 PORTLAND, OR; August 9, 2022— Dark Roux is the story of a family simmering on the verge of burning to ruin. The delicate nature of this sauce depicts how Cajun culture survives Americanization along parade routes and swamps in South Louisiana. The Mouton family approaches Mardi Gras 1999 expecting traditional joy and release. But teenage struggles with sexual orientation and independence, the ambiguity of young love complicated by the racism of the South, motherhood leaving little room to love one’s self (even when two non-family women are waiting to help), and blind ambition as a way to deal with the past, all plague the family. The lines tying them together become taut, threatening to fail and toss them into the hurricane of the future.
There is a green oak they all stay moored to. Auguste Chenevert buoys the family with unconditional love and moonshine, holding their bonds with sturdy hands and a sturdier heart, as their two hundred forty-four year old culture comes ashore to a complicated modern world. Each family member shares their experience of Cajun culture, and Auguste, through four separate points of view. Their lives cross like untethered boats on a tiny crawfish pond. Only one thing could bring them all together to decide how each will each carry their culture, and their family, into the 21st century: the death of Auguste Chenevert. About Toby LeBlanc Toby LeBlanc is a mental health therapist in Austin, TX. Writing is a way his own tales can have life alongside the countless stories of courage and strength of his clients. While he and his family sleep under the Texas stars, he will always say he's from Louisiana. He enjoys wearing period-specific pirate costumes and fishing. His dream is to one day do both at the same time. 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. DARK ROUX is available on August 9, 2022 as a paperback (326 p.; 978-1-956692-26-6) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Toby LeBlanc 夢ポップ折り紙 Dream Pop Origami: A Permutational Memoir About Hapa Identity is Imaginative and a Powerful Essay Collection About Being True to Oneself  PORTLAND, OR; July 26, 2022-- Dream Pop Origami is a beautiful, ambitious, interactive, and engrossing lyrical memoir about mixed-race identity, love, travel, AAPI masculinities, and personal metamorphosis. This experimental work of creative nonfiction examines, celebrates, and complicates what it means to be Asian & white, Nisei & hapa, Midwestern & Californian, Buddhist & American at the same time. In this stunning collection of choose-your-own-essays and autobiographical lists, multiracial identity is a counterpoint of memory, language, reflection, and imagination intersecting and interweaving into a coherent tapestry of text, emotion, and voice.
ADVANCE PRAISE “Jackson Bliss paints with words. He is the Kendrick Lamar of the literary world.” —Regina King, Emmy-award-winning actress & director “Jackson Bliss seems to have dispatched Dream Pop Origami from a future where technically adventurous nonfiction blends so perfectly with vulnerable self-discovery that it’s impossible to imagine the two functioning without each other. By intricately folding his experiences into delicate hybrid forms, Bliss has made a memoir about how to nurture the different worlds that occupy a self that is beautiful, fascinating, heartbreaking, essential.” —John D’Agata, author of A New History of an Essay "Jackson Bliss has written a book I dreamed about my whole life. From the moment I got obsessed with Choose Your Own Adventures as a young child to my obsession with Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch in college, I always wanted a larger canon of alternate reality storytelling. Jackson not only delivers this but also gives the device the occasion of a moving memoir about identity. Dream Pop Origami is not just a book—it's a whole immersive creative experience and the good news is once you put it down you can dare yourself another go through its seemingly endless labyrinths. The more attempts I made, the more I understood why this fragmented self-portrait required the rearranging of so many mosaic tiles. Throughout it all, Jackson's story of what it means to be hapa in our world is not lost—this book is not a compromise of style and substance but a triumph of their collaboration into something definitely brilliant." —Porochista Khakpour, author of Brown Album: Essays on Exile & Identity “The crackling sound you hear is me feverishly and compulsively turning the pages of Jackson Bliss’ utterly original, genre defying riff on autobiography, memory, language and detail. It might also be Bliss himself, verbally folding and unfolding his story the way one shapes and reshapes a single piece of origami paper into any animal or object. I’m equally sure this is a magic book and that the spells all work. From an exploration of video games to Tibetan higher planes, Bliss expresses the varied ways in which the second sight of his hapa artist self animates the landscape, while taking readers on a journey through unabashed emotion, memory and a life lived with intensity and great feeling. This book is incredible.” —Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of American Harvest “Bliss masterfully captures the kaleidoscopic gymnastics of his multicultural (hapa) identity, inviting the reader into humorous, heartbreaking, and insightful moments strung along a choose your own adventure. Punctuated with quizzes, lists, and charts, Dream Pop Origami seems to invoke the innovations of Ben Marcus and Karen Tei Yamashita, but these deep dives into self, race, and pop culture are a 100% Bliss.” —Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark and Where We Go When All We Were is Gone “Take a life and fold it in half then fold that half into another half; keep going until there is nothing left. Make it into something beautiful, dreamed, imagined; it can be any vision you want, that is, until it's time to take it apart, to examine just how such a self was constructed. You'll never be the same dreamer again. Jackson Bliss nonetheless exposes the creases, the wearing away of self and soul, the deterioration of appearances and the texture of the fragile nature of the idealized self against the reality into which we are constructed. Do you want to do this? he seems to ask, allowing us to spy or avert our eyes. If life is an adventure, what does it mean when you have to unfold, uncrease, unravel, destroy your life in order to live it? With candor and honesty, Bliss investigates how plans go awry, how following the pattern never leads to the perfection we seek. It is only through undoing, revisiting, and shredding our scraps that lead one to oneself. Dream Pop Origami is a beautifully made star. See for yourself.” —Jenny Boully, author of Betwixt & Between: Essays on the Writing Life and The Body: An Essay “Empty of permanence and interlinked with infinite beings in a net of belonging, Jackson Bliss imagines the world of in-between places. In Dream Pop Origami, ceaseless migrations and reincarnations actualize playful transformation tales just like the samadhi