of what he was doing both in fiction and the essay. I read The Book of Freaks front-to-back in about two hours shortly after receiving it in the mail. That book is hilarious, but it’s hilarious on serious terms, which is a whole other funny I find hard to describe. I can’t. It’s just
plain original. I’ve heard Last Mass described as Markson-esque but I don’t know… I have this feeling. I think Jamie will do one better than that. Last Mass is a book I absolutely cannot wait to read.

— Troy James Weaver is the author of Witchita Stories (Future Tense Books) and Visions (Broken River Books), both due out in March. He was born, raised, and remains in Wichita, Kansas, and will probably die there, too.

Quincy Rhoads

The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood by Bhob Stewart

Literary fandom has a long history of idolizing brilliant madmen. Unfortunately, literary fandom doesn’t have a great history of idolizing comic book auteurs, but hopefully Bhob Stewart’s forthcoming biography of Wallace Wood will bridge that gap. Wallace Wood is best known for his work in Mad Magazine, Daredevil, and the landmark indie comic book series Witzend. Wood’s life was filled with all-nighters, alcoholism, and ultimately suicide, all balanced out by his undeniably strong work. The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood will not only offer an engaging biography of a fascinating, tortured artist, but it will be chock full of Wood’s art (which is meticulous and stunning), ephemera, and recollections from Wood’s friends and colleagues. It’s set to be a must-have for comic nerds and a great intro for lit fans that are ready to be engrossed in the work of an unfamiliar virtuoso.

Manic Pixie Dream Poems by Trevor L. Sensor

Bottlecap Press has been putting out some amazing chapbooks lately like Manic Pixie Dream Poems by Trevor L. Sensor. He puts his heart on his sleeve in these anguished love poems. This chapbook is a perfect encapsulation of the aftermath of a relationship that is no more, as the speaker in this cycle repeats elements and memories (phrases like “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” and

references towards Garden State) like a penitent monk feverishly chanting the same prayer. It’s familiar and relatable in a frightening way.

Cave by Zachary Cosby

Melissa Broder’s Scarecrone was last year’s best gore-filled, morbid, cosmically mystic collection of poetry. This year, Zachary Cosby’s Cave is poised to take on that mantle. These are poems about “…cum / and bile // and blood.” They’re poems that both revel and mourn the transience of youth and love. They’re unsettling and unpretentious as the art of Robert Duncan Gray. They’re as beautiful as a cave swallowing light.

— Quincy Rhoads is a contributing editor for Entropy. His writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Rain Taxi, and Indie Cardboard.

Tobias Carroll

Fat Kid by Jamie Iredell

Jamie Iredell’s fiction and nonfiction can be brutal, confessional, and heartbreaking. If his previous work, including Prose. Poems. A Novel. and I Was a Fat Drunk Catholic School Insomniac is any indication, his novel Fat Kid (which Iredell told me took its inspiration from a series of dreams set in the Western U.S.) should be one to watch out for.

On the Edges of Vision by Helen McClory

The stories I’ve encountered by Helen McClory have delved into the surreal and the supernatural,

but rarely in ways that you would expect. This collection is her debut; she has written that it initially took shape around the idea of monsters, which sounds very promising.

See You in the Morning by Mairead Case

Mairead Case’s nonfiction and criticism, which have appeared in places like The New Inquiry and Bookslut, are regularly incisive, drawing unexpected connections across artistic lines. Her fiction makes compelling narratives out of ambiguities large and small. Her debut novel–-one of the first books released by the revitalized Featherproof since Tim Kinsella took over that press’s editorial reins–is one I’ve been excited about since the day it was announced.

— Tobias Carroll writes fiction and nonfiction. He’s the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn, and his work has recently appeared in Tin House, Midnight Breakfast, The Collapsar, The Collagist, Joyland, Necessary Fiction, and Underwater New York. His collection Transitory will be released by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016.

Jackson Nieuwland

Glass Half Full with Burning People by Bob Schofield

If this book is anything like any of Bob’s previous work it will be a dream labyrinth that pulls you quickly through itself and back out into the real world when all you want to do is stay within its dark sugary walls. That’s not hyperbole; it’s just impossible to describe Bob’s creative output without slipping into the surreal language that he himself uses. Each of Bob’s works have shown huge growth from what came before them so here’s hoping this one will continue that trend and be something entirely new. No matter what, I want it inside of me. Plus, burning people falling from the sky you know?

The Three Sunrises by Edward Mullany

The final installment in Edward’s trilogy from Publishing Genius, the first book was a poetry collection, which I loved. The second one was a story collection, which I loved. Edward told me

that this one’s a novel, but then I read the publisher call it a trio of novellas. When I first heard about it, it was called Legion, and then I saw it referred to as The Book of Numbers and finally I saw a proof copy with the words The Three Sunrises on the cover. This book seems to be in constant flux, so who knows what form it will take in the end. All I know is that I read an excerpt from it and loved it and am excited to return to the world Edward built in the first two books.

Post Pussy by Gabby Bess

A lot has changed since Gabby’s first book came out a couple of years ago. We are now post-internet, post-alt. Thankfully, though she has been quiet recently, we are not living in a post-Gabby world. I’m excited to see how Gabby’s work has developed since the success of Alone With Other People. The title of this new book makes me think that she will be engaging with feminism in interesting, new ways. The fact that it’s being published by the always-impressive Coconut Books let’s me know that it will be quality.

Dear S by Rachel Hyman

Rachel Hyman has been one of my favorite poets for a long time now. Her online publications are consistently excellent and her work always feels contemporary without the need for the obligatory references to pop culture or the Internet. I’m excited to see her work collected in print for the first time. If the excerpts published in Illuminati Girl Gang and The Scrambler are anything to judge this chapbook by then it’s going to be one of my favorites this year.

— Jackson Nieuwland likes unicorns.

Grant Wamack

Calculating How Big of A Tip to Give Is The Easiest Thing Ever, Shout Out to My Family & Friends by Steve Roggenbuck

Poetry is a hard sell for me, but last year I accidentally found someone who writes poetry I can actually vibe with. I stumbled on this guy’s YouTube channel and the first video I watched felt mad dramatic but entertaining nonetheless. Next thing you know, I watched five more of his addictive videos and realized I needed one of his books. At the time, I couldn’t find anything available. However, he has a new book coming out this year and I’m sure it’ll blow my socks off.

The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert by Rios De La Luz

I was first introduced to Rio’s raw writing via her chapbook Stories & Thoughts distributed

through Ladybox Books an imprint of Broken River Books. The stories’ emotional edge stuck with me and I was hyped when I heard she was working on a surreal short story collection. Also, I’m tired of being able to count the number of POC in certain genres on one hand. So it’s uber dope to see a woman who is also a POC bringing some new flavor to the table.

— Grant Wamack is the author of A Lightbulb’s Lament and Notes from the Guts of a Hippo. He is a weird fiction writer, Navy journalist, and rapper extraordinaire. He’s been published in such places as Everyday Weirdness, 365 Tomorrows, The New Flesh, and other fine publications. You can find him dancing bachata with beautiful ghosts in the cobblestone streets of Spain or you can visit him here: http://grantwamack.com/

Michael Hessel-Mial

Wildlives by Sarah Jean Alexander

Sarah Jean Alexander’s poetry has that quality of stepping from her life with the appearance of being effortlessly beautiful. It makes you almost forget that she’s one of the hardest working poets around. From her tweets to her long-form works, Alexander puts craft and devotion to the service of a poetry that is honest, funny and generous. Wildlives will be a gift, the beautiful fruits of a long period of writing and living.

Asuras by Jayinee Basu

For 2015, Asuras is the book I’m counting on to lift up my perceptual faculties and set them down again slightly off-kilter. Basu has such a beautiful gift for choosing words, and such a wry sense of humor, it makes her poetry sparkle with light. I’ve been looking forward to seeing an extended work from her for a while, and have every reason to feel optimistic that Asuras will catch everyone off guard with its freshness and mastery.

Art Sick by Lara Glenum

The last book of Glenum’s that I read, Pop Corpse, scared the crap out of me in a way that was thrilling and edifying. I expect nothing less from Art Sick. Lara Glenum, one of the leading “gurlesque” voices, plays at uncharted limits to show us what those limits are. Her poetics will get into you like a corkscrew to the abdomen. She’ll undo your insides and bring out something terrifying and unexpected.

— Michael Hessel-Mial is a poet and scholar, and editor of Internet Poetry. He is author of the image macro series “mspaint and heartbreak” and the forthcoming ebook VITA NUOVA II.

Berit Ellingsen

The Infernal by Mark Doten

With that title and that cover, how can I not be curious? From the descriptions and reviews it sounds like an ominous and risky commentary on 21st century warfare, technology, and the international game of politics, all infernal in their own right.

— Berit Ellingsen is the author of the short story collection Beneath the Liquid Skin (firthFORTH Books) and the novel Une Ville Vide (PublieMonde). Her work has or will appear in W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction International Anthology, SmokeLong Quarterly, Unstuck, Litro, and other places, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the British Science Fiction Award. Berit’s new novel Not Dark Yet will be published by Two Dollar Radio in late 2015. She divides her time between Norway and Svalbard in the Arctic. http://beritellingsen.com.

Bud Smith

Leverage by Eric Nelson

Gritty and without posturing. Leverage chronicles the good and bad that comes with living away from the light pollution of the city scape. Reminds me of Steinbeck, but if he’d been around to learn to speak my generation’s ‘internet weird’.

— Bud Smith works heavy construction. He’s from NJ, but currently lives in NYC. His latest novel is called F-250. www.budsmithwrites.com

Andrew Miller

The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell

Set in the near future, the feminist dystopian model laid out for The Only Ones seems like a well-worn path as of late; but with Dibbell’s rock critic tone honed over years at the Village Voice, I expect this novel’s soundtrack to be more Le Butcherettes than Lorde.

In a 2013 interview with Black Clock, rock critic and now fiction author Carola Dibbell said that, “There is a lot of chicken and egg in the influence question — and we haven’t even talked about cartoons and movies — but it’s possible my love of Dickens affected my taste for cockney punks.”

For The Only Ones, this metaphor goes one step further. Two Dollar Radio has been publishing earnest and bruising books that read with the same intensity of a passionate critic reviewing their least favorite acts; as such, Dibbell’s no-holds-barred voice will surely pack a punch. Here’s hoping my guts can take it.

