Upcoming Promotions to Celebrate the Launch of Terry Tierney's Book THE BRIDGE ON BEER RIVER6/1/2023
Unsolicited Press has had the pleasure of working with Bay Area author Terry Tierney for years, first with his poetry collection The Poet's Garage, then his novel Lucky Ride, and now with his latest novel-in-stories, The Bridge on Beer River.
In The Bridge on Beer River, set in Reagan-era Binghamton, New York, a rust belt city in decline retains the solace of romance, which often proves to be an empty promise or even a curse. With a wry perspective and unflappable determination, Curt embodies all the town’s ills, including his own problems with drinking, work, and relationships, as he tries to save himself and rescue his friends in his own unconventional and unlawful ways. To celebrate the launch of Terry's latest book (out on JULY 11, 2023), we are offering a few cool promotions. EBOOK PROMO For the first 100 copies sold on our website we will give out free ebook copies of Terry's first novel, LUCKY RIDE. Also, for those who want to buy a copy of BRIDGE off-site, then you can find ebook copies of LUCKY RIDE at a discount on your favorite ebook retailer's website (just $2.99). EVERYTHING TERRY TIERNEY BUNDLE Maybe you are itching to read everything we've published by Terry....because after all, he's a stellar writer and all-around good person. We made it so you can get all of his titles from us for a steal. Grab the book bundle! It's $40 plus shipping and you get three paperbacks. GIVEAWAY Any reader who posts a picture of them with their copy of BRIDGE on Instagram or Twitter will be entered to win a free book of their choice. Don't forget to tag @unsolicitedp in the picture. NIGHT HAG by AMY BASKIN
 PORTLAND, OR; May 16, 2023--The novel bears re-reading well, for the twists and turns of the plot as well as the details even a careful reader might miss on a first pass. In a wink to the world of comic books and other forms of serial storytelling, the novel also leaves space for at least one alternative reading that feels like a juicy fan theory.--Jennifer Vega, POPMATTERS
After suffering a tragic loss, eccentric comic book writer and artist Kellan Savoy entered a year-long seclusion, during which he produced Window Eyes, a twenty-two-and-a-half issue series about a man who tries to create a golem to replace his dead lover. Kellan would show this work to only one person, his best friend Thomas Levi, before disappearing with it. At the behest of Kellan’s editor, Thomas has worked to produce, from his memories, an approximation of the series so that it will not be lost to the world forever. The result: an annotated collection of issue summaries that simultaneously attempts to preserve what might be the final work of an exceptional artist while providing uncommon access to that artist’s life and mind. About Philip Jason Philip Jason’s stories can be found in magazines such as Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and J Journal; his poetry in Spillway, Lake Effect, Canary and Summerset Review. He is a recipient of the Henfield Prize in Fiction. His first collection of poetry, I Don’t Understand Why It’s Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. For more information, visit philipjason.com. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. WINDOW EYES is available on May 16, 2023, as a paperback (978-1-956692-64-8) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities.  PORTLAND, OR; May 9, 2023--Equally funny and foul, heartwarming and heartbreaking, "Release Me" is a coming-of-age story about a young man who understands that home is where the heart is, but is stuck pondering the question, “Where is my heart?”
22-year-old Jacob Constantine has everything he needs—an Ivy League education, a wealthy family, and the lucrative offer to take over his father’s real estate empire. The only problem is he doesn’t know what he wants, other than his ex-girlfriend Deirdre back. When she attempts to rekindle their relationship one week before his departure to Germany—where he accepted a one-year job to put off the inevitable career with his father—the presence of the past begins to overshadow his temporary escape from the future. With the help of a beer-guzzling, flatulent punk rocker named Stinki, and Julia, the beautiful and spirited intern at the American Studies department where he works, Jake tries to navigate the present tense in Germany. But as he speeds toward his unwanted future, no amount of sex, drugs, or punk rock can keep the dark secrets from the past from being stirred up in the wake of Deirdre’s reappearance. About Tim DeMarco Tim DeMarco is a teacher, translator, writer, and wannabe musician. Release Me is his first novel. He currently lives at the Jersey Shore, where—despite having such a big mouth—he constantly bites off more than he can chew. Visit him at timdemarco.com About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. RELEASE ME is available on May 9, 2023, as a paperback (978-1-956692-69-3) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities.  PORTLAND, OR; April 11, 2022 --
NIGHT HAG (Unsolicited Press, April 2023) speaks of femininity through the eternal voice of Lilith, the first woman. NIGHT HAG is an exploration of yin strength and autonomy of body, heart, and mind. NIGHT HAG invites readers to consider distinctions between selfishness and self-care. PRAISE FOR AMY BASKIN Amy Baskin’s mythologically-infused Night Hag set my loins on fire with empowered carnal eroticism and righteous anger personified through the voice of Lilith, the first woman who refused to succumb to the wills of man. “God…made Adam a father/of a child he had no say in/ then god told Adam/have your way with her/this unasked-for creation/not to raise her but/infuse her with/more life/in my image/time and time again.” In light of the overturning of Roe, these poems harken a source power pulling from a deep well of womb rage, joined with a primal interrogation of the generational traumas and violence against the female body— Lilith, juxtaposed with women today, denying these forced-upon seeds, this oppression. “When I’m naked here in public, you can’t beat me…You emerged from my womb. I am your crucible…I sit before you, legs spread, masked, reminding you of your humble beginnings.” --Kai Coggin, author of Mining for Stardust, Incandescent, and Wingspan. Host of Wednesday Night Poetry. Dark and audacious. Outraged and outrageous. Fearless and iconoclastic. If Lilith were given a microphone and the spotlight, this is the voice we’d expect. And in her collection Night Hag, Amy Baskin delivers exactly that. In music-rich lyric poems, Baskin turns this pre-Eve, primordial woman loose so she can adamantly proclaim that “to love does not mean / to obey.” Speaking her mind in both Edenic and contemporary times, this ageless proto-female strives to better our fraught and ineffably challenging world by leading us with feminist wisdom, with “the compass of the womb.” —Paulann Petersen Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita In Amy Baskin’s Night Hag, the poet examines, in the most beautiful way, the mythological Lilith. These poems are a perfect elixir for surviving in these times. The images will indeed “grab you by the scruff of the neck”. There could not be a more perfect time for this book, as we continue the long and worthwhile battle for women’s rights. In this journey of pages, you will find minerals and molecules, caves, burnt rubber on the driveway, a supernova, bicycles and cosmos and a teapot still on the table. This book will feed the soul and remind us, in exquisite language, that our body is “a temple laden with offerings”. —Connie Post Author of Floodwater (winner of the Lyrebird Award) and Prime Meridian (International Book Awards Finalist) Amy Baskin writes with intensity and passion. Her poems reach into your chest, squeezing until you feel like you can’t breathe. In Night Hag, she takes the mythic figure of Lilith and views the character in modern settings—a timely expression of outrage at the treatment of women in a society that claims to care but often doesn’t. Baskin does this masterfully without condescension, exploring both beauty and dread in the world today, all through the eyes of someone filled with past trauma and, yet, a kind of love for that same world. This is a wonderful book, both startling and refreshing. —Ace Boggess Author of Escape Envy and I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So In her astonishing collection Night Hag, Amy Baskin turns the mythical Lilith into an unmanageable force who refuses to be tamed. In a strong, self-possessed voice, Baskin’s first woman unabashedly tells her husband Adam, to love does not mean to obey./ You never understood this. She proclaims her right to control her own body: when I feel his child kick within me, I don’t want it. She describes herself to a new lover: you think I’m a known quantity/you couldn’t be more wrong. With dazzling leaps of imagination, Baskin creates a character who couldn’t be more right for this historical moment. Whether exploring the world beyond the garden, linking arms with mothers at a protest, or bumping into Adam and Eve in grocery aisles, this reincarnated Lilith is a playful, sensual, outspoken woman who, in poem after poem, challenges the mind as she engages the heart. And isn’t this what genuine poetry strives to do? Cheers to Baskin and Night Hag for this stunning collection. This is, I hope, the first of many more to come. ––Carolyn Martin, Ph.D. Poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation. About Amy Baskin Amy Baskin is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, an Oregon Literary Arts fellow, and an Oregon Poetry Association prize winner. Her first collection, NIGHT HAG (Unsolicited Press, 2023), is about Lilith, the mythic “first woman,” and will be available in April. Amy works with students and faculty in the Departments of English and History at Lewis & Clark and helps run the annual Fir Acres Summer Writing Workshop. Her chapbook HYSTERICAL CAKE was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2022. Her work has been featured in journals including Cultural Daily, Timberline Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Friends Journal, and SWWIM. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. NIGHT HAG is available on April 11, 2022, as a paperback (114 p.;978-1-956692-56-3) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities.  The publishing industry is dominated by womxn -- not at the top, but they are the backbone of the book world. But that doesn't always mean that womxn are given their fair due. Book by book, men make more money and hold more leadership jobs in the workplace. We want to help change that. Every year, we focus on the works of the unsung and underrepresented.