of freedom folds across any and all barriers. A memoir of renga-like linked verse, a song of becoming and love.” —Duncan Ryuken Williams, author of American Sutra and Hapa Japan “By turns sly, sorrowful, pensive, and forthright, Dream Pop Origami makes us rethink the possibilities of nonfiction writing, and of how we name and shape our identities.” —Beth (Bich Minh) Nguyen, author of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner “At the risk of sounding trite, this book is just so much fun! But, like, for real—fun is just a diversion tactic for Dream Pop Origami’s honest profundity and Jackson Bliss’s expert storytelling. Each adventure is delivered in its most perfect form, ready for your interactive pleasure: To feel the complicated pleasure of nostalgia, go to chapter 22. To feel the adolescent pleasure of a game, go to chapter 28. To feel the naughty pleasure of reading Jackson Bliss’s prose, go to chapter 35. To fulfill satisfaction, read this book.” —Lily Hoang, author of A Bestiary ABOUT JACKON BLISS Jackson Bliss is the winner of the 2020 Noemi Press Award in Prose and the mixed-race/hapa author of Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments (Noemi Press, 2021), Amnesia of June Bugs (7.13 Books, 2022), and the speculative fiction hypertext, Dukkha, My Love (2017). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, Ploughshares, Guernica, Antioch Review, ZYZZYVA, Longreads, TriQuarterly, Columbia Journal, Kenyon Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Witness, Fiction, Santa Monica Review, Boston Review, Juked, Quarterly West, Arts & Letters, Joyland, Huffington Post UK, The Daily Dot, and Multiethnic Literature in the US, among others. He is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University and lives in LA with his wife and their two fashionably dressed dogs. Follow him on Twitter and IG: @jacksonbliss. 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. DREAM POP ORIGAMI is available on July 26, 2022 as a paperback (312 p.; 978-1-956692-74-7), e-book, and audiobook. An interactive website is also available (dreampoporigami.com). Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram.  This Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 6:30PM, two great authors, Jackson Bliss and Frances Badalamenti will be conversing at the illustrious Rose City Book Pub in NE Portland. If you are unable to join, we will be livestreaming the event via Jackson's IG account, @jacksonbliss. Jackson Bliss and Frances Badalamenti will be sitting down with each to talk writing as well as the release of DREAM POP ORIGAMI. Dream Pop Origami is a beautiful, ambitious, interactive, and engrossing lyrical memoir about mixed-race identity, love, travel, AAPI masculinities, and personal metamorphosis. This experimental work of creative nonfiction examines, celebrates, and complicates what it means to be Asian & white, Nisei & hapa, Midwestern & Californian, Buddhist & American at the same time. In this stunning collection of choose-your-own-essays and autobiographical lists, multiracial identity is a counterpoint of memory, language, reflection, and imagination intersecting and interweaving into a coherent tapestry of text, emotion, and voice. Jackson Bliss is the winner of the 2020 Noemi Press Award in Prose and the mixed-race/hapa author of Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments (Noemi Press, 2021), Amnesia of June Bugs (7.13 Books, 2022), and the speculative fiction hypertext, Dukkha, My Love (2017). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, Ploughshares, Guernica, Antioch Review, ZYZZYVA, Longreads, TriQuarterly, Columbia Journal, Kenyon Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Witness, Fiction, Santa Monica Review, Boston Review, Juked, Quarterly West, Arts & Letters, Joyland, Huffington Post UK, The Daily Dot, and Multiethnic Literature in the US, among others. He is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University and lives in LA with his wife and their two fashionably dressed dogs. Follow him on Twitter and IG: @jacksonbliss. Frances Badalamenti was raised in Queens, New York and Suburban New Jersey, but she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and son. Her essays, stories and interviews appear in The Believer Magazine, Longreads, Vol.1 Brooklyn, Entropy and elsewhere. Salad Days (2021) is her second novel; her debut novel I Don't Blame You released in 2019  PORTLAND, OR; July 19, 2022-- Unsolicited Press is proud to be bring you another exceptional poetry collection, LOWERCASE GOD, by Mark Fleckenstein. Fleckenstein's pen is not a sword, but a paintbrush, skillfully painting poetic gems on every page. LAST PHOTOGRAPH OF MY DAYS AS AN IDEALIST You urge me, after so many years of silence, to send you details about my occupations, about this "wonderful" world in which, you say, I am lucky enough to live and move and have my being. I might answer that I am a man without occupation, and that this world is not in the least wonderful. —E.M. Cioran, “Letter To A Faraway Friend” How far I have come to wish to come home. This morning, the first in twenty-three exiled years, the white noise of commerce eclipsed my only dream of childhood: the dull boots and swollen faces of bodies hang- ing from streetlamps. Your letters and wishes for my life here arrive whitened by a belief in this country like a trinket of light perfect and invisible. What has not changed and what has are identical. 28 years earlier, Chinese tanks and soldiers rolled over students. Here whole families sleep on sewer grates and barter for whatever one might spare. Yesterday, a pigeon appeared on my desk and pecked at your letters. My cat caught it in mid-flight. The argument of its wings surprised him into letting it go. About Mark Fleckenstein
Mark Fleckenstein was born in Chicago, and grew up in Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut, North Carolina, and New Hampshire, and presently lives in Massachusetts. He graduated from University of North Carolina in Charlotte with a B.A. in English, Vermont College of Fine Arts and received an MFA in Writing. He became very involved in the poetry community in and around Boston, for over 30 years. He was an assistant editor for (BLuR), the Boston Literary Review, founder/coordinator of two bi-weekly poetry reading series in Boston and a workshop leader, He’s given poetry readings with famous poets (Charles Simic, Linda Gregg, Mark Doty, Mark Cox and Carl Phillips) and not so famous poets. He is also a painter. He has two amazing daughters and a large, eccentric, long-haired black cat named Ariadne. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp LOWERCASE GOD is available on July 19, 2022 as a paperback (64p.; 978-1-956692-24-2) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts:  PORTLAND, OR; July 19, 2022-- FRUITCAKE is a collection of poems that follows a persona through various jobs as an Administrative Judge and civil servant, the adoption of her son and her relationship through the years with her parents and in particular, her father, who worked as a macaroon baker.