Haints Stay by Colin Winnette

This will be Winnette’s second novel to debut this year, and his first ever with Two Dollar Radio. I’m convinced that combination will be powerful. Having previously published the granddaddy of Acid Westerns, Rudolph Wurlitzer, Eric and Eliza Obenauf are well suited to capturing Winnette’s

voice in this wild, forever-shape-shifting style.

Winnette’s ability to keep readers rooted in the story without really giving any solid foundation is impressive. He knows just the right time to open the sinkhole and let the desert sands collapse beneath our feet.

Winnette is most powerful when his words are reflecting the vast nothing we all possess, measuring out the weights and means of how our individually constructed worlds possess us instead; even if only for a few hours, I look forward to the world of Haints Stay completely possessing me.

— Andrew Miller is the author of the upcoming book If Only the Names Were Changed (CCM 2016), has been published in several short form print and online collections. He works as an analyst and a journalist in Columbus, OH where he lives with his partner and his daughter. Find him at andrew-miller.com.

David Atkinson

Mozos: A Decade Running with the Bulls of Spain by Bill Hillmann

I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of The Old Neighborhood. I didn’t know much about Bill Hillmann, but I knew I dug his book. Then he made headlines because he’d previously co-authored a book called Fiesta: How To Survive The Bulls Of Pamplona and had just gotten gored during the 2014 run. Then I find out he’s written a memoir about his life, from a wasted ex-golden glove through decades of running with the bulls. There’s no way this book isn’t going to be interesting.

The Pleasure Merchant by Molly Tanzer

18th century England. An apprentice wigmaker is wrongfully disgraced and then taken in by a mysterious benefactor. His star begins to rise, but so does his greed. Do people even write books like this anymore? Somebody obviously is, and I have to see it. However it turns out to be, it’s going to be wildly different from all the other books out right now. That alone has a pull I can’t ignore.

F-250 by Bud Smith

Anyone who read Tollbooth by Bud Smith is probably already looking forward to F-250. Those of us who are in that club know what Bud Smith can do with the destruction inherent in a person

trying to find their place in the world. A rocker trying to make it, a friend OD’ing, a three-way relationship, this one seems even harder core than Tollbooth. I keep having Iron Maiden’s Running Free run through my head when I think about it.

— David S. Atkinson is the author of Bones Buried in the Dirt (2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist, First Novel <80K) and The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes (EAB Publishing, spring 2014). His writing appears in Bartleby Snopes, Grey Sparrow Journal, Interrobang?! Magazine, Atticus Review, and others. His writing website is http://davidsatkinsonwriting.com/ and he spends his non-literary time working as a patent attorney in Denver.

Brian Alan Ellis

The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper

Jessica Hopper’s acerbic wit and knowledge of music/pop-culture particulars has gotten her jobs writing for Pitchfork, GQ, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and the Chicago Tribune, but I best remember her from the ’90s, when she published her indie-reverent, taste-making zine Hit It Or Quit It; was a columnist for the late-great Punk Planet; and ran Hyper PR, a public-relations company which catered to small, independently-minded bands. I even spoke to Hopper on the phone once, when I was seventeen and doing my own music zine. I asked her if she could get me on the list for a Dismemberment Plan show, and possibly set up an interview with them “or something,” which she kindly obliged. I remember, she had a very nice voice. Hell of a writer, too.

The Perforated Nothingness by Mark Cronin

Mark Cronin is the kind of poet whose madness and how he exorcises that madness is a thing of brilliance one can admire from afar but if you ever let him crash at your house for a few days he would scare the living shit out of you. He’s that guy. He’s a genius. If he were a song he’d be “Live Wire,” or maybe “The Boy with The Thorn in His Side.” He basically has a bone to pick with

beauty. I fuckin’ love him.

Zero Saints by Gabino Iglesias

The author of Gutmouth is back, and he’s pissed! Just kidding, I think, but he has written a book that promises to fry up some eggs in your ol’ brain pan. I hear there will be junkies, really bad-ass dudes who hurt people in various ways, a Mexican woman in distress, illegal aliens, perhaps extraterrestrial aliens, some dogs, and a few saints (even though the book’s title suggests no saints). Gabino himself told me, “I wanted to write about religions, immigrants, pinche gringos, racism, guns, and praying.” If anything, I hope Zero Saints will explain what the hell a “pinche” gringo is.

How to Pose for Hustler by Andrea Kneeland

Andrea Kneeland seems like a perfectly happy family woman, which she probably is, but when she writes, oh boy, she writes like she’s a broken faucet gushing out blood and poetry and mental illness. She writes like she wants to dissect humanity’s heart of a darkness with a rusty cleaver and then kill everyone. Her writing is tense, powerful, fearless, and dark-dark-dark funny. Basically, it’s beautiful.

— Brian Alan Ellis lives in Tallahassee, Florida, and is the author of The Mustache He’s Always Wanted but Could Never Grow, 33 Fragments of Sick-Sad Living, King Shit (with Waylon Thornton), and Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Juked, Crossed Out, Zygote in My Coffee, Monkeybicycle, DOGZPLOT, Sundog Lit, Connotation Press, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, HTMLGIANT, That Lit Site, Diverse Voices Quarterly, flashquake, Out of the Gutter, Spry, NAP, The Next Best Book Blog, Entropy, The Round Up Writer’s Zine, Gravel, and Atticus Review, among other places.

Jay Slayton-Joslin

LIVEBLOG by Megan Boyle

Megan Boyle’s short stories have always done a wonderful job at reflecting the fragile elements of human life. Whether it’s driving to Little Rock to see a boy or a poem about her anxiety. The best features of her writing are what she chooses to focus on, the small glimpses into her mind, rather

than the notable events that dominates other fiction. LIVEBLOG is exciting because it is another example of how literature is evolving into the 21st Century, allowing the reader to follow her life and her unique perspective. This combined with the rising power of publishing house Tyrant books is no doubt going to be a sensation.

Hospice by Gregory Howard

Howard is my creative writing teacher. Three times a week he gives me amazing writing advice and knowledge that shows that not only has he been taught the craft but that he understands it to a talented level. The extracts that are available online disclose that this is going to be a contemporary gem, written by somebody who is a master in their field.

Bipolar Cowboy by Noah Cicero

It’s hard to not be excited about a new release from Noah Cicero. Even though every book of his has some kind of fluidity that makes the prose read like poetry, this collection, defined as poetry, is bound to show Cicero at his best. Cicero is a romantic, writes about love, and maybe not in the kind a general audience is used too. But, every emotion is sincere, wrapped in moment of the sublime that the English romantics could aspire too, making us wish that we lived in a western of bipolar cowboys.

Exigencies edited by Richard Thomas

When I try to think who works as hard and supports others as much as Richard Thomas, it’s difficult to think of other names that come to mind. This isn’t only a generous act though, because it means that Richard knows the best writers in the community. Which means that not only does it mean that Exigencies will be a fantastic read, but that Thomas will raise the bar of what is to be expected in an anthology, once again. Bound to be taught in classrooms across the world.

— Jay Slayton-Joslin is a writer from the London suburb of Beaconsfield, England. His work has appeared online and in print in journals such as Solarcide, Short, Fast and Deadly, Leodegraunce, Bizarro Central and Blink Ink. He has also appeared in the anthologies In Search Of A City: Los Angeles In 1,000 Words and Nova Parade. He is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in American Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. His first book, a poetry collection titled Kicking Prose is published by KUBOA Press. He can be found on his website: http://www.jayslaytonjoslinforever.com.

Edward J Rathke

The Doors You Mark Are Your Own by Okla Elliott and Raul Clement

I don’t actually know a lot about this book, partly by design, but I know Okla Elliott and Raul Clement are two of the smartest people on the internet. From what I do know about it, it sounds absolutely fantastic. It’s a huge post-apocalyptic nightmare that seems to be both political, philosophical, and full of excitement. If it lives up to what’s in my head, it might be the best thing to ever come out of indie lit.

The Zoo, A Going by JA Tyler

JA Tyler’s first book in a couple of years and I’ve been waiting a long time to read it. Or at least it feels that way. JA Tyler is one of the best stylists around and I’m a huge fan of just about anything that comes from his brain, so I’m expecting to love this, though I’ve no idea what its pages will hold. He’s one of the most underrated and underappreciated voices in indie lit despite being one of the most important writers, editors, and publishers in the community. It’s criminal, really, that he’s not loved more, especially given how enormously awesome his work is.

Binary Star by Sarah Gerard

This was just published last week and I’ve not gotten to it yet, but it’s from Two Dollar Radio, so I already know it’s a new work of genius by an unfamiliar writer. Another book I’m buying blind because I trust Two Dollar Radio that much. They’ve yet to lead me astray and I’m sure this won’t disappoint. It’s already getting all kinds of attention from everywhere and all of it’s positive. But that’s what we’ve come to expect from Two Dollar Radio.

Lemon Yellow Poison by Brian Allen Carr

Brian Allen Carr is the reason I’m buying this. There’s not really anyone who writes the way he does. He’ll take a normal sentence but then twist it in such a peculiar way that it becomes fantastic. Like, I could write a sentence and he’ll use the exact same words, but he’ll throw them in a new order and it’ll make it a thousand times better. He has impeccable style while also filling his work with narrative movement, brilliant characters, and all kinds of horrors and emotions. He’s one of my favorite writers publishing right now and I’ve never been disappointed by his work, which, thankfully, comes out pretty regularly these days. Absolutely can’t wait.

— Edward J Rathke is the writer of Ash Cinema (KUBOA Press, 2012), Twilight of the Wolves (Perfect Edge Books, 2014), and Noir: A Love Story (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2014). He is an editor at The Lit Pub and Monkeybicycle.

Gina Abelkop

Companion Animal by Magdalena Zurawski

Magdalena Zurawski’s Companion Animal (Litmus Press) is really, really sharp: on the money

sometimes literally and always figuratively. Hsve you been alive and in love and deeply engaged with the world during late capitalism? Then you too will bask in these poems.

Fat Daisies by Carrie Murphy

Carrie Murphy’s Fat Daisies (Big Lucks) is another sharp eye on late capitalism, on having relationships to things and wanting things and understanding or not understaing things. Carrie’s poems are more honest than most things in the world; she is in the pinprick center of all this shit trying to work it out. She’s also totally funny and urgent and uncannily right on.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

I just finished Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts (Graywolf) and am thinking about reading it again right away. This is a queer book in it’s softest heart, totally defiant and simultaneously full of love and a desire to connect with the world. This might all sound esoteric but the book is solid as a fucking rock: you’ll devour it and feel it sitting beside you in a great, comforting way.