Our decision? To produce only books by womxn in 2025. The womxn that we've chosen to partner with in 2025 so far, are: Fiction Titles Rosalia Scalia -- Under the Radar Kerry Donoghue -- Mouth Raki Kopernik -- No One's Leaving Robyn Lear -- Ekphrasis as Divination: An Incantation Catalogue Nancy Christie -- Untitled Short Story Collection S.B. Borgersen -- Collection of Three Stories Anne Leigh Parrish -- Heading Home Anne Boorstin -- No Place Like Tori Malcangio -- Motherborn Jane Carlsen -- Sweet Constance M. McGuigan -- That Very Place Poetry Titles Julie Wendell -- Daughter Days LeeAnn Pickrell -- Gathering the Pieces of Days Jennifer Clark -- Intercede: Saints for Concerning Occasions C. Kubasta -- Under the Tented Skin Elena Barcia -- Exquisite Corpse/Malú Urriola Meriwether Clark -- Body Memory Nonfiction Titles Laura Gaddis -- Mosaic Allison La Cross -- Small Part of Infinity: A Midwife's Meditation on Rebirth Lauren Westerfield -- Depth Control Norah Esty -- A Long Way from Anywhere: Living Off-Grid in the American West Elizabeth Jaeger -- Stolen: Love and Loss in the Time of COVID-19 If you identify as a womxn, we are here to champion your efforts. We also actively looking for a few more poets and essayists to join the publishing season. If you think you have something that fits our mission, consider submitting to us. Washington Poet Anne Leigh Parrish Releases Second Poetry Collection: IF THE SKY WON'T HAVE ME4/4/2023
 PORTLAND, OR; April 4, 2022 -- The poems in If The Sky Won’t Have Me weave a brilliant tapestry of the human condition, focusing on nature, the female experience, family drama, aging, politics, and regret. Images of water feature strongly, as do rebirth and regeneration, both physical and spiritual. A perfect sequel to the author’s debut collection, the moon won’t be dared, these poems expand and deepen our understanding of what it means to be alive in a complex world.
Praise for Anne Leigh Parrish Award-winning novelist Anne Leigh Parrish doubles down on her provocative debut poetry collection the moon won’t be dared with a new book of resonant and deeply emotional poems. If The Sky Won’t Have Me echoes with themes of love gained and lost, including relationships with family and the environment, through every stage of a woman’s growth. Recurring images of nature and water link the poems, culminating with the title poem where the poet craves rebirth in water: “If the sky won’t have me, ... / I’ll stay just until clouds gather, / Rain falls again & I release myself once more.” If The Sky Won’t Have Me is filled with ringing poetic images that often read like personal parables and leave the reader wanting more. – Terry Tierney, author of The Poet’s Garage Satisfying. Brilliant. Necessary. A beautiful and masterfully written collection of poems whose words evoke a sense of movement that beckons us back to the page and to the places we belong. – Loic Ekinga, author of How to Wake a Butterfly About Anne Leigh Parrish Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of eleven previously published books, most recently an open door, a novel, October 2022, and the moon won’t be dared, poems, October 2021. She lives in the South Sound Region of Washington State and has joyously ventured into the art of photography. find her online at anneleighparrish.com. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. IF THE SKY WON'T HAVE ME is available on April 4, 2022, as a paperback (164 p.; 978-1-956692-52-5) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities.  March is Women's History Month and we don't like to profit off any group of people so we thought the best way to support the woman we've published is to donate money from the sales of their books. This March, when you buy a book that's authored by a woman through our website, we will donate $2 to the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women. "Organized in 1996 by three founding Native women, Peggy Bird (Kewa), Darlene Correa (Laguna Pueblo) and Genne James (Navajo), the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW) was created to provide support to other Native advocates working in domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, stalking and sex trafficking in New Mexico’s tribal communities. Their single goal: to eliminate violence against Native women and children." We want to help bring attention to groups of women that are largely disadvantaged and ignored. Native women are regularly ignored by our government and our culture. So celebrate the Native women in our past and our future. Order a book today.  “Motel Stories” takes an empathetic deep dive into the eccentricities and troubled lives of guests at the fictional Sunset Inn, a seedy motel on Hollywood Boulevard. Twenty linked tales include a man who dances with dolls, an immigrant couple from opposing sides of a civil war celebrating their honeymoon, a disgraced politician in hiding, an addict mother facing a fateful reunion with her long-lost brother.