While the subject matter varies throughout the collection, the thread of the narrative voice is wry, humorous and sharp. About Lisa Badner Lisa Badner Lisa Badner is the author of the forthcoming book of poems, FRUITCAKE. Lisa’s writing has appeared in Rattle, the New Ohio Review, TriQuarterly, Mudlark, The Satirist, PANK, Fourteen Hills, the Mom Egg Review, Ping Pong, New World Writing, Mohave River Review, #TheSideshow and others. She received a Pushcart (2018) Special Mention. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Brooklyn Law School and coordinates the tutorial program at the Writers Studio. She lives in Brooklyn with her teenager and her chihuahua. 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. FRUITCAKE is available on July 19, 2022 as a paperback (74 p.; 978-1-956692-23-5) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Lisa Badner   Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino was a 2014 Emerging Writer's Fellow at the Center for Fiction in New York City. He graduated with honors in the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program at Columbia University. He has had work published in Liars' League New York, Akashic - Mondays are Murder, Gargoyle Magazine, Joyland, Slow Trains and Plain Spoke. His chapbook Alphabetica: The Other Side of Love was published by Corgi Snorkel Press.  The stories in The Guide to Being a Dictator’s Mistress are meant to capture a reader’s imagination and take the familiar, and unfamiliar, and provide for an enjoyable reading experience. In the title story and the companion story The Guide to Being a Dictator’s Body Double, characters who are caught in the orbit of those ruling with an iron fist have to find ways to survive. In In Character, a man finds himself in trouble after trying to translate the Batman we all know from the comic books and the movies to real life. And in the last story Alphabetica: The Other Side of Love, the slow disintegration of a marriage is laid bare as a couple comes to the realization that getting married was the easy part. As a range of normal, and somewhat normal, characters navigate familiar worlds, often with a slight twist, the stories aim to engage the full range of human emotion in a thought provoking, and unique, fashion. Grab a copy today.  Lisa Badner is the author of the forthcoming book of poems, FRUITCAKE. Lisa’s writing has appeared in Rattle, the New Ohio Review, TriQuarterly, Mudlark, The Satirist, PANK, Fourteen Hills, the Mom Egg Review, Ping Pong, New World Writing, Mohave River Review, #TheSideshow and others. She received a Pushcart (2018) Special Mention. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Brooklyn Law School and coordinates the tutorial program at the Writers Studio. She lives in Brooklyn with her teenager and her chihuahua.  FRUITCAKE is a collection of poems that follows a persona through various jobs as an Administrative Judge and civil servant, the adoption of her son and her relationship through the years with her parents and in particular, her father, who worked as a macaroon baker. While the subject matter varies throughout the collection, the thread of the narrative voice is wry, humorous and sharp. Grab your copy here. The event is free and you can join by heading over to our EVENTS calendar. Click on the ready to find the Zoom link.
 Over the past year, we've worked with countless skilled and professional narrators to get out backlist, frontlist, and future books turned into audiobooks. We want readers of all ages/stages/abilities to have the opportunity to devour our books. To celebrate the launch of many of our books through Audible, we would like to offer a 30-Day free trial of Audible Premium or Audible Plus Premium. When you sign up, you can listen to up to two free books during the trial. Honestly, there's no better way to get into our books that not having to pay a dime. And if you love what we have to offer, you can stay subscribed and listen to all our books. We're releasing new books every month. Simply click this LINK and sign up to start listening.  PORTLAND, OR; July 12, 2022-- The stories in The Guide to Being a Dictator’s Mistress are meant to capture a reader’s imagination and take the familiar, and unfamiliar, and provide for an enjoyable reading experience. In the title story and the companion story The Guide to Being a Dictator’s Body Double, characters who are caught in the orbit of those ruling with an iron fist have to find ways to survive. In In Character, a man finds himself in trouble after trying to translate the Batman we all know from the comic books and the movies to real life. And in the last story Alphabetica: The Other Side of Love, the slow disintegration of a marriage is laid bare as a couple comes to the realization that getting married was the easy part. As a range of normal, and somewhat normal, characters navigate familiar worlds, often with a slight twist, the stories aim to engage the full range of human emotion in a thought provoking, and unique, fashion.
About Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino was a 2014 Emerging Writer's Fellow at the Center for Fiction in New York City. He graduated with honors in the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program at Columbia University. He has had work published in Liars' League New York, Akashic - Mondays are Murder, Gargoyle Magazine, Joyland, Slow Trains and Plain Spoke. His chapbook Alphabetica: The Other Side of Love was published by Corgi Snorkel Press. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press, based out of Portland, Oregon, strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning and emerging authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. We believe in championing the books of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher, we focus on exceptional writing, not profits. We have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on Twitter and Instagram: @unsolicitedp. The Guide to Being a Dictator's Mistress is available as a paperback (178 p.; 978-1-956692-22-8) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino  Jackson Bliss is the winner of the 2020 Noemi Press Award in Prose and the mixed-race/hapa author of Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments (Noemi Press, 2021), Amnesia of June Bugs (7.13 Books, 2022), and the speculative fiction hypertext, Dukkha, My Love (2017). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, Ploughshares, Guernica, Antioch Review, ZYZZYVA, Longreads, TriQuarterly, Columbia Journal, Kenyon Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Witness, Fiction, Santa Monica Review, Boston Review, Juked, Quarterly West, Arts & Letters, Joyland, Huffington Post UK, The Daily Dot, and Multiethnic Literature in the US, among others. He is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University and lives in LA with his wife and their two fashionably dressed dogs. Follow him on Twitter and IG: @jacksonbliss.