— Gina Abelkop lives in Athens, GA with her sweetheart & too funny dogs. She’s the author of I Eat Cannibals (co.im.press, 2014) and Darling Beastlettes (Apostrophe Books, 2012). She edits the DIY feminist press Birds of Lace.

I find myself overwhelmed yet excited about the year ahead, one that is sure to be timestamped by an amazing offering from the world of indie press, and there’s this insane idea too, the one that’s about providing a space able to highlight as many of them as possible. The feature began originally as an idea born from a discussion online with a number of indie press editors, authors, and readers about the deluge of “best-of” and “most anticipated” features and how the majority of these articles continue to be disproportionately favorable to the larger publishing houses. A lot gets lost in transit among the smaller presses, and I wondered why this was the case; the question I asked had been, Why wasn’t there a comprehensive gathering of what the indie community has to offer? The response was overwhelming, culminating with the publication of the inaugural 2014 edition, which featured over 70 publishers and dozens of indie lit contributors chatting up their most-anticipated titles of the year. I’m proud to offer up the same space, once again with feeling: “The Great 2015 Indie Press Preview,” a compendium of some of the most exciting titles of this year and curated by an array of indie press authorities and it’s companion piece, “The Great 2015 Indie Press Cheat Sheet,” which functions as a comprehensive list of what indie publishing has to offer. Consider both it two parts of a singular whole; consider it an A-to-Z go-to reference for all of your indie book buying needs. With as little as a cursory glance, it’s clear that 2015 will burn bright with new books, and I can’t wait to see how the year unfolds.

The Motion by Lucy K Shaw
[TBA] by Brooke Hatfield

Wild Grass on the River Bank by Hiromi Itō, trans. Jeffrey Angles
Dark Museum by María Negroni, translated by Michelle Gil-Montero
The Country of Planks by Raúl Zurita, trans. Daniel Borzutzky
This Blue Novel by Valerie Mejer, translated by Michelle Gil-Montero
Selected Poems of Kim Yideum, translated by JiYoon Lee
[TBA, a barn-burning booklength creation myth] by Abraham Smith

The Love Book by Nina Solomon (January)
Starve the Vulture: A Memoir by Jason Carney (January)
We Are All Crew by Bill Landauer (January)
The Lost Treasures of R&B: A D Hunter Mystery by Nelson George (February)
Loving Donovan by Bernice L. McFadden (February)
The Half That’s Never Been Told: The Real-Life Reggae Adventures of Doctor Dread by Doctor Dread (March)
Suitcase City by Sterling Watson (March)
Changers Book Two: Oryon by T Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper (April)
Eight New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani (April)
The Shark Curtain by Chris Scofield (April)
The Immune System by Nathan Larson (May)
Love Maps by Eliza Factor (May)
The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory by Stacy Wakefield (May)
Beirut Noir (Lebanon) edited by Iman Humaydan (June)
Marseille Noir (France) edited by Cédric Fabre (June)
Providence Noir edited by Ann Hood (June)
What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches by Peaches and Holger Talinski (June)
The Anger Meridian by Kaylie Jones (July)
Little Beasts by Matthew McGevna (July)
Caught Up by Shannon Holmes (August)
Lost Canyon by Nina Revoyr (August)

apt: issue five: The Long Fiction Issue (January)
Anatomies by Susan McCarty (June)

Desire: A Haunting by Molly Gaudry (April)
Becoming the Sound of Bees by Marc Vicenz (April)
Lucy Negro Redux by Caroline Randall Williams (April)
Small Hope Factory by Christopher Kennedy (June)

http://artificebooks.com/index.html

The Pulp vs. The Throne by Carrie Lorig (June)

Letters to Quince by Jenny Drai (March)
Brown Bottle by Sheldon Lee Compton (July)

Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe by Lori Jakiela (May)
Fiction in Disguise: Experiencing the Art of Life Through Literature edited by Ben Leubner (August)

The Business of Naming Things by Michael Coffey (January)
Keep Out of Reach of Children: Reye’s Syndrome, Aspirin, and the Politics of Public Health by Mark A Largent (February)
A Solemn Pleasure by Melissa Pritchard (May)
The Surfacing by Cormac James (June)
American Meteor by Norman Lock (June)

Wildlives by Sarah Jean Alexander
Fat Daisies by Carrie Murphy
Plastic Sonnets by Caroline Crew
Isn’t that You Waving at You by Elizabeth Clark Wessel
Shadow Lanka by Brandon Brown
Dear S by Rachel Hyman
It Is Going To Be A Good Year by Sasha Fletcher

DEAD HORSE by Niina Pollari (February)
From the Author’s Private Collection by Eric Amling (June)
Tender Data by Monica McClure (July)

The End of Something Great by Lily Hoang
Silk Flowers by Meghan Lamb
[TBA] by Jacqueline Kari

Many Small Fires by Charlotte Pence (January)
Necessary Fire by KMA Sullivan (January)
A Taxonomy of the Space Between Us by Caleb Curtiss (February)
The New Sorrow Is Less Than the Old Sorrow by Jenny Drai (March)
Oh My Darling by Cate O’Toole (March)

At Night by Lisa Ciccarello (Spring 2015)
Room Where I Get What I Want by S. Whitney Holmes (Spring 2015)
Handsome #7 (Spring 2015)
Justice by Tomaž Šalamun, trans. Michael Thomas Taren (Summer 2015)
Static & Snow by Brian Henry (Fall 2015)
I Am a Season That Does Not Exist In the World by Kim Kyung Ju, trans. Jake Levine (Fall 2015)

Little: Novels by Emily Anderson
K: A 21st Century Canzoniere by I. Goldfarb
Starlight: 150 Poems by John Tranter
Hitching Post by Nava Fader
A’s Visuality by Anne Gorrick
Dangerous Things to Please a Girl by Travis Cebula
Dolphin Aria/Limited Hours: A Love Song by Luke McMullan
Virtual Worlds Virtual People by Kay Porter
Going with the Flow by Peter Siedlecki
Metamerican by Seth Abramson
The Last Place I Lived by K. Alma Peterson
Minnows Small as Sixteenth Notes by Norma Kassirer
Those Godawful Streets of Man by Stephen Bett
The Other City by Kristina Marie Darling
Frances the Mute by Kristina Marie Darling
Drink by Laura Madeline Wiseman
Gargantua by Jennie Cole
Poets For Living Waters: An International Response To Big Oil: Heide Lynn Staple Selected Criticism by Vincent Katz
Transfigurations by W. Scott Howard
Three Plays by Deborah Meadows
Sipping the Nectar of Stories by Tim J. Myers
Patient Women by Larissa Shmailo

Calculating How Big of a Tip to Give is the Easiest Thing Ever, Shout Out to My Family & Friends by Steve Roggenbuck (February)

The Boss Fight Books Anthology (January)
Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham (February)
Metal Gear Solid by Ashly & Anthony Burch (April)
Spelunky by Derek Yu (June)
World of Warcraft by Daniel Lisi (August)
Baldur’s Gate II by Matt Bell (October)

#RuntRaccoonRevolution (reboot) by Jeremiah Walton (January)
Manic Pixie Dream Poems by Trevor L Sensor (January)
Good Luck With The Moon & Stars & Stuff by Beyza Ozer (January)
Eating Alone At Chipotle by Carmen E. Brady (January)
Acid Bath by e.a.hyde (January)
Fractured by Patrick Trotti (January)
& blue beds held by Zooey Ghostly (February)
Al Pacino’s Arse and Other Palindromes by Jack Mitchell (February)
Portal by Rosalie Wilmot (February)
Bottlec[r]ap Volume Two (February)
Cave by Zachary Cosby (February/March)
How To Sext Death and Other Lurid Text Messages by Shane Jesse Christmass (March)
Stray/Pest by Timmy Reed (Summer)

On the Black by Ed Dinger (March)
Scores by Robert Paul Moreira (March)
The Incoming Tide by Cameron Pierce and J David Osborne (March)
Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again? by Nate Southard (March)
Death Don’t Have No Mercy by William Boyle (March)
Visions by Troy James Weaver (March)
The Blind Alley by Jake Hinkson (March)
Everything Used to Work: Poems by Robert Spencer (June)
Zero Saints by Gabino Iglesias (June)
Nothing Crown by Michael Kazepis (September)

Emergency Anthems by Alex Green (January)
Michael Sweet’s Coney Island by Michael Ernest Sweet (February)
Responsive Listening by Norwegian Theatre Academy (March)
The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom by Noah Eli Gordon (April)
Confidence by Seth Landman (May)
Infinite Record by MIT, New York University, University of Kiel, University of York St John, Norwegian Theatre Academy (September)
Alter(n)ations by Matt Shears (October)
Take This Stallion by Anaïs Duplan (November)
Naturalism by Wendy Xu (November)
[Title Forthcoming] by Daniel Borzutzky (December)

The Call: a Virtual Parable by Pat Rushin (February)
Pinkies by Shane Hinton (June)
Worm Fiddling Nocturne in the Key of a Broken Heart by Kimberly Lojewski (Fall)
Forty Martyrs by Philip F. Deaver (Fall)

‘SSES” ‘SSES” “SSEY’ by Chaulky White (January)
No Moon by Julie Reverb (Summer)
The Gotham Grammarian by Gary Lutz (Fall)

Cries for Help stories by Padgett Powell (September)
Mrs. Engels a novel by Gavin McCrea

Paul is Dead by Stephen Moles (January)
Rise of Hypnodrome by Matt Fuchs (February)
Orest and August by Steven Garbas (March)
Big Venerable by Matt Rowan (April)
Twilight of the Idiots by Joseph G Peterson (May)
The New York Stories: Three Volumes in One Collection by Ben Tanzer (June)
Condominium by Daniel Falatko (July)
TBD [2015 “City All-Star” Student Anthology] (September)
The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong by Leland Cheuk (October)
The Wobble by Douglas Light (November)
The Fugue by Karolis Gintaras Zukauskas (December)