Four related stories complete the collection: a teenage boy flees his hometown to escape scandal and persecution, a Filipina internet bride struggles for autonomy in suburban America, a female impersonator supersedes her once-glamorous mentor, a gay gallery owner confronts his own delinquent past when his troubled teenage nephew visits. About William Torphy William Torphy has received a number of prizes and honors for his short fiction. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Bryant Literary Review, The Fictional Café, Sun Star Quarterly, Chelsea Station, Arlington Literary Journal, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. His opinion pieces have been featured in Solstice Literary, OpEdge and Vox Populi. Ithuriel’s Spear Press has published a collection of his poetry, “Love Never Always” as well as “Snakebite,” young adult fiction; and “A Brush With History,” a biography of California activist artist Eda Kavin. He has recently moved to Wisconsin from the San Francisco Bay area where he served as an exhibition curator for many years. www.williamtorphy.com About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. Motel Stories is available on March 14, 2023 as a paperback (340 p.; 978-1-956692-61-7), e-book, and audiobook (forthcoming). Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Colm Toibin. I’m part Irish and have an affinity to that land as well as admiration for the broadly varied subjects and both male and female characters Toibin has taken on so sensitively. “The Master” and “Brooklyn” I suppose I’d dish up a cassoulet, the French version of Irish stew. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The blank page. Putting pen to paper. What books are on your nightstand? I just finished Colson Whitehead’s “Harlem Shuffle,” a serious period romp. Waiting for me to pick up is a fairly eclectic selection of already should-have-read modern and contemporary classics: Llosa’s “Feast of the Goat,” TC Boyle’s “Budding Prospects,” Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth.” But I may take a vacation break with Daniel Silva’s thriller, “The Cellist,” in which the Mossad takes on the Russian financial Mafia. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The period. It means I’ve made progress and can move on to a new sentence. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? “Pride & Prejudice.” As a teenager, I was convinced it would bore me. I was too immature to understand its subtle critique of social mores that is still relevant to this day. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My favorite pens that run out of ink with no warning. They provide me a reminder of how hard I’ve worked. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? “Write with Intention and Attention.” I also like what Louis L’Amour said, appropriate for a larger bathroom mirror: “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” Does writing energize or exhaust you? The act of writing energizes me greatly, though when I stop, I’m fairly exhausted, and find it difficult for an hour or so to reintegrate into “real life”. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Perfectionism and thinking you need an “important idea” to begin. What is your writing Kryptonite? An idea, phrase, news item, piece of gossip that grabs me by the balls. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? The closest I’ve come is fearing that I might have writer’s block rather than understanding that I may require a reasonable amount of time to collect myself and begin again. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes, but perhaps a technical writer for plumbing fixtures. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? My writing group has supported me through numerous drafts and gaffs. They have always been both constructively critical and extraordinarily supportive. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I primarily write short stories, many of which are independent of others, though my collection “Motel Stories” contains twenty linked stories that all take place at a seedy motel on Hollywood Boulevard. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? “Love Never Always” was my first publication, a collection of poetry that gave me the confidence to let my writing flow with fewer doubts. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? A really good, large desk that has room for all my notes on scraps I make to write. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Maybe Somerset Maugham. “Of Human Bondage” is ridiculously dramatic, and possesses an overly complicated plot and a disappointing ending, but I learned a lot about leaning toward concision and simplicity after wading through a couple of his novels. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? When I called a bully for what he was on the playground. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? I’m not sure what constitutes an under-appreciated novel, but there are so many fine ones that don’t get the attention they deserve. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Probably the coyote, the Native American trickster. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? The truth from my point of view as to how they have revealed themselves to me. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Two unfinished novels and perhaps 60 unpublished short stories. What does literary success look like to you? Getting published more often and receiving an occasional personal message of praise from an editor. What’s the best way to market your books? A good email list personalizes your approach with built-in support. Getting reviewed and accepted into strategic bookstores along with readings gets the word out. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Eliminating the blind spots and POV of a male, albeit a “sensitive” one. What did you edit out of this book?” A very long story featuring four complex female characters. I’ll save it for a future publication I have in mind. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I’ve been a visual art curator for many years, a profession that I love intensely.  We are fast approaching Read an Ebook Week, a week that encourages readers to pick up the digital device of their choice and download a new book to read.
We're excited to announce that our books will be available as part of a promotion on Smashwords to celebrate Read an Ebook Week 2023! This is a chance to get our books, along with books from many other great authors, at a discount so you can get right to reading. You will find the promo here starting on March 5, so save the link: https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek If you wouldn't mind taking part in promoting this celebration of Ebooks and reading, please feel free to share this promo with your friends and family. Happy reading!  2022 is gone. But you know what, it was wacky and wild and full of some amazing times. We published a heck of a lit of books by some of the most promising authors in the country (seriously). While we've never published a Best of list before (we really don't like our books to compete with one another...because they are ALL exceptional), we thought maybe 2022 is the year to start. Without further nonsense from us, here are the top sixteen bestselling books from our 2022 publication list (they are not listed in order based on highest sales).
 "Books Inc. Berkeley proudly welcomes local author Paul Justison for a reading from his debut novel Lost and Found in the 60s, a illuminating vision of San Francisco in the era of flower children, free love, and groovy music!"
Holden Caulfield returns as Mark Stenrud to bring the psychedelic era vividly to life. Alienated from a toxic mother, and in constant conflict at his conservative high school because of his radical politics, Mark Stenrud escapes to Haight-Ashbury, where he takes a job in the post office and settles into a carefree existence in the psychedelic center of the universe. LSD chemists notice his organizational skills and calmness in the face of danger and recruit him to join their enterprise. He accepts and has free time for romance, adventures, and street justice. After months of success, he loses his touch, leading to narrow escapes, bad decisions, and his own downfall. Along the way, he learns about loss, forgiveness, and the meaning of self-respect. "This novel is excruciatingly accurate and totally outrageous. Justison has captured the extravagance of the time: the interplay of sexual liberation, psychedelic experiences and coming of age that made the community so intense and inviting. Was drug use so extensive and casual? You bet. Was casual sexual connecting so extensive and easy? Oh my, yes. The 60s, including its dark, scary, lonely, confused reality is all here, as well as the ecstasy, the kindness, and the sharing. If you weren't there, this is as close as you're going to get to knowing what you missed. The stories, the people, the vision- enjoy the trip." - James Fadiman, microdose researcher and author, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys "This lively and engaging novel chronicles the adventures of a high school drop-out who leaves Arizona for the Haight Ashbury in the 1960's where the credo was "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out." The narrator, a bright, observant young man, quickly becomes part of Hippie culture of free love, tripping on marijuana and LSD, Be-Ins, Viet Nam War protests, and anti-draft demonstrations, which is captured in nuanced and textured detail. Central to this novel is the protagonist's deep respect for women as friends and lovers who are his equals in their shared explorations as well as existential lessons learned. For those who were there, this novel will bring it all back, for those who weren't, this novel is a vivid portrait of of the 60's." - Wendy Martin, Professor of American Literature and American Studies, and Founder/Editor of Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal Paul Justison dropped out of high school in 1966 and fled to Haight-Ashbury, spending most of the next two years there and in Marin County engaging in all the pleasures and follies that magical time had to offer. After the sixties ended, he went to college, started a career, and raised a family. He has been published in The Rumpus, The Gambler Mag, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Fiction on the Web. Lost and Found in the 60s is his first novel. Event Information: Tuesday, January 24, 2023 - 7:00pm Books Inc. 1491 Shattuck Ave Berkeley, CA 94709 If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I don’t know if he eats meat or not, but I’d love to have a steak with Cormac McCarthy. I’m not sure what route I’d go with it. Sometimes I do my secret marinade. On other occasions, I’ll do a red wine and mushroom demi-glace. I could also just do a pan sear with garlic, butter, and rosemary. So many options, but I’d definitely do asparagus and mashed potatoes as a side. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Well, I wouldn’t call this a crush any longer because I’m now an adult male, but I definitely had a crush on Wednesday Addams as a kid. I was in the sixth grade when the 1991 film came out, and I fell in love with Christina Ricci’s portrayal. Jenna Ortega does an incredible job in the new series. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Both, actually. When I’m in the flow, like when I’m really feeling the poem almost as if I’m channeling it from a source outside of myself, I feel incredibly energized. Time stops. This sounds weird to say, but I feel this sense of unity and oneness, a true euphoria. When I exit that space, I feel depleted. I have to decompress a little. I can’t talk to anyone because socializing feels so strange, like another language. I need a drink and several minutes just to feel like I can be a person in the world again. What is your writing Kryptonite? Oddly enough, teaching poetry. I love when I get to teach poetry along with the usual English comp courses, but I find that giving feedback on poems taps into the same energy that I use for my own work. Whenever I teach poetry, like I did in spring 2022, I end up not writing as much. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Interesting concept. I wasn’t aware this actually existed until the interview. Anytime my English 101 students turn in essays. Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice but to read them and give them feedback. They’re trying. They’re mostly good people, but some of their essays…yikes. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I feel like it puts more pressure on the process. I’ve been submitting my work to literary journals since I finished graduate school (2010), and while I had several published, it wasn’t really until the first book came out that I started thinking every poem had to be “publishable.” I got in my head for a while. I overthought everything. Is this good? Will someone publish this? In the past, I wrote poems that I knew were throwaways, but I enjoyed writing them. It took me a while to be able to get back to writing for fun and not thinking each poem needed to be great. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Poets as a whole haha. I was really into sports growing up, and I had this very typical, Midwestern belief that poetry was “girl stuff.” I loved reading, but I was strictly into fiction and nonfiction. I hated poetry units in school and didn’t take them seriously. It wasn’t until high school that I started reading and writing poetry. I saw one of my friends writing in the high school library. I asked him what it was, and he told me, “Poetry.” I was surprised. I was like, “What the fuck are you writing poetry for? That’s lame.” He said, “No, it’s actually really therapeutic. I can process my thoughts and experiences and feel better about my life.” So, I started writing poetry to deal with my teenage angst, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. In college, I took a Brit Lit class and encountered the Romantic poets again. I fell in love with John Keats. I learned more about form and technique. I started devouring all the poets I could. So that’s the long answer. I guess the short answer is John Keats. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? In high school, I was kind of an asshole to my parents. I just thought I was smarter than them. They were conservative, very practical Christian/Catholics who both came from agricultural backgrounds, and I was weirdly this liberal, creative atheist who just viewed them as backwoods Kansans. I don’t think that anymore. I would do a lot of things just to piss them off, like becoming a Kansas Jayhawks fan instead of cheering for K-State, or deciding to become a vegetarian for a while not for any ethical or environmental reason but just because it was a stab at my dad, who had been a cattle rancher. One Saturday night, I was supposed to hang out with my friends. We were at my sister’s basketball tournament in Kansas City, and my dad decided he wanted to stay to watch the next teams play because some of my sister’s friends were on those teams. I was upset, so on the way home, I made a cutting remark about him not having any friends when he was young. He’s ordinarily a pretty calm guy, and this is very uncharacteristic for him, but he pulled the car over and came at me like he was going to beat the shit out of me. My mom intervened, and we didn’t come to blows. That was when I realized that language has power. I think I always knew it, but that was the moment where I saw language’s power coming at me in the form of a fist. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Definitely a raven or a crow. Or a plague doctor. They’re all kind of similar. I remember my first email handle was oldcrowsmiles. I chose that in high school. My parents thought I was sneaking around drinking alcohol because of Old Crow bourbon. I just liked crows. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have 4-5 manuscripts that are actually ready to go. I need to revisit them. Many of them were written while I was in graduate school or shortly thereafter. I was quite prolific then, but when I look back on material from 10-15 years ago, I feel like I’m such a different writer now. While I may eventually try to publish those old manuscripts, I’d like to put together a new one of the stuff I’ve written the last couple years. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I don’t currently write for work as teaching pays the bills. Well, I do work as the lead writer for Bandbox vinyl record club, so I guess I can’t say that I don’t write for work. But to answer the question, I’d be a chef. I love cooking. I would love to be like Anthony Bourdain, cooking and writing.  To Daughter a Devil explores women in horror and the horror in being woman. Each poem puts a magnifying glass to the female body and uses the most beautiful and the most terrifying parts to paint a picture of growing up and learning to live with — and possibly love — the evil that lives inside of us.
About Megan Mary Moore Megan Mary Moore holds an MFA in poetry from Miami University. She is the author of Dwellers (Unsolicited Press, 2019) and her work has appeared in Rattle, Grist, and Contemporary Verse 2. She lives in Cincinnati where she frequently dresses like a fairy princess, watches too many horror movies, and writes poems about things that scare her. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. To Daughter a Devil is available on January 3, 2023 as a paperback (96 p.; 978-1-956692-51-8), e-book, and audiobook (forthcoming). Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram.  In his debut poetry collection, Rhys Daly urges the reader to confront discomfort and embrace the things we fear to see what may be beyond them. Shedding asks what parts of ourselves are truly ourselves, and what parts are carefully constructed to defend us against external and internal pressures. It tells a story of someone breaking open his rigidly constructed mindset, examining a home that’s suddenly begun to feel foreign, revisiting memories he has tried desperately to forget, and discovering what they can teach about trauma and healing.
Through conversational free verse and visceral surrealist imagery, Shedding invites you on a journey of deconstruction and reconstruction of self, grudges, the reliability of memory, and what we learn when we face the things we’ve left behind. About Rhys Daly Rhys Daly is a queer Asian-American Seattle area writer and actor who wishes he lived even closer to the ocean. His work often explores discomfort, uncertainty, identity, acceptance, and the wonder in the mundane. When he’s not hunched over a coffee table furiously memorizing lines or scribbling up poems, he can be found walking moodily down a city street looking for his next bit of inspiration. Other works can be in Volume Four, Issue 3 of Rigorous Magazine, as well as the Fall 2020 issue of Short Vine Journal. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. Shedding is available on December 31, 2022 as a paperback (112p.; 978-1-956692-46-4), e-book, and audiobook. Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram.  Womenscape is a collection of twelve stories, each a life-changing moment in a woman’s life. These women, who range from five to ninety-five, navigate through the varied landscapes of their lives with surprising results. There are disappointments and triumphs, tears and laughter, and many unexpected outcomes along the way.