 Andy Smart earned his MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Solstice Creative Writing Program at Lasell University, where he was a Michael Steinberg Fellow. Andy’s essays have appeared in Salamander, Sleet Magazine, and Moon City Review as well the anthologies Show Me All Your Scars (In Fact Books) and Come Shining: Essays and Poems on Writing in a Dark Time (Kelson Books). His poetry has appeared in Lily Poetry Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. Andy was a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee. His first chapbook of hybrid poetry, Blue Horse Suite, is available from Kattywompus Press. This is his first book. Andy lives in Missouri and online at www.AndySmartWrites.com.
 Toby LeBlanc is a mental health therapist in Austin, TX. Writing is a way his own tales can have life alongside the countless stories of courage and strength of his clients. While he and his family sleep under the Texas stars, he will always say he's from Louisiana. He enjoys wearing period-specific pirate costumes and fishing. His dream is to one day do both at the same time.
 This week we are happy to host a reading wit Jason Fisk and Joshua Roark. The reading is held on Zoom at 5:30PM Pac Time. You can access the event on our calendar.  Jason Fisk lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. He has worked in a psychiatric unit, labored in a cabinet factory, and mixed cement for a bricklayer. He currently teaches language arts to eighth graders. He was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, and has spent the last few decades in the Chicago area. He recently had a collection of poetry published by Kelsay Books: Sub Urbane. He also had a number of books and chapbooks published: Sadly Beautiful, essays, poems, and short stories published by Leaf Garden Press; Salt Creek Anthology, a collection of micro-fiction published by Chicago Center for Literature and Photography; the fierce crackle of fragile wings, a collection of poetry published by Six Gallery Press; and two poetry chapbooks: The Sagging: Spirits and Skin, and Decay, both published by Propaganda Press.  In The Craigslist Incident, Edna Barrett takes an advertisement out on Craigslist: I'm an 18-year-old female and I want to take a hit out on myself. Joe Dolsen, a 20-year-old who has suffered from periodic blackouts his whole life, answers the ad. What would bring two people to such ominous points at such young ages, and will they actually go through with it?  Joshua Roark is the author of Put One Hand Up, Lean Back (Unsolicited Press), a chapbook of sonnets recollecting and investigating his experience as a middle school teacher in the Mississippi Delta. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Frontier Poetry, a magazine for new voices in poetry. He and his wife live happily in the desert of Joshua Tree, CA.  Joshua Roark's poetry is crisp and refreshing -- a book of freshly squeezed lemons -- poems that reach out and grab you. Make you laugh. Fill you up. "Buy Your Own Classroom Supplies" Your classroom binder should be big, beefy, yellow maybe, or red, easy for spotting, smudged with something like chocolate, coffee splashed across the pages and set in the rings. Your pens should be sunset colored, show that you mean business, even from your pocket or dry, chapped hands—oh, and don’t forget the bottle of sanitizer. It’ll sit fatlike a trophy at the edge of your desk. Your closet should hold four white button-up shirts, two pairs of heavy polyester pants, black, creased, and a single ink-black clip-on-tie, bought at an army surplus store. Trust me, full length ties are not worth the risk.
 PORTLAND, OR; JUNE 28, 2022--Rook is based on the true story of Al Nussbaum. To his unsuspecting wife, Lolly, Al is a loving, chess playing, family man. To J. Edgar Hoover, he is the most cunning fugitive alive. Al is the mastermind behind a string of east coast robberies that has stumped law enforcement. After his partner, one-eyed Bobby Wilcoxson, kills a bank guard and wounds a New York City patrolman, Al is identified as one of the robbers and lands on top of the FBI’s most wanted list. He is forced to flee his hometown of Buffalo, New York as the FBI closes in and Lolly learns of her husband’s secret life. One million wanted posters are printed and The Reader’s Digest offers a ten-thousand-dollar reward for Al’s capture. While Al assumes another identity and attempts to elude the police, Lolly is left alone to care for their infant daughter and adjust to her new life as ‘The Bank Robber’s Wife’. Friends, family, and federal agents all pressure Lolly to betray Al. While Lolly struggles at home financially, with unrelenting FBI agents, and her conscious, Al and Bobby continue to rob banks, even as Bobby grows more mentally unstable and dangerous. Al has only two goals: avoid capture and steal enough money to start a new life with his family. Returning to gather his wife and baby is suicidal, but as Al said, he’d only stick his neck in the Buffalo noose for Lolly.