Today I Am a Book by xTx (March)
This Boring Apocalypse by Brandi Wells (March)
How to Pose for Hustler by Andrea Kneeland (March)
WAKE by AT Grant (March)
Asuras by Jayinee Basu (March)
The Arson People by Katie Jean Shinkle (May)
This Must Be the Place by Sean H Doyle (May)
Antigolf by John Colasacco (May)
Spiritual Instrument by M Kitchell (May)
Rules of Appropriate Conduct by Kirsten Alene (May)
Ohey! by Darby Larson (May)
Last Mass by Jamie Iredell (July)
You and Other Pieces by Corey Zeller (July)
The States by Jeff Musillo (July)
Playdate by Mark Katzman (July)
The Daydream Society by Evan Retzer (July)
Desolation of Avenues Untold by Brandon Hobson (September)
Everything Gets Eaten by Ben Brooks (September)
Eternal Freedom from Social and Natural Programming by Frank Hinton (September)
I/O A Memoir by Brian Oliu (September)
Nothing but the Dead and Dying by Ryan W Bradley (September)
TBA by Porochista Khakpour (CCM White Rabbit) (October)
TBA by Dorothea Lasky (CCM White Rabbit) (October)

http://www.cobaltreview.com/cobalt-press/

How We Bury Our Dead by Jonathan Travelstead (February)
A Horse Made of Fire by Heather Bell (August)

Slice by Arielle Greenberg (February)

Motherlover by Ginger Ko (March)

Swan Feast by Natalie Eilbert (April)

Veronica Bench by Leopoldine Core (April)

The Rest Is Censored by K. Lorraine Graham (April)

Self Portrait in Plants by James Sanders (May)

Art Sick by Lara Glenum (June)

Post Pussy by Gabby Bess (July)

Caroline, Who Will You Pray to Now That You Are Dead by Caroline Crew (Chapbook, July)

Deep City by Megan Kaminski (October)

Gray Market by Krystal Languell (October)

The Miraculous Hysterical by Eszter Takacs (November)

Mind Refused by Serena Chopra (November)

The Diary of a K-Drama Villain by Min Kang (November)

The Dig by Cynan Jones (April)
The Little Free Library Book by Margaret Aldrich (April)
Mr. and Mrs. Doctor by Julie Iromuanya (May)
Alone and Not Alone by Ron Padgett (May)
The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far by Quintan Ana Wikswo (June)
Null Set by Ted Mathys (June)
Blue Girl by Laurie Foos (July)
Genoa by Paul Metcalf (50th Anniversary reissue with a new introduction from Rick Moody) (July)
Slab by Selah Saterstrom (August)
The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Lusielli (September)
Cat is Art Spelled Wrong edited by Caroline Casey, Chris Fischbach, and Sarah Schultz (September)
Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel (October)
Sentences and Rain by Elaine Equi (October)
The Falling Down Dance by Chris Martin (November)

https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/

A Small Story About the Sky by Alberto Rios (Spring/summer)
The News by Jeffrey Brownreprint (Spring/summer)
Bender (reprint, paperback) by Dean Young (Spring/summer)
What About This: Collected Poems by Frank Stanford (Spring/summer)
The Quotation of Bone by Norman Dubiereprint (Spring/summer)
Selected Translations (reprint, paperback)by WS Merwin (Spring/summer)
Update: Newest Poems by O’Driscoll (Spring/summer)
War of the Foxes by Richard Siken (Spring/summer)
Shirt in Heaven by Jean Valentine (Spring/summer)
Uses of the body by Deborah Landau (Spring/summer)
Finding Them Gone by Bill Porter (Fall/winter)
Heart Poems by Dean Young (Fall/winter)
Claw Marks by Dean Young (Fall/winter)
Early & Late by James Richardson (Fall/winter)
Dead Man’s Float by Harrison (Fall/winter)
Cloudless Sky by Michael Dickman (Fall/winter)
American.Indian.Bezerk by Natalie Diaz (Fall/winter)
New & Selected by Lucia Perillo (Fall/winter)
Essays by CD Wright (Fall/winter)

I Will Love You For the Rest of My Life by Michael Ozyzniejewski (January)
Jillian by Halle Butler (February)
Little Boy Needs Ride and Other Stories by Chris Bower (March)
On the Way: Stories by Cyn Vargas (April)
Almost Crimson by Dasha Kelly (May)
Dime Stories: Essays by Tony Fitzpatrick (June)
Mozos: A Decade Running with the Bulls of Spain by Bill Hillmann (July)
The Empty Bottle, Chicago: Twenty-Plus Years of Piss, Shit, and Broken Urinals: An Oral History edited by John Dugan (October)

Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts by William H. Gass (January)
Kvachi by Mikheil Javakhishvili (January)
Me, Margarita by Anna Kordzaia-Samadashvili (January)
Vano and Niko (Georgian Literature Series) by Erlom Akhvlediani (January)
The Brueghel Moon by Tamaz Chiladze (January)
Exercises in Criticism: The Theory and Practice of Literary Constraint by Louis Bury (February)
The Cold Eye of Heaven by Christine Dwyer Hickey
The Sea (Catalan Literature Series) by Blai Bonet (March)
Newspaper by Edouard Leve (Spring)
Diglossia and the Linguistic Turn: Flann O’Brien’s Philosophy of Language by Flore Couloma (Spring)
Telling It Again and Again: Repetition in Literature and Film by Bruce F. Kawin (Spring)
Urgency and Patience by Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Spring)
Götz and Meyer by David Albahari (Spring)
The Key by Mairtin O Cadhain (Spring)
Caterva by Juan Filloy (Spring)
Rambling Jack by Micheal O Conghaile (Spring)
21 Days of a Neurasthenic by Octave Mirbeau (Spring)
Fragments of Lichtenberg by Pierre Senges (Spring)
Philosophical Toys by Susana Medina (Spring)
The Bulgarian Truck by Dumitru Tsepeneag (Spring)
Behind the Station by Arno Camenisch (Spring)
Last Last Orders by Arno Camenisch (Spring)
Past Habitual (Irish Literature Series) by Alf MacLochlainn (March)
Atavisms by Raymond Bock (Spring)
The Old Man and the Bench by Urs Allemann
Addendum to a Photo Album by Vlasdislav Otroshenko

The Doors You Mark Are Your Own by Okla Elliott and Raul Clement (March)
Exigencies: An Anthology edited by Richard Thomas (April)
Vile Men: Stories by Rebecca Jones-Howe (July)
Paper Tigers by Damien Angelica Walters (September)

All Glitter, Everything by Laura Relyea (March)

The Words and Wisdom of Charles Johnson by Charles Johnson (January)
If I Knew the Way I Would Take You Home by Dave Housley (January)
Fancy by Jeremy M. Davies (Ellipsis Press — Imprint) (February)
Discomfort by Evelyn Hampton (Ellipsis Press — Imprint) (February)
The Zoo, a Going by JA Tyler (March)
Like a Woman by Debra Busman (March)
The Crossing by Jon Fink (April)
The Sorrow Proper by Lindsey Drager (April)
The Guild of Saint Cooper by Shya Scanlon (May)
Between Here and the Yellow Sea by Nic Pizzolatto (reprint, first Dzanc edition) (May)
Gun, Needle, Spoon by Patrick O’Neil (June)
My Life as a Mermaid by Jen Grow (June)
The Castaway Lounge by Jon Boilard (July)
The Soul Standard by Richard Thomas, Nik Korpon, Caleb Ross, and Axel Taiari (August)
The Anglerfish Comedy Troupe by Colin Fleming (August)
The Long Home by William Gay (paperback reprint) (August)
Twilight by William Gay (paperback reprint) (August)
The Suicide of Claire Bishop by Carmiel Banasky (September)
We Five by Mark Dunn (September)
Little Sister Death by William Gay (October)
Calloustown by George Singleton (November)
Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya (November)
The City at 3PM by Peter LaSalle (December)

Displacement by Lucy Knisley (January)
Run Like Crazy Run Like Hell by Jacques Tardi (January)
Prince Valiant Vol. 10: 1955–1956 by Hal Foster (January)
Collected Poems by Alexander Theroux (January)
Love and Rockets Library (Palomar & Luba Book 5): Ofelia by Gilbert Hernandez (January)
Love and Rockets: New Stories #7 by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez (January)
Michael Jordan: Bull on Parade by Wilfred Santiago (January)
Angry Youth Comix by Johnny Ryan (February)
Sweatshop by Peter Bagge, with Stephen DeStefano, Bill Wray, Stephanie Gladden, Jim Blanchard, and Johnny Ryan (February)
Inner City Romance by Guy Colwell (February)
Hurricane Isle and Other Adventures: The Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubb by Roy Crane (February)
Dripping With Fear: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 5 by Steve Ditko (February)
Saint Cole by Noah Van Sciver (February)
The Complete Eightball 1–18 by Daniel Clowes (March)
The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood by Bhob Stewart (March)
Sheriff of Bullet Valley, Starring Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks (March)
Invitation to Openness: The Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann 1960–1980 by Les McCann (March)
Wuvable Oaf by Ed Luce (March)
Willard Mullin’s Casey at the Bat and Other Diamond Tales by Willard Mullin and Ernest Thayer (March)
Cartoons for Victory edited by Warren Bernard (April)
The Big Book of Me by Vaughn Bodé (April)
The EC Comics Slipcase Vol. 2 by Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig, Graham Ingels, and Jack Kamen (April)
The Complete Peanuts 1995–1996 (Vol. 23) by Charles M. Schulz (April)
Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Pixelated Parrot (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 6) by Carl Barks (May)
Maria M. Book 2 by Gilbert Hernandez (May)
The Kurdles by Robert Goodin (May)
Grave Business and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) by Graham Ingels and Al Feldstein (May)
Black River by Josh Simmons (May)
Barnaby Vol. 3 by Crockett Johnson (June)
Nothing Eve by Kurt Wolfgang
How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels by Paul Karasik & Mark Newgarden
Gil Jordan, Private Detective: Ten Thousand Years in Hell by M. Tillieux
Forlorn Funnies Vol. 1 by Paul Hornschemeier
The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar by Marc Sobel
Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge: A Nestor Burma Mystery by Jacques Tardi
The Conscience of a Cartoonist: Instructions, Observations, Criticisms, Enthusiasms by Jeff Danziger
The Astonishing Exploits of Lucien Brindavoine by Jacques Tardi
Uptight #5 by Jordan Crane