In the first story, “In the Beginning”, Lily Ann, a spoiled five-year-old who relies on her beauty to get her way, confronts an unexpected challenger on her first day of kindergarten. In “Resurrection”, Mary O’Hara Levin, recently widowed. wanders the country, not knowing what she is looking for until she gets off the bus in a small town in Tennessee. In “Venus Rising”, Venus Goldfarb, an outcast, is forced to cast herself out into a world she views as unwelcoming and threatening. Ill equipped and afraid to navigate this world, she finds sanctuary and purpose in an unexpected place. These are three of the twelve women whose stories are told in this collection. Change can be daunting. Life can be surprising. This collection of short stories explores some of the challenges women of varying ages face. Most are successful; some are not, but they all learn something about themselves that changes their lives forever. About Susan Helene Living for many years on the East Coast, Susan Helene moved to California, and earned a master’s degree in mathematics and Computer Science, while raising her two daughters and a quartet of dogs. Having taught in many educational environments, she joined the faculty at Fullerton College to become the first and only woman Computer Science Department Coordinator for over twenty years. When not enjoying time spent with her family: her husband, her two daughters and four dogs of various size and questionable pedigree, she studied ceramics, where she learned the varied processes of wheel throwing, sculpting, and tile making. The exactitude of computer programming and the attention to process and detail in her chosen field of art helped hone her skills of observation. It was after presenting “Her Cup Runneth Over” to a writer’s workshop, that she felt encouraged to explore writing more seriously. Her short story, “The Sixty-First Day”, was accepted for the eighth edition of Montana Mouthful, October 2020 issue. She is also the proud recipient of a Second Place Prize in the High Desert Branch- California Writers Club pandemic anthology contest. Her story, “The Rose”, was published in their anthology: Survival: Tales of Pandemic, published in 2020. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. WOMENSCAPE: Selected Stories of Eclectic Women is available on December 20, 2022 as a paperback (132p.; 978-1-956692-45-7), e-book, and audiobook. Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram.  PORTLAND, OR; December 13, 2022--The Bunker Book is a work of poetry by Anne Babson that revisits medieval plague tales in an era of American pandemic and French Resistance literature in a divided nation. Set in New Orleans and other cosmopolitan destinations, it presents the problems of Kyiv, of the Second World War, and all fights against fascism as a way of talking about America today. This poetry collection makes the new cosmopolitan South confront the ghosts of the old problematic South and exorcise them. While it occasionally echoes sentiments present in Atwood’s work, it offers hope to the reader despite all. Focused on the life of a woman who hides herself and the books banned in an oppressive society in a bunker, her library comes to life and speaks to her in the voices of figures like Machiavelli, the Wife of Bath, Marlene Dietrich, Margery Kempe, Rhett Butler, Saint Thomas Moore, and Christine de Pisan. It contemplates the cloistered life of pandemic and religious medieval women mystics in one idiom. It imagines the underground resistance of Paris during the Nazi occupation reenacted in our times in an American setting.Works as old as Beowulf find themselves enacted on the banks of the Mississippi, and poems as present-tense as the latest headlines about the war in Ukraine also find a home on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans.
The Bunker Book calls the reader to hope despite reasons to despair, to overcome fear and to fight the forces that would silence artists and political dissidents everywhere. Anyone feeling frustrated with our times might take solace and encouragement from these defiant and hopeful words. ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ANNE BABSON "Anne Babson’s poems are bunkered under the intersection of learning and lived knowledge, in depths where history and myth share roots and where blood and milk share a source. Bookish and puckish, formal and transformative, Babson’s poems range through time and space while always returning to (or do they ever leave?) the fever-dreamscape of her New Orleans. Along the way, she counters patriarchy’s fatal predations with a restorative feminism that calls us to action. Spend some time in this bunker and you’ll emerge, with Babson’s saints, ready to dance and to fight."–Brad Richard, author of Parasite Kingdom and Motion Studies "What do you do when the world closes in on all sides? If you’re Anne Babson, you sustain yourself in a fortress of books and let your mind wander where it may. Babson’s The Bunker Book is a delightful feast of linguistic wit and play. In these poems you will party with Gertrude Stein in PJs, go bar-hopping with the Vampire Lestat--and that’s on a slow night! Of all the writers who entered lockdown with optimistic plans for their work, only Anne Babson could emerge from her bunker with such a brainy, brash, gut-busting, brouhaha of a book. Do yourself a favor and dive in."–Alison Pelegrin, author of Our Lady of Bewilderment "Anne Babson's The Bunker Book knows no boundaries. Shifting through place and time, the poems commune with a variety of fictional and historical women, each living in their own metaphorical bunkers. From The Wife of Bath to Sylvia Plath to Heather Lewis, every encounter is dark, playful, hallucinatory, revelatory. Like Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic, this book explicates a civilization. Poetry lovers should rush to these pages."–Maurice Carlos Ruffin "Some books read as if they were cities: the reader is walking its neighborhoods, experiencing the music and bustle of each street, each poem. Like New Orleans itself, Anne Babson’s The Bunker Book is a glorious hodge-podge of voices and influence. As if walking Bourbon Street, we hear German, Spanish, and French co-mingling as Psalms sidle into Elvis, Laura Ingalls, and Mrs. Havisham; as free verse follows villanelle, ghazal, and blank verse; as churches are built beside bar. And as it does, history’s shadow stretches into the contemporary. These are poems of witness, and more importantly in these troubled times, poems of hope. The Bunker Book presents “a city safe for women built on heroic/couplets,” and Anne Babson is quite the architect."–Gerry LaFemina, author of Baby Steps for Doomsday Prepping ABOUT ANNE BABSON Anne Babson’s first collection The White Trash Pantheon won the Colby H. Kullman prize from the Southern Writers Southern Writing Conference in Oxford, Mississippi. Her second collection, Polite Occasions, was published by Unsolicited Press, and her third collection, Messiah, was published by Saint Julian Press. She wrote the libretto for the opera Lotus Lives, which has been performed in New York, Boston, and Montreal, and it is set to be released to video in coming months. She is the author of four chapbooks– Uppity Poems, Dictation, Poems Under Surveillance, and Dolly Shot. She has been anthologized in the United States and in England, most recently in the notable collection Nasty Women Poets: an Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse released in 2017. Her work has appeared in literary journals on five continents and has won numerous editorial awards. Her play about gun culture in the South, Reenactment, was published in 2019. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize four times. She has received residency grants from Yaddo and Vermont Studio Center. She writes lyrics for a variety of musical projects, most recently a blues album. She teaches writing and literature at Southeastern Louisiana University. She is the president of the Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans. ABOUT UNSOLICITED PRESS Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. THE BUNKER BOOK is available on December 13, 2022 as a paperback (142p.; 978-1-956692-44-0), e-book, and audiobook (forthcoming). Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is available for speaking engagements.  PORTLAND, OR; December 6, 2022 -- So much happens in the backbeat. In music, the backbeat is a place for discovery, improvisation, and connection. What happens in the backbeat of human experience—a rich life beyond our initial surfaces? What do we discover and create when we attend to this space? What happens when we examine it and open it to others? Backbeat Ocean invites the reader to join a poetic dive and subsequent rise through this unspoken space as through the five oceanic zones. The journey begins in the Sunlight Zone and progresses through each zone until we confront darkness in a descent to the Hadal Zone. An alchemical turn guides the ascent back through the zones arriving in the Sunlight Zone once again, having changed from the journey. Collectively, these poems intersect self-discovery, relationships, nature, trauma, and daily life in a tensive, philosophical, and vulnerable journey. They discover connection through the power of plunging into an existential tapestry—embracing it all, putting it into place, and recognizing the depth that exists in being human. Individually, each poem builds on the one before and guides the reader through a vast ocean. From simple moments that leave space open to structured escapades that capture chaos and larger systems, these pages seek authentic discovery on the path to meaning. Backbeat Ocean integrates vulnerability, confusion, contemplation, and strength. The collection speaks to the complexity and richness of the life that exists around and inside us, in the backbeat.