About Stephen G. Eoannou Stephen G. Eoannou holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA from Miami University. His short story collection, Muscle Cars, was published by the Santa Fe Writers Project. He has been awarded an Honor Certificate from The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and won the Best Short Screenplay Award at the 36th Starz Denver Film Festival. He lives and writes in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, the setting and inspiration for much of his work. Rook is his first novel. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp ROOK is available on June 28, 2022 as a paperback (298 p.; 978-1-956692-04-4) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Mindbuck Media jess@mindbuckmedia.com  Unsolicited Press is inviting you to a reading and conversation with Francis Daulerio and Kelli Russell Agodon. This virtual event is to celebrate the launch of JOY by Francis Daulerio. Joy is the new full-length collection of poetry by Francis Daulerio, author of If & When We Wake, Please Plant This Book, and With a Difference. Beginning with one pregnancy and ending with another, Joy examines the ways in which we keep ourselves alive, centering around the birth of Daulerio’s first child while coping with the loss of friend and collaborator, Scott Hutchison. With a foreword by acclaimed author Maggie Smith (Good Bones, Keep Moving), and cover art by UK artist Helen Ahpornsiri, this life-affirming collection highlights what Bon Iver’s Sean Carey describes as “Daulerio’s relentless hope and love,” encouraging readers to push through hardships to find their own sense of meaning. The event is on Zoom on 6/23/2022 at 5:30PM Pacific Time. Join the reading by clicking on the event on the calendar: https://www.unsolicitedpress.com/events.html  Francis Daulerio is a poet and teacher from Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University in 2014 before releasing If & When We Wake (Unsolicited Press 2015) and Please Plant This Book (The Head & The Hand Press 2018), both with illustrations by Scottish artist, Scott Hutchison. Francis has also released All Is Not Lost, a collaborative vinyl EP of poetry-infused music to benefit the Tiny Changes charity organization, and With a Difference (Trident Boulder 2020), a split book of ‘covers’ with Philadelphia author Nick Gregorio. Francis is a mental health awareness advocate, and has performed across the United States and abroad to raise money for suicide prevention. He lives in the woods with his wife and children. He finds a good bit of joy there.  Kelli Russell Agodon's (she/her) is the author of four collection of poems, including the award-winning Dialogues with Rising Tides, which was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2021. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press as well as the Co-Director of Poets on the Coast: A Weekend Retreat for Women. Agodon lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional land of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people. She is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. Get Your Copy  PORTLAND, OR; June 21, 2022-- Summer solstice is here and at last we can crack the spine on Joy to celebrate. Joy is the new full-length collection of poetry by Francis Daulerio, author of If & When We Wake, Please Plant This Book, and With a Difference. Beginning with one pregnancy and ending with another, Joy examines the ways in which we keep ourselves alive and hold each other up. It covers the highs and lows of looking for happiness while living with depression and anxiety, frequently settling in the mundanity of normal life, hunting for beauty in the plain and celebrating each bit of it. While the title may suggest a lighthearted read, the book is more about the seeking than the finding, centering around the birth of Daulerio’s first child while coping with the loss of friend and collaborator, Scott Hutchison. Though painful at times, it is a life-affirming book that encourages readers to push through hardships to find their own sense of meaning. Somewhat of a departure from his earlier work, Joy sees Daulerio expanding the short bursts of imagery found in his first books into longer narratives laced with humor and optimism. As Bon Iver’s Sean Carey explains, “Daulerio’s relentless hope and love…is a much needed message in today’s world.” Joy is packed tight with fifty-four poems, some of which have previously appeared in magazines, but most of which are brand new. It also has a foreword by acclaimed author Maggie Smith (Good Bones, Keep Moving), and cover art by UK artist Helen Ahpornsiri. To celebrate the beauty that is embodied in Francis Daulerio's JOY, a book tour across the East Coast is taking place. Francis will be visiting Philadelphia, Boston, and Brooklyn. More can be learned here. PRAISE FOR FRANCIS DAULERIO “If there is a book you need to read because you’ve misplaced your joy over the last few years, this is it. In Joy, despite grief and struggles, Francis Daulerio celebrates what went right—the friend who climbs out through the downstairs window / of my house so not to disturb those gypsy wrens / who built their nest in the Valentine’s wreath on our front door, little white flowers / my wife calls starlight / bloom sideways, birds after rain—Yes! And many! Daulerio is my favorite kind of poet—an engaging storyteller who sees the world with a wink and a sideways smile, who keeps track of the moments we’ve forgotten. How lucky we are he wrote these extraordinary poems to remind us of what we’ve neglected to notice—the bees / sucking life into every clover flower / low enough for the mower blade to spare, tinny music of an ice cream truck, those fat gray clouds. Joy is full of heart and beauty, and is a book I didn’t want to end. And how could I? Daulerio’s poems compassionately bring us to a place where we ask ourselves—How do we become the people we’d love? How do we do better? This book is a gift to all and especially those of us who want to be delighted—this is truly a recommended addition to any bookcase.” ~ Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press 2021) "I often forget that poems can heal, poems can teach, and poems can breathe life into the way you see your world. In these pages, Francis Daulerio’s gratitude and celebration of life is palpable. The only thing to do after sitting with these poems is to go outside and sink your hands into the dirt and feel the earth’s quiet hum. Even while facing grief, fear, uncertainty, Daulerio’s relentless hope and love for his surroundings - his yard, his family, the power of nature - is a much needed message in today’s world." ~ Sean Carey (S. Carey / Bon Iver) "A beautiful collection, bursting with life and detail, which takes you to places old and new and, like the best poetry, teaches you something you didn't know you needed to know.” ~ Frank Turner  About Francis Daulerio Francis Daulerio is a poet and teacher from Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University in 2014 before releasing If & When We Wake (Unsolicited Press 2015) and Please Plant This Book (The Head & The Hand Press 2018), both with illustrations by Scottish artist, Scott Hutchison. Francis has also released All Is Not Lost, a collaborative vinyl EP of poetry-infused music to benefit the Tiny Changes charity organization, and With a Difference (Trident Boulder 2020), a split book of ‘covers’ with Philadelphia author Nick Gregorio. Francis is a mental health awareness advocate, and has performed across the United States and abroad to raise money for suicide prevention. He lives in the woods with his wife and children. He finds a good bit of joy there. About Unsolicited Press
Unsolicited Press, based out of Portland, Oregon, strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning and emerging authors such as Shann Ray, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Brook Bhagat, Kris Amos, and John W. Bateman. We believe in championing the books of the unsung and underrepresented. As a womxn-owned, all-volunteer small publisher, we focus on exceptional writing, not profits. We have the privilege of partnering with authors skirting the fringes of the lit world. Learn more at unsolicitedpress.com. Find us on Twitter and Instagram: @unsolicitedp. JOY is available as a paperback (132 p.; 978-1-956692-21-1) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Francis Daulerio Minnesota Writer Matthew Cole Levine Delivers an Occult Masterpiece the Must Be on Your TBR List6/21/2022
 PORTLAND, OR; June 21, 2022— In the desolate woods of northern Wisconsin, there is a cabin. Inside the cabin is a figure of evil, a witch performing an unknown ritual. There is also a young boy, Ryan Amherst, who is part of this strange ceremony: a pattern of sacrifice and resurrection known only to the residents of the tiny town of Grange.