Seed by Stanley Crawford (April)
Hospice by Gregory Howard (April)
O’Hearn by Greg Mulcahy (Doctorow winner) (April)

http://featherproof-books.myshopify.com/

The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper (April)
See You in the Morning (A Novel) by Mairead Case (September)
Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion by Jeff Parker and Pasha Malla (October)

Blue Hole by Kate Colby (selected by Elizabeth Robinson as the winner of the 4th annual Furniture Press Poetry Award)
Idylliad by Elizabeth Savage
Day Cracks Between the Bones of the Foot by Jesse Nissim
Mistaken Identity by Bruce Andrews
Moon Cult by Joshua Ware
How Changed by Erin Dorney
[TBA] by Pattie McCarthy

Tesla: A Portait with Masks by Vladimir Pistalo (January)
The Infernal by Mark Doten (February)
I Refuse by Per Petterson (April)
Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes by Per Petterson (April)
Dark Lies the Island by Kevin Barry (April)
The Pinch by Steve Stern (June)
A Woman Loved and Brief Loves That Live Forever by Andreï Makine (August)
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth (September)
Half an Inch of Water by Percival Everett (September)
Rails Under My Back by Jeffery Renard Allen (October)
One Out of Two by Daniel Sada (November)

http://theheavycontortionists.com/

Silent Empire by Mark Anthony Cronin (February)
The Perforated Nothingness by Mark Anthony Cronin (February)
Marcel by Grant Maiehofer (April)
Beach Story by Brian Warfield (June)
The First Year of Contortions (December)

A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California by Laura Cunningham (January)
The Wolf Who Ate the Sky by Mary Daniel Hobson and Anna Isabel Rauh (April)
LAtitudes: An Angeleno’s Atlas edited by Patricia Wakida (April)
She Sang Me a Good Luck Song: The California Indian Photographs of Dugan Aguilar edited by Theresa Harlan (June)
Fylling’s Illustrated Guide to Pacific Coast Tide Pools by Marni Fylling (June)
California’s Wild Edge: The Coast in Prints, Poetry, and History by Tom Killion with Gary Snyder (July)
The Bay Area through Time by Laura Cunningham (July)

Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by Brian Alan Ellis (February)
Tables Without Chairs #1 by Brian Alan Ellis and Bud Smith (August)

Pasture Art by Marlin Barton (March)
Minnow by James E. McTeer II (May)

All the People by Stephanie Barber (January)

How To Have a Day by Megan McShea (March)

& the Green by Amanda McCormick (May)

I Want Your Tan by Tracy Dimond (May)

Fram by Steve Himmer (January)
The Marble Orchard by Alex Taylor (February)
Oye, What I’m Gonna Tell You by Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés (April)

http://www.nothingcrown.com/king-shot-press/

Leverage by Eric Nelson (March)
Strategies Against Nature by Cody Goodfellow (March)
Killer & Victim by Chris Lambert (March)

Kicking Prose by Jay Slayton-Joslin (January)
Popcorn in the Barrel by Kirk A.C. Marshall
Hawaiian Shirts in the Electric Chair by Scott Laudati

The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert by Rios de la Luz (March)
Jigsaw Youth by Tiffany Scandal (March)

Bipolar Cowboy by Noah Cicero (February)
Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson (February)
Lazy Fascist Double: Messes of Men by Michael J Seidlinger/Lemon Heart by Matthew Revert (February)
Sucker June by Sean Kilpatrick (May)
Cult of Loretta by Kevin Maloney (May)
Before I Die, I Will Build a Windmill by Matthew Revert (May)
Surprise Release TBA (May)
The Art of Horrible People by John Skipp (August)
Lemon Yellow Poison by Brian Allen Carr (August)
Lazy Fascist Review #3 (August)
Surprise Release TBA (August)
Lazy Fascist Review #4 (guest-edited by Molly Tanzer) (November)
The Pleasure Merchant by Molly Tanzer (November)
Animal Money by Michael Cisco (November)

Coyote by Colin Winnette (January)
Leave Your Body Behind by Sandra Doller (May)
The Book of Feral Flora by Amanda Ackerman (Spring)
hurry up please its time: TrenchArt (Spring)
The Gates by Vanessa Place (Fall)
Some Versions of the Ice by Adam Tipps Weinstein (Fall)
100 Chinese Silences by Timothy Yu (Fall)

The Blank Target by Robert Alan Wendeborn (April)
Split Series Volume II — Jasmine Dreame Wagner — Seven Sunsets / Melanie Sweeney — Birds As Leaves (April)

Letters to the Devil by Lena Bertone
Textile School by Katy Gunn
There is Nothing Else to See Here by Chelsey Clammer
Wyomings by Justin Armstrong
Two Suns by Elizabeth Clark Wessel

Everlasting Lane by Andrew Lovett (January)
Tirra Lira by the River by Jessica Anderson (January)
Lou Reed: The Last Interview (January)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (January)
The Scapegoat by Sophia Nikolaidou (February)
The Utopia of Rules by David Graeber (February)
Cat out of Hell by Lynne Truss (March)
An Exaggerated Murder by Josh Cook (March)
The Dead Moutaineer’s Inn by Arkady Strugatsky (March)
Happiness by Frederic Lenoir (April)
33 Days by Leon Werth (April)
The Establishment by Owen Jones (April)
The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare (April)
The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato (May)
A History of Money by Alan Pauls (June)
The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett (June)
Patience and Fortitude by Scott Sherman (June)
The Next Next Level by Leon Neyfakh (July)
Future Days by David Stubbs (July)
Trouble in Paradise by Slavoj Zizek (August)
The Reflection by Hugo Wilcken (September)
The Anarchist Dog Walker by Joshua Stephens (September)
Not on Fire, but Burning by Gregory Hrbek (September)
Rules for Werewolves by Kirk Lynn (October)
As If by Curtis White (October)
Contraband Cocktails by Paul Dickson (October)
The Day the Renaissance Was Saved Capponi by Niccolo (November)
Sophia by Michael Bible (December)
The Visitors by Simon Sylvester (December)

The Title Of This Book Is An Inside Joke by Sophia Katz (March)

Crow-Work by Eric Pankey (February)
Pictograph by Melissa Kwansy (March)
Vessel by Parneshia Jones (April)
The Stuntman by Brian Laidlaw (April)
Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese (April)
The White Mountain by Galsan Tschinag (April)
The World Is On Fire by Joni Tevis (May)
River House by Sally Keith (May)

Horror Business by Ryan Craig Bradford (February)

http://www.theneweryork.com/

theNewerYork Book IV (February)
Sharpen by Rich Ives (April)
Reliant by S. Kay (May)
Glass Half Full with Burning People by Bob Schofield (August)
Life is Pain and Then You Die (working title) by John Mortara (December)

Guys Like Me by Dominique Fabre (February)
Alexandrian Summer by Yitzhak Gormezano Goren (Spring)
Killing Auntie by Andrzej Bursa (Spring)

http://www.nybooks.com/books/forthcoming/

The Three Leaps of Wang Lun: A Chinese Novel by Alfred Döblin
Chinese Rhyme-Prose by Burton Watson
The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons by Liu Hsieh
The Broken Road : From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos by Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper
Patrick Leigh Fermor : An Adventure by Artemis Cooper
Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories by Silvina Ocampo
The Door by Magda Szabó
Silvina Ocampo by Silvina Ocampo, a new translation from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers by Edward Mendelson
Ending Up by Kingsley Amis, introduction by Craig Brown
Take a Girl Like You by Kingsley Amis, introduction by Christian Lorentzen
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford, introduction by Brenda Wineapple
The Elephant Who Liked to Smash Small Cars by Jean Merrill, illustrated by Ronni Solbert
Go Figure! New Perspectives on Guston edited and with an introduction by Peter Benson Miller, preface by Robert Storr
Primitive Man as Philosopher by Paul Radin, introduction by Neni Panourgiá
Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katharine White, edited and with an introduction by E.B. White
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, translated and with an introduction by Joel Agee
After the Tall Timber: Collected Nonfiction by Renata Adler, preface by Michael Wolff
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The Peach Blossom Fan by K’ung Shang-jen, introduction by Jonathan D. Spence, translated from the Chinese by Chen Shih-hsiang and Harold Acton, with the collaboration of Cyril Birch
Alive: New and Selected Poems by Elizabeth Willis
Dreams of Earth and Sky by Freeman Dyson
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The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys, translated from the French by Patricia Clancy
Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books by Tim Parks
Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland
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A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov, a new translation from the Russian by Alexander Boguslawski
The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov by Anton Chekhov, illustrated by Nikolay Chekhov, a new translation from the Russian by Maria Bloshteyn
A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor, introduction by Roxana Robinson
The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm by Max Beerbohm, edited and with an introduction by Phillip Lopate
The Little Town Where Time Stood Still by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by James Naughton
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Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe, introduction by Matt Weiland
Dear Illusion: Selected Stories by Kingsley Amis
Álvaro Mutis: Selected Poems by Álvaro Mutis, new translations from the Spanish by Edith Grossman and Alastair Reid
Henri Duchemin and His Shadows by Emmanuel Bove, introduction by Donald Breckenridge, translated from the French by Alyson Waters
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The Wages of Guilt by Ian Buruma
Zama by Antonio di Benedetto, translated from the Spanish and with an introduction by Esther Allen

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Trade is War: The West’s War Against the World by Yash Tandon
Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Heroin Addiction, Homeland Security, and Invisible Little People by Robert Guffey
Watchlist: 32 Short Stories About Surveillance edited by Bryan Hurt
Killer Care: How America’s Hospitals Are Killing Us by James B Lieber
Blood Brothers: A Brief History of the Mexican Drug Wars by Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace
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All Talk, Rich Smith

The Three Einsteins, Sarah Galvin

Boyfriend Mountain, Tyler Brewington & Kelly Schirmann

The Cold, Jaime Saenz (translated by Kit Schluter)

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Prosthesis, Ian Hatcher

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Where the Bird Sings Best by Alejandro Jodorowsky, tr. Alfred MacAdam (March)

The Cruelest Journey: Six Hundred Miles To Timbuktu by Kira Salak (April)

The Face by Ruth Ozeki (May)

Passenger to Teheran by Vita Sackville West (May)

A Planet for Rent by Yoss, tr. David Frye (June)

Gifts of Passage: An Informal Autobiography by Santha Rama Rau (June)