About Janette Kennedy Janette Kennedy, MAEd, MFA regularly wrangles dreams, family, and words. Her poetry has appeared at Mothers Always Write, on the Tiferet Journal community blog, and on the sidewalk of her hometown as a part of the 2021 World Travels Sidewalk Poetry Contest. Although she has been known to sling data and pivot tables with the best, she is fascinated by the power of art and nurturing creativity. She has taught diverse students of all ages for over 15 years, and currently teaches undergraduate composition and literature. Discover more at janettekennedy.com About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. BACKBEAT OCEAN is available on December 6, 2022, as a paperback (156 p.; 978-1-956692-42-6) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities. Tyler James Russell's WHEN FIRE SPLITS THE SKY is an Apocalyptic, Psychological Road-Trip Thriller11/22/2022
 PORTLAND, OR; November 22, 2022 -- Following Ben’s weekend hunting trip outside Juneau, his wife Maranda—a trauma survivor with multiple personalities—makes a discovery that looks like it will finally put their limping, less-than-a-year marriage out of its misery. But in the morning, when a cataclysmic blast throws the world into chaos, Ben and Maranda find themselves stuck in a car, heading north to Anchorage, on a seemingly hopeless quest to reunite with a missing family member before it’s too late.
Driving for days through the fiery devastation, Ben and Maranda’s marital and personal trauma plays out against what might be a global—or even cosmic—catastrophe. All the while, they are pursued by two men with dark ties to Maranda’s past. To reach Anchorage, Ben and Maranda will be forced to confront their blackest secrets as they decide what any relationship might be worth at the end of the world. Told in alternating chapters from Ben and Maranda’s perspectives, When Fire Splits the Sky is an apocalyptic, psychological, road-trip thriller about the limits of our capacity to endure, change, and survive. Praise for Tyler James Russell Intense, propulsive, full of dark energy, Tyler Russell’s novel envisions the end of the world through the yearnings of two characters barely clinging to what makes them human. Its darkness is irradiated by a sharp wit, psychological depth, and lyricism unusual in a thriller barreling this quickly across the pages. Fans of Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Flynn’s Gone Girl or McCarthy’s The Road will savor these nonstop pyrotechnics. Robert Rosenberg, author of This is Not Civilization and Isles of the Blind A spellbinding thriller about the shattering impact of human trafficking, set in a devastated and dangerous apocalyptic world, Tyler James Russell’s brilliant exploration of how the human mind copes with extreme trauma grabbed me on page one and never let me go. Russell’s creative language and short riveting chapters kept me glued to the page, desperate to know what would happen, yet I didn’t want this remarkable, terrifying story to end. When Fire Splits the Sky is the most riveting, original book I’ve read in ages. Laura Davis, author of The Courage to Heal and The Burning Light of Two Stars This is a welcome reprieve from the simplistic caricatures about someone with multiple personalities that have become common today. No serial killer. No crazy person. Just a look at the alters that fill out the person Ben calls his wife. When Fire Splits the Sky helps us see the humanity and struggles of both Ben and Maranda (et al), as they fight to come to terms with their personal and relational trauma, searching for a path toward mutual healing. Sam Ruck, author of the Loving My DID Girl(s) blog About Tyler James Russell Tyler James Russell is the author of To Drown a Man (2020), a poetry collection, also from Unsolicited Press. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Cat and their children. His other work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Rhysling Awards, and has appeared or is forthcoming in F(r)iction, 365 Tomorrows, and Sepia, among others. When Fire Splits the Sky is his first novel. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. When Fire Splits the Sky is available on November 22, 2022 as a paperback (282 p.; 978-1-956692-41-9) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Tyler James Russell  I Bought My Husband’s Mistress Lingerie tells Stacey Freeman’s uplifting story beginning when she made a life-changing discovery in her husband’s suitcase. Set in Short Hills, New Jersey, her memoir in essays takes readers around the world and back in time for an emotional ride through her childhood and adolescence, marriage, separation and divorce, navigation of bicontinental co-parenting, introduction to mid-life dating, and return to work. Oscillating between periods of despair and laughter and often landing somewhere in between, this slice-of-life essay collection serves as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and how sometimes gifts can come from the most unexpected people and places.
About Stacey Freeman Stacey Freeman is a writer and journalist and the founder of Write On Track LLC, a full-service consultancy dedicated to providing high-quality content and strategy to individuals and businesses. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily (published by The Washington Post), Forbes, Entrepreneur, MarketWatch, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, Town & Country, InStyle, PBS’ Next Avenue, AARP, SheKnows, Yahoo!, MSN, HuffPost, POPSUGAR, Your Teen, Grown & Flown, Scary Mommy, CafeMom, MariaShriver.com, and dozens of other well-known platforms worldwide. She lives in New Jersey with her three children. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. I Bought My Husband’s Mistress Lingerie is available on November 15, 2022 as a paperback (230 p.; 978-1-956692-40-2), e-book, and audiobook. Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram.  Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye returns as Mark Stenrud to bring the psychedelic era vividly life in Lost and Found in the 60s. Alienated from a toxic mother, and in constant conflict at his conservative high school because of his radical politics, Mark Stenrud escapes for Haight-Ashbury, where he takes a job in the post office and settles into a carefree existence in the psychedelic center of the universe. LSD chemists notice his organizational skills and calmness in the face of danger are recruit him to join their enterprise. He accepts and has free time for romance, adventures, and street justice. After months of success, he loses his touch, leading to narrow escapes, bad decisions, and his own downfall. Along the way, he learns about loss, forgiveness, and the meaning of self-respect.