Nearby in the village, a man named Nathan Amherst - Ryan’s father - meets with a middleman named John Linden. Nathan asks when his side of the “contract” will be fulfilled. John can only assure Nathan that he will be compensated for his troubles. Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, a police officer named Ben Dmitrovich has a tense confrontation with his superiors. After beating a suspect in a domestic violence case, Ben is placed on a mandatory suspension - another in a long line of heinous police scandals. Ben, who is struggling to overcome his own personal demons, decides to retreat to his family’s cabin up north. By coincidence or a morbid twist of fate, he ends up in Grange and meets a woman named Maria Amherst - Nathan’s wife, who apparently died seven months ago. As he unlocks the mystery of Maria’s reappearance, Ben discovers a shocking pattern of child disappearances and strange resurrections. A young piano prodigy named Amy Dorian may be the town’s next victim, but Ben races to rescue her before it’s too late. Hurtling towards a cosmic judgment, Ben has a final shot at redemption or damnation. About Matthew Cole Levine Matthew Cole Levine is an author, film critic, and screenwriter based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and grew up near Milwaukee, making him well-versed in a particular brand of Midwestern horror. He has written for the British Film Institute, Walker Art Center, and other publications, and continues to serve as Assistant Editor and Contributing Writer for the Barcelona-based Found Footage Magazine. Hollow 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. Hollow is available on June 21, 2022 as a paperback (304 p.; 978-1-956692-20-4) 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: Matthew Cole Levine  PORTLAND, OR; June 15, 2022—In The Craigslist Incident, Edna Barrett takes an advertisement out on Craigslist: I’m an 18-year-old female and I want to take a hit out on myself. Joe Dolsen, a 20-year-old who has suffered from periodic blackouts his whole life, answers the ad. What would bring two people to such ominous points at such young ages, and will they actually go through with it?
About Jason Fisk Jason Fisk lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. He has worked in a psychiatric unit, labored in a cabinet factory, and mixed cement for a bricklayer. He currently teaches language arts to eighth graders. He was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, and has spent the last few decades in the Chicago area. He recently had a collection of poetry published by Kelsay Books: Sub Urbane. He also had a number of books and chapbooks published: Sadly Beautiful, essays, poems, and short stories published by Leaf Garden Press; Salt Creek Anthology, a collection of micro-fiction published by Chicago Center for Literature and Photography; the fierce crackle of fragile wings, a collection of poetry published by Six Gallery Press; and two poetry chapbooks: The Sagging: Spirits and Skin, and Decay, both published by Propaganda Press. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp The Craigslist Incident is available on June 15, 2022 as a paperback (218 p.; 978-1-956692-88-4) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com  PORTLAND, OR; June 14, 2022--In this moving, sophisticated, and often humorous novel, Gary M. Almeter artfully crafts a group portrait of several families using the finest of details in seemingly mundane encounters and everyday events.
It’s 1982 and Gloria Winegar, a Brown University librarian, discovers that there aren’t many drawbacks to having an affair with JFK, Jr., a Brown senior. When she learns she’s pregnant with his baby, she tells no one but her best friend who shepherds through childbirth. They leave the baby, a son, on the steps of a convent. The novel chronicles the next few decades of both Gloria and her son, who gets adopted by the most normal family in Massachusetts. How he learns who he is; how he discovers his mother; and what they each should or must do with their new knowledge is masterfully and beautifully written in a story that is a little bit espionage novel; a little bit bildungsroman; and a little bit historical fiction; all culminating in a beautiful literary sketch of a family. The book imagines the pre-public life of JFK Jr. and examines how much we know about him, and people in general, is illusory. It is the story of identity, pedigree, blue collar versus Ivy League sensibilities, celebrity, authenticity, family, and self-care. It’s about how small things evolve into big things. It is a novel about nature versus nurture. It is a modern telling story of Arthurian legend and the mythic doomed (and triumphant) heroes who populate our world. About the Author Gary M. Almeter is a writer and attorney who lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, three children, and two dogs, Dave and Mixly. He is the author of the memoir The Emperor of Ice-Cream (Unsolicited Press 2019). About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp Kissing the Roadkill Back to Life by Gary M. Almeter is available on June 14, 2022 as a paperback (282 p.;978-1-956692-18-1). The book will be distributed to the trade by Ingram. An e-book version is also available and an audiobook is in the works. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other opportunities.  Join us for a literary reading with Jason Graff and Matthew Cole Levine at 5:30 PM Pacific time. The event is virtual and can be joined by clicking on the event via our Events Calendar. About Jason GraffThe author of numerous published short stories as well as the novella In the Service of the Boyar (Strange Fictions Press, 2016), Jason Graff loves both reading and producing writing that has a strong, clear voice and conveys a deep connection to the characters. In high school, his passion for the written word was well and truly ignited when he took a sucker punch for writing his crush a poem. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Bowling Green State University and later, his MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College. The intense nature of that program allowed him to be mentored by a diverse group of talented writers which included: Sarah Schulman, Richard Panek, Darcey Steinke, and Rachel Pollack. Jason currently lives in Richardson, Texas with his wife, son, and their cat. He is currently working on a science fiction novel about the beginning of the end of the universe and another about a romancing con-man. You can follow him on Twitter at @JasonGraff1 , on Facebook at Author Jason Graff and/or visit his website: www.jasongraff.wordpress.com. About Matthew Cole LevineMatthew Cole Levine is an author, film critic, and screenwriter based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and grew up near Milwaukee, making him well-versed in a particular brand of Midwestern horror. He has written for the British Film Institute, Walker Art Center, and other publications, and continues to serve as Assistant Editor and Contributing Writer for the Barcelona-based Found Footage Magazine. Hollow is his first novel.  PORTLAND, OR; June 7, 2022--Glitched collabs from Andrew Brenza and Kristine Snodgrass find a neon outlet in the merging of vispo and digital alteration. This striking book features color-saturated work that enlivens the structural bombast inherent in Snodgrass and Brenza’s stark visual poetry. What is glitched is not superceded nor muted, rather transformed in a true collaborative spirit.