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[Untitled] by Pseudonym

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Unperformed Actions of Rudolf Schwarzkogler by Pierre Abidi (with Photographs by M Kitchell) (Fourth Quarter)
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A Science Not For The Earth: Selected Poems & Letters by Yevgeny Baratynsky (April)
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Written In The Dark: Five Siege Poets by Polina Barskova (October)
Sor Juana And Other Monsters by Luis Felipe Fabre (November)

i want love so great it makes nicholas sparks cream in his pants by Calvero

Nothing to Do with Me by Sarah Certa

The Most Fun You’ll Have at a Cage Fight by Rory Douglas

Often Go Awry by Brian S. Ellis

Outdancing the Universe by Lauren Gilmore

Learn to Swim by Joseph Edwin Haeger

My Ugly and Other Love Snarls by Wendy McCutchen

The Grass is Greener by Stephen M. Park

Swarm Theory by Christine Rice

Days Of Swine And Roses by Michael N. Thompson

Surrounded by Friends by Matthew Rohrer (April)
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Shoot Kids in the Head by Josef Kaplan (September)

Hollywood Notebook by Wendy C Ortiz (Spring)

A New Language for Falling Out of Love by Meghan Privitello (January)
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Dream with a Glass Chamber by Aricka Foreman (April)
North of Order by Nick Gulig (April)
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Petition (winner, 2014 Vinyl 45s Chapbook Contest) by Christina Olivares (September)
Love the Stranger by Jay Deshpande (September)
A History of Flamboyance by Justin Phillip Reed (September)
Medusa Explains by Fatimah Asghar (November)
Mental Hospital by Ross Robbins (November)

by Anonymous

[Editor’s note: the following post is by a former MFA instructor who did not wish to be identified.]

Recently, there was a bit of an internet dust-up over an essay at The Stranger by a former MFA instructor. In “Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs Now That I No Longer Teach in One,” Ryan Boudinot unleashed a scathing indictment of the creative writing MFA industry. Despite the furor over the piece, its illumination of the problems with the overproliferation of MFA programs — that there are too many programs with no standards, and that this is adding to the student debt crisis and fattening school’s coffers at the expense of students and teachers — is important, and worth examining further.

Without a doubt, Boudinot’s essay has its problems. It’s smug and occasionally tone-deaf, and a line about a student’s childhood abuse memoir, while clearly meant to be hyperbolic, was in poor taste. But the blunt quality of the piece unfortunately overshadowed some salient, hard-hitting real talk about the MFA industry, and the blowback attacked his more inflammatory remarks while neatly avoiding the substance of his essay.

The result was slew of similarly smug, moralizing blog posts, comments, Facebook threads, and tweets, where people wagged their fingers at Boudinot and lectured a whole lot of nonsense, including that all graduate-level teachers should encourage a love of reading in their students and be willing to teach them self-reflection and self-discipline, as if they were young children instead of people in a master’s program receiving the highest degree in their field. (Author Nick Mamatas rightly took one of these posts to task for its mealy-mouthed equivocating.)

You don’t need an MFA to write. Unlike practicing medicine or law, there is no degree whose successful completion stands between you and your craft. You can write to your heart’s content in private, sell short stories to magazines, publish a book, publish fifty books, all without an MFA.

So why are MFAs useful? Strictly speaking, there are two potential benefits that are unique to MFAs: having a (university) teaching credential, and having funded time to focus on your craft. The latter only applies to funded programs, of course, so when it comes to unfunded programs, the only real potential benefit is the ability to teach at the college level — which, given the glut of MFA graduates and the trend away from hiring tenure-track faculty, becomes a dicey proposition at best.

You’ll notice I didn’t include “getting feedback on your work” or “a writing community” in that list. That’s because these things are available many places outside of the MFA framework. You can join a writing group in your community or online, you can hire someone for a private consultation, you can have a writing buddy, you can attend local readings and literary events, you can take any number of workshops or seminars, go to writing festivals, and so on. I similarly did not include “having a credential” as a benefit, because having spoken to editors and agents about this issue, it’s clear that the surfeit of MFA programs has resulted in MFAs being completely worthless as a credential (with the exception of a few select top programs like Iowa, UT-Austin, and Michigan). The reasoning seems to be that if anyone can get one, what does it say if you have one? Not much.

People have been criticizing Boudinot for suggesting that talent is “born,” not made. His point, however blunted by his rhetoric, is fundamentally true: there are some for whom written expression and the gifts of narrative come naturally, and others for whom it does not. For some reason it has become taboo to suggest that people might not be able to do whatever it is they set their mind to. A diet of inspirational narratives in which all it takes is a dream and a montage to reach your loftiest ambitions has clouded common sense. We’ve managed to confuse the fact that a good writer could be anyone with the idea that anyone could be a good writer. (Hat-tip to Pixar’s Ratatouille for that profound lesson.) Case in point: I myself enjoy singing, and frequently fantasize about singing for large audiences (and in musicals, and in nightclubs — you get the idea). But even if I practiced for eight hours every day, there would be limitations to what I could ultimately do, because I simply don’t have the gift of song. Years of singing for pleasure has yielded some minor improvement in the quality of my voice, but that’s all. And there’s nothing wrong with this, no moral judgment attached to it. But if I wanted to be a professional singer more than anything in the world, I’d eventually have to come to terms with the fact that that would never happen. That would be painful, but that wouldn’t make it any less true. To say otherwise would be intellectually dishonest.

So who benefits from MFAs? People sneer about their function — “You can’t teach good writing!” is a refrain uttered often enough — but that’s not what they’re for, is it? They’re meant to take people with nuggets of potential — gifts that already exist, but need nurturing — and bring them into contact with talented writers and teachers, and other students who are roughly around their level, so that they might all potentially advance together, and learn from and alongside each other. (And if the program is funded, give them a bit of a break from the demands of full-time work so that they might refocus their energies.)

It is, of course, impossible to know who will be “the real deal” from an application, and even harder to guess who will be successful in the long run. (And what does success mean? Critical acclaim? Aesthetic longevity? Money?) There are writers who attend the most prestigious MFA programs who never write again. There are people without MFAs whose fiction will be taught for hundreds of years. There are people who have very comfortable, mid-level writing careers, some with MFAs, some without. There are people who shun the idea of writing as an art form, write commercial books, and become millionaires. There are people who do the same, self-publish their e-book, sell four copies, and never try again.

And admitting someone to an MFA program is never an exact science. In a way, you’re trying to gauge someone’s potential energy. Do they already have something going for their work, that they would they benefit from a focused, intensive program in which aesthetic questions are being asked, artistic goals are being set, and pointed critique is being offered? When reading applications, programs are looking for students who already have something going for their work. Maybe they write unnervingly unsettling worlds, or lucid prose, or masterful characterizations, or can weave a tight, juggernaut of a plot. (Or, ideally, can do many of these at once.) Whatever it is, it catches the reader’s attention. Anyone who has read magazine slush piles knows what it’s like to slog through writing with no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever for hours until stumbling upon exciting and wonderful and real.

In an MFA program with standards — and by that I simply an MFA program that selects what it believes to be the best candidates from a pool of applicants — you end up with a group of writers who, for better or worse, rose to the top of that pool. When a program offers funding — that is, when the school believes enough in its program to provide tuition remission, and fellowships/TAships — the applicant pool increases and the quality of the resulting class will be, generally, higher. Even given aesthetic biases, variations in taste, etc., you end up with a class of writers of a certain potential caliber. In these programs, the gap between students with the lowest and highest potential energy is fairly narrow. Again, what they will do with their careers is unknown — everything from discipline to market forces to sheer dumb luck could affect the overall outcome of their writing lives — but they’re all on a similar playing field. This isn’t everything, of course, because program directors aren’t psychic and writers all levels of talent can be terrible workshop participants, but it is something.

But there’s another breed of MFA program out there, proliferating constantly. These programs have nearly 100% admittance rates, fund zero percent of their students, collect outrageously high tuition, and often pay their instructors very little. And because there are so many people (rightly or wrongly) clamoring for MFAs, they have no incentive for standards, either — no incentive to reject any person, no matter how badly they write. One person’s money is as green as the next, after all. If you’ve received an undergraduate degree and can type on a computer, you’re in.

That sentence requires careful observation, so I’ll write again, and expand on it a little: If you’ve received an undergraduate degree and can type on a computer, you can be admitted to a master’s degree program in creative writing with no other qualifications. Unlike, say, a terminal degree in physics, where a student would have to display not just adequacy in basic math but singular skills when it came to their particular subdiscipline of physics, an MFA applicant applying to one of these programs does not have to demonstrate any proficiency in their “field” beyond being able to put words onto a page. That this is a statement that can be written truthfully is astonishing, damning, and depressing.

In this scenario, a talented applicant who has been diligently improving her craft for a decade can be admitted alongside a person who doesn’t believe in negative feedback, has only read four books in his entire life, and doesn’t have a clear sense of how a comma works, how to write a character, or how a plot is constructed. (There is no shame in not knowing these things, of course, but there’s also a place where they shouldn’t be, and that’s the terminal degree in the field.) And so in these programs, the gap between the students with the lowest and highest potential energy is massive.

There are several problems with this setup. First, it makes teaching wildly difficult. How can an instructor, no matter how compassionate or gifted, have a unified conversation with the class about aesthetics or craft when there are students who can barely process or discuss the assigned texts or workshop stories?

As for the students who shouldn’t have been admitted in the first place: MFA programs are two years long, three at the most. If they enter below the standard of where a master’s student should be, the entire two years will be spent catching up to, at best, where they should have been when they entered — and then the program is over and they’re several years out of the job market, possibly in a hole of student debt, and sporting a functionally useless degree. And then what?

Last, if you’re a writer attending classes with a random mishmash of people who fall into the above category, some of whom refuse to read, others who are using the classes as a very expensive form of therapy, and so on, how useful will they be to you? When talented students get caught up in these programs — by accident, or because of its proximity to where they live, or any other reason — their time is cheapened and made infinitely harder by classmates who don’t have the wherewithal to provide valuable critique, or who is being taught by an underpaid teacher stretched thin by too many classes and too many energy-sucking students. And so that program has benefitted no one, except the university, which is making a tremendous amount of money. (There are almost three hundred MFA programs currently open in the US alone, with more cropping up all the time. Here’s your reason why.)