Praise for Paul Justison “This novel is excruciatingly accurate and totally outrageous. Justison has captured the extravagance of the time: the interplay of sexual liberation, psychedelic experiences and coming of age that made the community so intense and inviting. Was drug use so extensive and casual? You bet. Was casual sexual connecting so extensive and easy? Oh my, yes. The 60s, including its dark, scary, lonely, confused reality is all here, as well as the ecstasy, the kindness, and the sharing. If you weren't there, this is as close as you're going to get to knowing what you missed. The stories, the people, the vision- enjoy the trip.” --James Fadiman, microdose researcher and Author, The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys "This lively and engaging novel chronicles the adventures of a high school drop-out who leaves Arizona for the Haight Ashbury in the 1960’s where the credo was "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.” The narrator, a bright, observant young man, quickly becomes part of Hippie culture of free love, tripping on marijuana and LSD, Be-Ins, Viet Nam War protests, and anti-draft demonstrations, which is captured in nuanced and textured detail. Central to this novel is the protagonist’s deep respect for women as friends and lovers who are his equals in their shared explorations as well as existential lessons learned. For those who were there, this novel will bring it all back, for those who weren’t, this novel is a vivid portrait of of the 60’s." --Wendy Martin, Professor of American Literature and American Studies, Founder and Editor, Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal About the Author Paul Justison dropped out of high school in 1966 and fled to Haight-Ashbury, spending most of the next two years there and in Marin County engaging in all the pleasures and follies that magical time had to offer. After the sixties ended, he went to college, started a career, and raised a family. He has been published in The Rumpus, The Gambler Mag, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Fiction on the Web. Lost and Found in the 60s is his first novel. About the Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. "Lost and Found in the 60s" is available on November 8, 2022 as a paperback (246 p.; 978-1-956692-39-6) and e-book (all major retailers). The title is distributed to the trade by Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities. What books are on your nightstand? Lately I’ve been reading a lot of epics—both historic and fantasy. Things with enormous stakes and multiple POVs. In the last year I’ve read everything from Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy to Bernard Cornwell, NK Jemisin, and Ken Liu, and am about to start Steven Erikson’s Malazan books. I’m taking inspiration from this for a future project, sure, but I also think some of my reading habits have changed post-COVID. I find myself gravitating towards these long, dense pieces. There’s probably some reading-as-coping-mechanism there, but I don’t think it’s primarily escapism. I find myself in deep admiration of those writers who are daring to write unironically about grand, concrete, life-and-death themes, especially now when we seem to have brushed against the limits of what we as a civilization are capable of enduring. Reading or writing about anything other than those limits feels incomplete to me, at least right now. What are common traps for aspiring writers? At least for me a trap was trying to appear clever or talented. Most of us are writing because somewhere along the way told us we were good at it, but I think the “look at me!” impulse has only ever gotten in my way. My best work seems to consistently come when I allow myself to sink beneath the text in as ego-less a way as possible, focusing only on trying to grasp something that is solid and true. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I don’t know that it changed the process of writing (the two books were worked on at about the same time), but other things changed around it. I’d wanted to have my name on a published book since I was a kid, and imagined that once that happened, I’d finally feel like a “real” writer. Of course, that wasn’t the way it worked. I didn’t feel any different at all, and so realized I’d actually been a “real” writer (whatever that means) the entire time. It was that, I guess, that helped me give myself permission to do things like talk about my writing, set up a website, and the like, all things I wish I’d started long ago. Before I’d imagined that Twitter or the fraud police or whoever would show up and tell me I wasn’t legitimate enough yet. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? One of my first writing mentors and champions was my high school English teacher, Christine Kindon (she actually sent me a beautiful card after my first book had been published). As my writing grew beyond academic assignments, I wrote an early (awful) story that had a house fire scene. She saw promise in it, and helped me to edit, rewrite, and grow this story, and I remember her helping me to pay careful attention to the fire imagery in that one scene. It was only later she told me she’d survived a house fire that took the life of her daughter, and that reading and working on the scene with me had been, in some strange way, a little cathartic. I was blown away by her confidence, and the fact that something I had created over here in my world, had engendered an emotional response over there, in hers. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? I finally read the entirety of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun last year, and—forget SFF or Dying Earth or whatever—it’s just a staggering piece of literature, period. It’s a shame he isn’t more widely read and appreciated outside and inside the SFF genre. Beyond that, I’d say really any of those books that people tend to deem “commercial,” or “guilty pleasure” books, as if somehow their readability is a literary demerit, or the fact that some of these authors are able to turn a book around in a relatively short time frame automatically means its quality suffers. Sometimes, yeah, maybe that’s true, but I’ve found more often than not many of these books we in the literary community tend to look down upon do many many things brilliantly, and we should be learning from and appreciating them much more than we are. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? In this case, quite a lot. I have a good friend who is a multiple, and a large part of this project was getting to know them and seeing just how damaging most of our portrayals of DID are. So many stories position DID as the murdery antagonist, and I hated that. So I embarked on this project with my friend in mind (and their blessing), and they were kind enough to read several drafts and offer feedback along the way. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? When Fire Splits the Sky is my third attempt at a novel. I also have an almost-finished collection and two works in progress that are still relatively early in the screenplay (mapping) phase of the draft, which I think of as blocking a play. The one is particularly massive though. My first run through of it was something like 730 pages. I think that one will occupy me for quite a while. Like WFSS did at the beginning, it feels like I’m on the edge of myself with that one, working on something I’m not quite sure I’m capable of pulling off. For me, that’s the place I always want to be with a project. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? It’s not something I’m conscious of as I’m writing, because I think the issue is subsumed in the larger question of, “How do I inhabit the psyche of this person who is not me?” which is a profoundly difficult thing to do. As far as writing a character who is differently gendered than me (one of the main characters in When Fire Splits the Sky is a male alter-personality in a female body), it’s actually something I do quite a lot, and I honestly have no idea why that is. I’m married to a woman, and I have daughters, so I suppose I’m always trying to understand the way they exist in the world today, but I don’t think that’s the underlying impulse. All I know is that most of my projects begin with a reach, a gap between my existing ability and the demands of the project, and gradually trying to bridge that. The larger question for me, at least for this book, was the question of whose story is it to tell? In writing half of the story from the perspective of a female trauma survivor with multiple personalities, I didn’t want to tell a story that wasn’t mine. I started with only Ben, her husband, but that version felt incomplete, so I gradually layered in the female perspective as well, laboring to create as truthful and complete a portrayal as I could. What did you edit out of this book? The first draft of When Fire Splits the Sky was actually about twice as long, and had several additional viewpoints. The novel alternates between Ben and Maranda, but the first draft also included chapters by a number of her alters. There were some textual experiments in those that I really loved, but ultimately this isn’t an experimental novel, and they didn’t push it far enough to justify those leaps (for example, one alter’s sections were multi-page outlines), and as many early readers tripped over those sections as did not. Even more importantly though, it really came down to the fact that they were overly expository, and every time you got to these experimental chapters the pacing slowed to a crawl. I ended up weaving the alters’ voices into Maranda’s chapters and scrapping the rest, and that solved a lot of issues. To Drown a Man by Tyler James Russell
$16.95
At once delicate and visceral, the poems in To Drown a Man chronicle the long gauntlet from a life of secrets to a life of intimacy. “The only difference between imprisonment and hiding,” Russell writes, “is who shuts the door.” Exploring the meaning of redemption and shame as related to the personal, the marital, and the spiritual, these are the poems of a soul at war with itself. They read like chunks of ore being burned of their dross. Book Details Genre: poetry ISBN: 978-1-950730-47-6 Publication Date: August 4, 2020 WHEN FIRE SPLITS THE SKY by Tyler James Russell
$18.95
Following Ben’s weekend hunting trip outside Juneau, his wife Maranda—a trauma survivor with multiple personalities—makes a discovery that looks like it will finally put their limping, less-than-a-year marriage out of its misery. But in the morning, when a cataclysmic blast throws the world into chaos, Ben and Maranda find themselves stuck in a car, heading north to Anchorage, on a seemingly hopeless quest to reunite with a missing family member before it’s too late.
Driving for days through the fiery devastation, Ben and Maranda’s marital and personal trauma plays out against what might be a global—or even cosmic—catastrophe. All the while, they are pursued by two men with dark ties to Maranda’s past. To reach Anchorage, Ben and Maranda will be forced to confront their blackest secrets as they decide what any relationship might be worth at the end of the world. Told in alternating chapters from Ben and Maranda’s perspectives, When Fire Splits the Sky is an apocalyptic, psychological, road-trip thriller about the limits of our capacity to endure, change, and survive. BOOK DETAILS Genre: Fiction ISBN:978-1-956692-41-9 Publication Date: November 22, 2022  PORTLAND, OR; November 2, 2022 --It is Norway in 1799 - a time when the kingdom was called Denmark-Norway and Oslo was called Christiana. Gertine’s quiet life as a young farm wife is upended when her mother, Mette, inexplicably calls off her sister’s wedding, only days away. Inspired by a runestone she finds in the woods, Gertine follows clue to clue, one family secret to another, in her need to understand. As she uncovers the story of her mother’s complicated past, she gains so much more than the truth.