About the Authors Kristine Snodgrass is the author most recently of American Apparell from AlienBuddha Press, Rather, from Contagion Press (2020) and the chapbook, These Burning Fields (Hysterical Books 2019). Kristine’s asemic and vispo work has been published in Utsanga (Italy), Slow Forward, Brave New Word, and Talking About Strawberries. Kristine has collaborated with many poets and artists and is always looking for new projects. Most recent collaborations with Collin J. Rae, BEAST, can be found at kristinesnodgrass.com. Andrew Brenza’s recent chapbooks include Geometric Mantra (above/ground press), Poems in C (Viktlösheten Press), and Waterlight (Simulacrum Press). He is also the author of four collections of visual poetry, Automatic Souls (Timglaset), Gossamer Lid (Trembling Pillow Press), Alphabeticon & Other Poems (RedFoxPress), and Spool (Unsolicited Press). His newest book, Smear, was just released from BlazeVOX Books. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp NEON GALAX by Andrew Brenza and Kristine Snodgrass is available on June 7, 2022 as a paperback (52 p.; 978-1-956692-17-4). Exclusive copies will be made available to the first 100 readers, after which, the book will be distributed to the trade by Ingram. The authors are open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other opportunities. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Andrew Brenza Kristine Snodgrass  Guess what's happening on Wednesday? Our weekly literary reading, that's what! This week our managing editor will be hosting Gary M. Almeter and Matt Daly. The reading is free to attend and open to anyone who loves to hear writers read from their books and talk about their processes. You can join the event at 5:30PM Pacific time via Zoom. The link is on our events calendar.
 PORTLAND, OR; May 31, 2022--The Criteria explores unconventional, and at times highly problematic, motherhood. The characters struggle with impossible choices that often lead to heartbreaking behaviors. In the titular story, the main character takes on the burden of breastfeeding infants whose mothers have fallen in while at the same time struggling with the fate of her own infant. Another story imagines a scenario in which the mother/child bond is prohibited, and drastic measures taken to ensure its prevention. The characters are asked to suffer many tragedies, as well as to embrace hope in the most unlikely places.
Praise for Kami Westhoff Poetic and corporeal, The Criteria is a collection steeped in brutality and resilience. Westhoff’s prose is as deeply unsettling as it is starkly beautiful—these stories are complex, haunting, and lush. --Kimberly King Parsons The Criteria is about the complicated work of caring (and sometimes failing to care)—for mothers, for children, for the planet--and the book is itself an act of care. Kami Westhoff welcomes her reader with generosity into quiet, secret spaces of love, longing, pain and, ultimately, connection. —Ramona Ausubel, author of Awayland and Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty The world of Kami Westhoff’s stories is skewed from ours - more visceral, brutal, harder - but also oddly quieter. That the women and children and men there survive what they do is, I guess, a testament to their resilience. But whatever it is, it’s a warning to us to rein in our easy violence, to try to remember love. --Rebecca Brown, author of You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe About Kami Westhoff Kami Westhoff lives in the Pacific Northwest where she teaches creative writing at Western Washington University. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Sleepwalker, winner of the Minerva Rising Dare to Be Contest; Your Body a Bullet, co-written with Elizabeth Vignali; and Cloud-bound, forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her poetry and prose has been published in journals including Booth, Carve, Hippocampus, Fugue, Passages North, Redivider, Waxwing and West Branch. About Unsolicited Press 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. The Criteria is available on May 31, 2022 as a paperback (180 p.; 978-1-956692-16-7) 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.  PORTLAND, OR; May 26, 2022--Eva Matson was born in 1900 to a rural family in Dorset, England. It was the Victorian age. An age when women needed to use actions to have their voices heard. An age of ancient plumbing, gas lighting, and where unmentionables were never mentioned.