It seems unfair to excoriate people like Boudinot for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, when the problem should be traced back to its source: the schools who treat MFA programs like cash cows, admitting as many students as they can cram into their classrooms or foist onto their online instructors, with no consideration for the damage being done to the students who should be, and want to be, in an MFA program. These schools do a disservice to their students — both the prepared and unprepared — their instructors, and the academic standards they supposedly value. They should be ashamed of themselves and shuttered for fraud. The problem isn’t the MFA itself — it’s the overabundance of programs that act like for-profit online universities — taking advantage of desperate people who don’t know any better.

(This is not to say that there aren’t problems with privilege, institutional prejudices, and aesthetic biases in MFA programs. There are, absolutely. But you combat those biases with diversifying your faculty and application readers, and providing funding so students can afford to attend, not simply opening up more and more MFA programs until everyone who has the passing notion to be a professional writer can sign up.)

It’s true that in his essay, Boudinot seems to conflate “serious” reading with a specific kind of serious reading (people have pointed out that his worship-worthy suggestions are a very particular brand of white dude literature), but his point is still valid: part of being a writer is aggressively shaping your own canon. That canon can contain whatever you want it to, but you have to be willing to expand it, to receive suggestions, to read new work and offer more specific observations than “I didn’t like this” or “It confused me.” You have to open to reading whatever is handed to or suggested to you, and articulate how you think it succeeds or fails. That’s how you grow as a reader and writer.

And to suggest that instructors at the graduate school level should be required to coddle their students, beg them to read and do their assignments, and prod them into meeting deadlines is ludicrous. As someone who has previously taught at one of the latter types of MFA programs, I can say that they’re littered with students who can’t do the work and students who won’t do the work. And therein lies the source of Boudinot’s frustration, and the frustration of grad-level creative writing instructors everywhere, who need the employment but can’t speak up about these frustrations until the school is in their rearview mirror.

If you don’t like expanding your reading tastes (or reading, period), if you can’t meet deadlines, if you have no desire to receive feedback from other people, if you have no interest in improving your work, if you just want an echo chamber instead of a critique, if you aren’t interested in questions of craft, if you think writing is a get-rich-quick scheme and are looking to write the next [insert blockbuster here], if you can’t handle rejection or criticism, if you have no desire to revise, and if you’re not comfortable with the idea that some stuff you write will never see the light of day, then don’t get an MFA. You don’t belong there. (Also, all of these qualities will make being a writer very difficult.) It is a waste of your time and money, and the time of your instructor, and your classmates who have potential and who care about their classes.

Just because you can get an MFA, doesn’t mean you should.

When I was getting my MFA in 2007, I found myself enrolled in a teaching practicum designed to help me and other prospective MFAs and PhDs on fellowship learn the basics of teaching freshman composition. One day in class, a fellow student raised his hand in response to a question the instructor had asked about the best ways to get students thinking and writing in an exploratory manner and said: “Well, does it matter? They don’t have anything interesting to say anyway.” The comment, deployed with smugness and free-floating antagonism, struck me as terribly depressing. At the time, I was not a newbie in the classroom — I had taught creative writing and English in various forms for roughly 3 years — but neither had I approached the Irish-coffee-sipping, annotating-with-expletives stage in my career that is prevalent in so many satires and, sadly, real life episodes of veteran teacher-hood. Eight years of adjuncting later — first in New York, then Boston and now New Orleans — in which I have taught everything from Sophomore English and Business Writing to Introduction to Creative Writing at the secondary, undergraduate, and non-traditional levels, that throwaway comment still tears at my nerves.

While the gap between college freshman and creative writing MFA students is considerable, novelist and erstwhile-teacher Ryan Boudinot exhibits a similar brand of contempt in his feature for The Stranger: “Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs Now That I No Longer Teach In One,” which caused much strenuous debate among book people on the internet this week. That said, I did find myself laughing (darkly) a couple of times over the course of reading Boudinot’s article and some of his points are incredibly valid — especially what he says about the importance of “woodshedding” as an aspiring writer on which he, wisely, ends his screed: “That’s why I advise anyone serious about writing books to spend at least a few years keeping it secret. If you’re able to continue writing while embracing the assumption that no one will ever read your work, it will reward you in ways you never imagined.”

Sound advice.

Moreover, I would imagine that Boudinot intends his article to come as a refreshing breeze of truth-to-power in the swamp of glad-handing and back-pattery which is our present literary moment; that he is bringing the antics of Daniel Tosh and/or Bill Mahr to the book-world at long last; and that by “shooting from the hip” and “telling it like it is” when it comes to the MFA-circuit he is giving vent to the prevailing dissatisfactions of his colleagues.

Fair enough.

I am somewhat of a crank myself, especially in the glow of my computer screen. A good diatribe can be good for the soul whose compass is, by and large, decency pointing. Mark Twain, Edmund Wilson and Edgar Allan Poe were all of them fantastic at it.

What I did, however, find pernicious and inconsistent in Boudinot’s article are the assertions he makes that degrade his “hardworking, thoughtful” former students and by extension the teacher-student contract at large, while severely limiting the breadth of the greater literary community.

Before he is even properly out of the gate, Boudinot writes: “The vast majority of my students were hardworking, thoughtful people devoted to improving their craft despite having nothing interesting to express and no interesting way to express it.” Then, under the first section heading of his article? listicle? essay? blog post? rant? titled, “Writers are born with talent,” he goes on to say: “Either you have a propensity for creative expression or you don’t… It’s simply that all writers are not born equal. The MFA student who is the Real Deal is exceedingly rare, and nothing excites a faculty advisor more than discovering one. I can count my Real Deal students on one hand, with fingers to spare.”

Well, fine. Apart from the murkiness of defining true “talent” and what Boudinot calls the “Real Deal,” not to mention the self-importance of the notion that “faculty advisors” like Boudinot are there to “discover” talent as opposed to, say, nourishing it in their students — in a contradictory turn, Boudinot titles a later section heading, “You don’t need my help to get published” — it’s unclear at whom the campaign is directed.

If directed at students, well, then that’s a shame. There is probably one, if not multiple of Boudinot’s former students out there somewhere hanging their heads in embarrassment and self-loathing for allowing themselves to be taken in by him on the basis of collegiality and mutual respect.

If directed at writers, well, then we can take it. Nothing worse has been said about us in Goodreads reviews or, for that matter, writing workshops. And very few writers or readers have been laboring under the delusion all their lives that a story by Joyce Carol Oates (hardworking, committed) is equal to one by Flannery O’Connor (talented, revelatory).

And if directed at MFA programs themselves, well, then good luck. While stating that you cannot teach someone to become a good writer is not unreasonable in and of itself, it is by no means prohibitive of trying and is, furthermore, predicated on a few things you cannot reasonably assume about people obtaining an MFA: 1. That all of them enter into a program to become famous writers. 2. That pointing out such a fallacy is going to effectively discourage anyone from obtaining such a degree. 3. That there are no other tangible benefits to getting an MFA — a graduate degree in the study and practice of literature — apart from pursuing ever-elusive “Real-Deal-ness” and the skillset that will enable you to write that singular story, or poem, or essay which will enable you, in turn, to become a working writer with a publication bio.

Did I get an MFA in fiction?

I did.

Am I still paying loans?

You bet.

Do the collective profits I’ve made from now two books of fiction and a slew of publications amount to an infinitesimal fraction of what I spent on said degree?

On Garth Risk Hallberg’s advance, I declare it.

And yet even if I had never been published — even if I had never been told by my wonderful and nurturing professors that I possessed a drip of “talent” — even if I had “woodshedded” every last bit of the Cormac-McCarthy-redolent juvenilia I produced in the course of 4 workshops and 3 post-curricular faculty advisements — even then, I still would’ve happily not attended my MFA graduation ceremony feeling privileged and enriched to have had the luxury of devoting myself with boozy asceticism to two years of living and breathing my craft. (It may be unfair of me to assume that Boudinot is one of those writers for whom the process of sitting down in his pajamas to commune with the denizens of imagined worlds is an inexorable agony he would not wish on anyone.)

Yet here’s the crux with Boudinot’s article. He doesn’t take aim with precision enough and he isn’t assertive enough in his ribbing; he’s not going to take down the MFA blimp or else, if he is, he won’t come out and say it. Flippantly proclaimeth he: “Here are some of the things I learned from these experiences.” His words are contemptuous and harmful, I think, because they take no proper shape. They are interested in “woodshedding,” in Boudinot’s terms, his students, the MFA system, bad writing, among a host of other fears, yet nothing emerges from that conflagration redemptive or otherwise. Clickbait accomplished.

I subtitled this piece “A Rebuttal of Sorts” because you can’t argue against a non-argument. Boudinot’s freeform mean-spiritedness does nothing but make bookish people feel crappy.

Case in point the subject heading: “No one cares about your problems if you’re a shitty writer” — one in which section Boudinot states, “Just because you were abused as a child does not make your inability to stick with the same verb tense for more than two sentences any more bearable. In fact, having to slog through 500 pages of your error-riddled student memoir makes me wish you had suffered more” — and then, with un-self-conscious irony, “It’s not important that people think you’re smart.”

Another of Boudinot’s maxims: “If you aren’t a serious reader, don’t expect anyone to read what you write.” In this section, after citing an incident in which Boudinot assigns an especially thirsty “Real Deal[er]” “three big novels for the period between semesters” “almost as a joke” — he chooses David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon with a dash of Roberto Bolano, though what these authors’ most tumescent works are liable to teach a fiction MFA about crafting a competent short story, the understandable standby of such programs, is unclear — Boudinot says that, “Students who claimed to enjoy ‘all sorts’ of books were invariably the ones with the most limited taste. One student, upon reading The Great Gatsby (for the first time! Yes, a graduate student!), told me she preferred to read books ‘that don’t make me work so hard to understand the words.’ I almost quit my job on the spot.”

The Anglo-centrism and fuddy-duddy-ness of this statement withstanding — has any one ever lapsed into premature brain-death from not having read The Great Gatsby, one of the most overrated “classics” I can think of? — Boudinot’s assertions here smack of superciliousness and vainglory. Just what is he railing against in this passage? The decline of American culture at large? Writers just getting their sea legs as readers? The students who looked up to him in the low-residency MFA Program in which he was teaching at the time, whose Fitzgerald-deprived coarseness threatened to unseat the cradle of his art?