Praise for Mari Matthias “I love this story. Its care of characters and details of history will stay with you long after the last chapter.” Jane Kirkpatrick, award-winning author of Beneath the Bending Skies About Mari Matthias Mari Matthias writes for the joy of the story. She gets captured by a tale until it is put on the page. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Mari has always had a creative project underway - from putting on neighborhood plays at age six, to teaching English in Japan at age 18, to opening a Spanish language school so her two-year-old would have a community of learners at age 29. She lives with her family in Underwood, Washington, and spends her free time exploring and being creative. The Runestone’s Promise is her first novel. Visit the author’s website at www.marimatthias.com. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press is based out of Portland, Oregon and focuses on the works of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher that doesn’t worry about profits as much as championing exceptional literature, we have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. We’ve worked with emerging and award-winning authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on twitter and Instagram, @unsolicitedp. THE RUNESTONE'S PROMISE is available on November 1, 2022, as a paperback (296 p.; 978-1-956692-38-9) and e-book (all major retailers). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? This year, I started a substack newsletter about food called Anne’s American Kitchen, and it’s all about home cooking and the power of food to overcome differences. I am really taken by this question! I tend to cook French food when I am home, so I think I would invite French medieval feminist Christine de Pisan over, and I would feed her potage crème de laitue (Lettuce cream soup), saumon braisé à la sancerroise (braised salmon in a rich white wine sauce) , and gâteau aux épices caramélisées (a caramelized spice cake). Needless to say, I would serve champagne, a wine that had not yet been invented yet, and I would watch her reaction to the bubbles. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I fight the fear of what conclusions the reader might make about me personally based on what I have written. For instance, in The Bunker Book, I have some poems spoken in the voice of Nazis. For the record, I am not a Nazi, nor am I an apologist for fascism of any kind. However, this discussion of freedom’s battle against authoritarianism needed to include such voices in order to be intelligible. Nothing in my book is autobiographical in any strict sense. The reader won’t know my life’s details, but she or he will know which ideas excite me or worry me. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? In The Bunker Book, I actually write about losing my virginity to Rhett Butler, and at the same time, in this same poem, I am Rhett Butler. Clearly, I have issues, but please don’t kink-shame me. What books are on your nightstand? Right now — I have Our Lady of Bewilderment by Alison Pelegrín, Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing, Millionaire Households and Their Domestic Economy, With Hints Upon Fine Living by Mary Elizabeth Carter (my first title with Unsolicited Press, Polite Occasions, is obsessed with and deconstructs etiquette, so this is an odd pet topic of mine), Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux, De Nugis Curialium by Sir Walter Map, a book that contains the shorter book that the Wife of Bath threw in the fire in The Canterbury Tales, and The Bible. I read voraciously. Next month, I anticipating switching out the book by Walter Map for the farces of Georges Feydeaux and a new book by Margaret Atwood. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the finality of a period but distrust its ability to end things. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Moby Dick was required reading, but despite what all the lovers of that book say about it, I thought it was unpleasant and low-key misogynist. I refused to write the required paper and instead turned in a paper on how most of the female characters in Tennessee Williams’ plays resembled his descriptions of his mother in his memoir. The teacher gave me an A. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I would like to thank the aluminum cup near my head right now filled with ice cubes and Diet Coke. I would like to thank the wedge pillow behind my back. I would like to thank every illuminated manuscript archived in The British Library and all the wine on the wine list of Galatoire’s Restaurant in the Vieux Carré in New Orleans, a veritable pirate’s trove of good drinking. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? I was fretting over the fact that I recently discovered that someone who was almost a mentor to me 20 years ago was indicted as a bag man for Russian Oligarchs funneling funds to the Trump 2016 campaign, wondering how to understand the shocking deterioration of character in this person I knew years ago. My friend, an Emmy-winning writer, Jane Murphy Shimamoto, wrote me, saying, “Make art. Spare no one.” To write at a time like this — “Make art. Spare no one” is a great motto. We need to tell the truth and do it without flinching. What are common traps for aspiring writers? There are so many! The deadliest one is an overfondness for one’s own words. Write the first draft freely, but then be BRUTAL in your editing. Nobody was ever any good in his or her first draft. Stop stinking up the page. Engage in ruthless editing and re-editing. What is your writing Kryptonite? I am vaporizing my Kryptonite right now. I am working on a memoir about my very dysfunctional and adventurous life. It’s absolutely terrifying, but I am doing it. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? There are books so tediously conventional, I can’t finish them. The antidote to reader’s block is reading something else. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? The object of the writer is to make the reader feel or think. I can’t imagine a dispassionate poet, but theoretically, he or she must exist. After all, Wallace Stevens worked as an insurance executive, and they are not as a group prone to wild fits of passion. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? Because I am part of the editorial team for Peauxdunque Review and am president of The Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans, I hang out with writers frequently. I count among my friends and acquaintances authors and poets like Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Melinda Palacio, Julie Kane, Elizabeth Tran, Peter and Nicole Cooley, Constance Adler, Cornelius Eady, Anne Boyd Rioux, Marilyn Hacker (my mentor), Gerry LaFemina, whom I have known forever, Karisma Price, whom I only met last year, and so very many others — thank God! In New Orleans, I think we are experiencing a time like the Harlem Renaissance, the Algonquin Roundtable, or the Beat scene at City Lights Books — the town is jumping with the very best writers in America today. We are creating a new way of talking about the South, what matters in Southern History and the future in the South. The magnificent New Orleans writers also know how to mix a cocktail and laugh at a joke, making our gatherings lots of fun. These writers I know make me a better writer the way that jamming with Louis Armstrong might make one a better drummer or clarinetist. We are all getting better together by sharing work with each other and talking to each other about grand ideas of who we might become as a nation. I dreamt as a high school student of finding my way to a group of writers that was teeming with ideas and new modes of expression. Here I am, hallelujah! Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I really do mean for people to read the books in a stand-alone fashion, but I have recurrent themes:
What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I bought a plane ticket to Berlin to watch the Wall fall and to dance in its rubble. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I struggled to read Genesis as a bored five year-old in a King James Bible placed by the Gideons in a hotel room in London as my parents slept off their jet lag. I didn’t understand all of it, but I understood that God created the universe with words and that when Abel gets murdered, his blood speaks to God from the ground. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Lady Susan by Jane Austen is marvelous because a woman behaves very badly in Regency England and gets away with it. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Isn’t every author’s avatar that old-school Microsoft paperclip icon? What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Shhh! I told them I made up everything without inspiration from them! How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have two — a memoir I am writing about my adventurous but completely messed up life, and a half-finished novel about the divided state of America entitled Emma Jo’s Prayer Blog. What does literary success look like to you? This. Plus, I would like to win the Pulitzer, please. What’s the best way to market your books? I go to bookstores and leave them on consignment. I hold readings. I write for other kinds of publications. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I seem to have to pay them thirty percent more than the female characters. Is that a hard and fast rule? What did you edit out of this book? I’ll never tell. Anne Babson is the author of THE BUNKER BOOK and POLITE OCCASIONS.
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