West-Eggers, clearly, every one.

Which brings me to what, as a reader and writer, I suspected the gist of this piece really was. By launching jibes at incurious readers and talentless writers Boudinot seems to be distancing himself from the notion of writer-as-vocation, a phenomenon for which the proliferation of MFA Programs feasibly could be held to account. The logic goes that if you can go to school to learn, say, how to weld or salvage dive, then you can also go to school to become proficient in creative writing, which Boudinot sees as an insult to the vaunted craft and moreover futile, “Real Deal[ers]” excepted.

Because Boudinot’s craft is exalted, elusive — a proving ground for real-ass minds. Fake-ass ones need not apply.

Yet by viewing writing as a craft that chances are you’ll fail to learn, Boudinot is doing something as damaging to education as he believes is being done to the craft of writing. Namely, he is doing what I have seen done by dozens of parents of students at the private schools where I’ve taught and by dozens of students once they arrive at undergraduate institutions: viewing education as a means to an end instead of a valuable end itself. Boudinot seems to think about MFA Programs: if you won’t emerge from one a successful working writer, why bother?

What he doesn’t realize is that by making writing and writing know-how into instruments that fail he is pushing them further into the vocational camp, and further away from the profound alchemical mystery he makes them out to be. And in the end, is that such a bad thing? If writing is in its essence a deep-sounding of human experience in all its variety, unreality and inconsistency then why would we not want to deepen the pool of those who would practice it to people who, yes, haven’t read The Great Gatsby, to people who start writing later in life, to people with chaotic day-to-day lives who could use some advice from experienced writers on how to make room for the practice they love, to people who don’t have the verve of Colson Whitehead but find their voice in Larry Brown?

No matter which way you decide to look at it, writing in its earliest stage takes the form of an apprenticeship, learned and rehearsed. Whether this apprenticeship takes place between the writer and her dog-eared copy of Beloved, and the writer and the MFA professor she pays to read and comment on her work makes little difference. Apprenticeships leads over time to vocations and vocations, worked hard at, amount to a life.

MFA Programs and the teaching of writing make a sacred space for such practices in a culture that decreasingly values words, stories and the exactitude of nuanced thought. They are not a long con on the part of universities, as Boudinot implies, but an opportunity for people with stories to tell to see those stories and the making of them through the lens of craft and sustained practice. If the writer so wishes, they’re there for a price, even if the results never make it to print.

The professor who would come to be my mentor in the MFA Program I attended began our first workshop together in a way I will never forget. He told us to view workshop and the greater program of which we were part not as something medicinal, engineered to intravenously alter our creations into some predetermined shape, but rather as one of “the last great collective art forms,” whereby the writing professor along with twelve fellow writers around a table rethink and refigure a story together.

“In this way,” he said, “we are writing as one.”

I do believe those were his words.

If I’d been raised with any sort of religion, Spock would have been my family’s patron saint of the dictionary. Sticking a grade-schooler in front of Star Trek might lead to a brief obsession with spandex, but with me it also meant absorbing tons of non-grade school words. From “purview” to “enmity” to “geneticist” to plain-old “stoic,” the scholarly verbal style of Mr. Spock made my child-self even more bookish than I already was. But my connection with Spock went beyond words. Because while Leonard Nimoy’s performance as Spock did make me love books differently, he also taught me about the inherent coolness of being your own brand of brainy outsider.

Leonard Nimoy’s recent passing has made a lot of us nostalgic about his impact on pop culture and all of our lives, specifically. In competition with all of television ever, the various Star Treks have the monopoly on smarty-pants, bookish characters, and among those characters, none were more intelligent or more sophisticated than Mr. Spock. Spock is regarded as the great brainy scientific guy of his universe, but really, the character is a little more nuanced than just being “the smart one.” Instead, Spock is the representative outsider in a universe of outsiders. If Star Trek was long regarded as something only for nerds (outsiders) then Spock was the Trekkie who lived in Star Trek, often mocked by his friends and colleagues for his inherent “otherness.” Nimoy’s portrayal of this kind of outsider appealed not just to “geeks,” but people of mixed ethnic heritage, too. His hopeful commiseration with a biracial young fan back in 1968, recently resurfaced, illustrating just how much people benefited from Spock for identification and comfort.

In the narrative of Star Trek, Spock is a biologically half-human/half Vulcan among people who are full-on humans. In this fictional future, Spock’s status as an officer in Star Fleet is eschewed by his dad because it breaks with Vulcan tradition; father Sarek wanted Spock to go to the Vulcan Science Academy. If you’re a kid who’s ever told your parents you want to be a writer instead of having a “real career,” you know what this is like. By being an actual space-alien who is both alien to humans and sort of looked-down on by his own people, Spock rocks the whole Groucho Marx-not-being-part-of-a-club-that-would-have-him-as-a-member-thing really hard.

And yet, the writing on Star Trek was better than you can believe. Mr. Spock could easily have been reduced to comic relief; a fish-out-of-space-water played for laughs. True, in some of the 60’s Star Trek’s most wha-wha moments, the crew of the Enterprise laughs heartily at how much Spock “doesn’t get it.”But those stumbles are trumped by the fact that Spock is so much more well-read than Captain Kirk, Bones, Scotty, and even the guy named Chekov. Here’s a guy who can quote from any philosophic text and most of the western canon literally without blinking an eye (though occasionally arching an eyebrow). The half-alien among a group of smart humans knows more about “their” books than anyone else. Spock has read Dickens and likes him. He’s brushed up on his Shakespeare and insinuates that he is the literary (and maybe biological) decedent of Sherlock Holmes. If you were in the minority of being bookish growing up, it was pretty easy to locate yourself in Mr. Spock.

But Spock was the beginning of Geek Chic, which means Spock’s brand of bookish hipsterdom isn’t arch despite all the eyebrow arching. Though you could call Spock a sexier Sherlock Holmes from Outer Space that would be doing him a disservice because he’s more of an original character than that. He’s stoic and detached from his emotions partially because he’s born that way, but partially because it’s the only way he can figure out how to function. As a little kid, I was teased a lot for having a dorky gait, nerdy clothes or nerdy interests. Both laughably and painfully, I can remember confronting playground bullies by telling them that throwing rocks or dirt clods at me wasn’t “logical.” This paraphrasing of Spock’s favorite subject — logic — is an obvious defense mechanism as a little kid. If you pretend not to have feelings (like Spock does), you can’t get those feelings hurt. Spock isn’t a cool nerd because he’s affecting anything at all. He’s a cool nerd because he’s so obviously fucked up, but doesn’t really give a shit what you think of him. He does this because — for the most part — he’s totally in control of his emotions.

This is why the best Star Trek episodes deal with Spock totally losing it.

Whether it’s his hormonal breakdown in “Amok Time,” clashing with his father in “Journey to Babel,” or his noble sacrifice in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock is best liked by audiences when he’s being forced to deal with the kind of stuff brainy artists try to control: raw feelings which can’t be explained or contained. When I was in fourth grade I proudly said my favorite book (like of ALL time) was a Star Trek novel called Yesterday’s Son, written by the wonderful writer A.C. Crispin. In it, Crispin postulates that Spock has an illegitimate son living in the ancient past of a slightly barbaric planet. When reunited, Spock and his son “Zar” (cool name!) do not get along. As a fourth grader, this novel blew my mind because I had no idea who I was supposed to side with. (I was also fuzzy on how Spock could have a kid he didn’t know about, but whatever…) Why was my nerdy hero Spock being saddled with responsibilities of adulthood? At this point, I thought his primary job was to zip around space with his best friend Captain Kirk, what was the deal with all the soul searching? Perhaps there was more too storytelling than big adventures. Spock and Star Trek made me wonder if all of this was just a little more real than I’d previously assumed. After this, one of my earliest short story attempts was straight-up Star Trek fan fiction. In it, a 10-year-old boy (guess where I got that idea) was imbued with Spock’s “katra” (his soul.) In Star Trek III, Spock’s katra actually rattles around in the head of his good friend Dr. McCoy, so I figured someone like me could probably get Spock’s soul, too. If a 5th grader was harboring Spock’s soul, would anyone really know? How could you prove it? Or, more interestingly, how could anyone prove that I wasn’t Spock?

In one of his last interviews with Hero Complex for the LA Times late last year, Leonard Nimoy noted that from an early point, he realized that the character of Spock had a fantastic “interior life.” This strikes me as being 100% correct and exactly what is so compelling about the way Nimoy conceived of and created this fictional person. If you were so full of passion, but you didn’t really know what to do with it, you might come across as stoic, too. Among my writer-friends, I notice I’m one of the more loud-mouthed ones at the party, but among non-writers, I’ve become more tight-lipped as I’ve grown older. More stoic. More Vulcan. My emotions, I find, have a place in my writing, but sometimes incorporating them healthily into my life is hard. Nobody struggled with this more than Mr. Spock.

I think most writers (and other artists) are all more like Vulcans than we care to admit. We aren’t inherently cold and emotionless, but instead, compartmentalized with our feelings. In the fictional history of Star Trek, the Vulcan race was once even more violent than the human race, before everybody got their act together. Meaning, Spock is suppressing and controlling all sorts of inherently destructive impulses. But he channels that (healthily or not) into his work. This vortex of chaos keeps him going, which is why we love him. Our interior lives are often a vortex — and sometimes that vortex is Star Trek style, like the creature who can drive you insane if you look directly at it in the episode “In Truth is There No Beauty?”. This alien thing — a Medusan — supposedly makes you insane because it contains too much truth. We never saw much of Spock’s creative output (a song played on the Vulcan harp here and there) but as a prose writer, I think Spock would have been uniquely equipped to handle the kind of too-close-too-home action that being a writer requires. After all, he looked into the vortex of that Medusan truth monster and lived to tell the tale.

Ultimately, Spock’s interior life and personal conflicts exist because we believe Spock exists. Meaning, had Leonard Nimoy played his character with an ounce of sarcasm, the complexity and identification many of us had with this character would not have materialized. Spock wasn’t just a metaphor for our interior lives, he was a real person. We will all miss Leonard Nimoy. He was a fantastic writer, director, husband, father, philanthropist, and of course, actor. But in rendering the paradoxically confused confidence of Spock, he made many of us Stark Trek fans into artists, thinkers, and writers. Which if you allow yourself to consider for one second, is totally and completely, fascinating.