Through wars, through extreme shifts in public attitude, especially towards the roles of women, Eva experienced many changes in society and extreme changes in living conditions. Eva was a somewhat unconventional woman who drove an ambulance at fifteen. She found her calling as a nurse at an early age. It was this open-minded blend of characteristics that would stand her in good stead for her life to come. A life that included, yes, a beauty contest. It was a life filled with questions and unexpected answers. A life of joys and sadness. Of exhilaration and darkness as Eva hit London with all its risks and pitfalls, relationships, disease, and decisions—turning points in her life. Some of which she might have regretted, but some she wouldn't change for the world. This is a story of strength, of bumps in the road, of family with all its foibles, of the values of longevity in friendship, and of deep love. About S.B. Borgersen S.B. Borgersen is a British/Canadian author, of middle England and Hebridean ancestry, whose favoured genres are flash and micro fiction, and poetry. Her books, Fishermen’s Fingers, While the Kettle Boils, and Of Daisies and Dead Violins are published by Unsolicited Press. Since 2000 her writing has won prizes, been mentioned in Hansard and published internationally in literary journals and anthologies (print and online). The list of publications is extensive and can be found at www.sueborgersen.com About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp EVA MATSON is available on May 26, 2022 as an ebook and can be downloaded from all major eboko retailers as well as requested from your local library. Find retailers here: https://books2read.com/u/4ElpDM  On May 25, 2022, we are hosting a wonderful virtual event with authors Elizabeth Vignali and Kami Westhoff. Unsolicited Press has partnered with them as co-authors, and separately for their own collections. Feminist and evocative, this is an evening you will not want to miss. You can login to the event via our events calendar. No RSVP needed.  Elizabeth Vignali is the author of Object Permanence (Finishing Line Press 2015) and Endangered [Animal] (Floating Bridge Press 2019), and coauthor of Your Body A Bullet (Unsolicted Press 2018). Her work has appeared in Willow Springs, Cincinnati Review, Mid-American Review, Tinderbox, The Literary Review, and others. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she works as an optician, coproduces the Bellingham Kitchen Session reading series, and serves as poetry editor of Sweet Tree Review. Her latest book, HOUSE OF THE SILVERFISH, explores the reckoning of inevitable loss on both a personal and global scale, from learning to loosen our hold on children as they grow older to coming to terms with our annihilation of vast swathes of species. The story of an unraveling marriage is interspersed with poems questioning ownership of all kinds—of place, of people, and of time itself.  Kami Westhoff lives in the Pacific Northwest where she teaches creative writing at Western Washington University. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Sleepwalker, winner of the Minerva Rising Dare to Be Contest; Your Body a Bullet, co-written with Elizabeth Vignali; and Cloud-bound, forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her poetry and prose has been published in journals including Booth, Carve, Hippocampus, Fugue, Passages North, Redivider, Waxwing and West Branch. The soon-to-be-published book The Criteria explores unconventional, and at times highly problematic, motherhood. The characters struggle with impossible choices that often lead to heartbreaking behaviors. In the titular story, the main character takes on the burden of breastfeeding infants whose mothers have fallen in while at the same time struggling with the fate of her own infant. Another story imagines a scenario in which the mother/child bond is prohibited, and drastic measures taken to ensure its prevention. The characters are asked to suffer many tragedies, as well as to embrace hope in the most unlikely places. HOUSE OF THE SILVERFISH by Elizabeth Vignali
$20.00
HOUSE OF THE SILVERFISH explores the reckoning of inevitable loss on both a personal and global scale, from learning to loosen our hold on children as they grow older to coming to terms with our annihilation of vast swathes of species. The story of an unraveling marriage is interspersed with poems questioning ownership of all kinds—of place, of people, and of time itself. Book Details Genre: Poetry ISBN: 978-1-950730-73-5 Publication Date: February 28, 2021 Your Body a Bullet by Kami Westhoff and Elizabeth Vignali
$20.00
Mistletoe sinks its tendrils into the oak tree, a cuckoo lays her murderous egg in another mother’s nest, a worm slips into the grasshopper’s gut and convinces it to drown itself. Green leaves unfurl, the warbler feeds her accidental child, and the pond continues to shimmer. From the slick burrow of the snubnosed eel to the human autosite brushing her sister’s teeth, Your Body a Bullet lifts the veil between the ghastly and beautiful relationships of parasites and their hosts. All are given equal measure here, inviting us to face our own extremes and urging us to think about what really drives our behavior. A spider says “I have no questions/about God, just the irrefutable alchemy/of your infant apothecaries.” The female anglerfish “can no longer discern where my body ends/and yours begins.” Where is the line between instinct and decision? What are we willing to do to one another; what are we willing to sacrifice? These poems are an homage to the brutality of survival, the nuances of love, and the exceptional lengths mothers will go to for their children. Details Genre: Poetry ISBN: 978-1-947021-69-3 Publication Date: November 6, 2018 THE CRITERIA by Kami Westhoff
$20.00
The Criteria explores unconventional, and at times highly problematic, motherhood. The characters struggle with impossible choices that often lead to heartbreaking behaviors. In the titular story, the main character takes on the burden of breastfeeding infants whose mothers have fallen in while at the same time struggling with the fate of her own infant. Another story imagines a scenario in which the mother/child bond is prohibited, and drastic measures taken to ensure its prevention. The characters are asked to suffer many tragedies, as well as to embrace hope in the most unlikely places. Book Details Genre: Fiction ISBN:978-1-956692-16-7 Publication Date: 5/31/2022 Unsolicited Press Publishes Pushcart Prize Nominee Emily Paige Wilson’s Poetry Collection Jalubí5/24/2022
 PORTLAND, OR; May 24, 2022—In what ways does lineage resemble language, and are there aspects of both which will always feel untranslatable? With Prague as a backdrop, Jalubí explores this question as it attempts to balance on the fraught fulcrum point of what in the speaker’s family history has been accurately preserved and what has been turned into myth by way of intentional and accidental misrepresentations. Set in the shadow of witches, dragons, and a great-grandmother’s ghost, this collection suggests history itself is a haunting.
Like a persistent spirit, history refuses to cast itself in the sepia-toned filter of nostalgia: it’s instead the gold leaf which gilds theaters in Prague; the glinting burgundy of the city’s garnets fashioned into heirloom earrings; the gray of castles and cathedrals; canola fields fawn and flaxen in a small farming village near the Slovakian border. Amidst the colors and customs of Prague, the speaker shares the struggle of trying to understand and be understood across languages. Translation in these poems is both play and performance, invitation and isolation. Framed in sections which mark various arrivals and departures, the collection posits whether a person can ever truly inhabit a place with any degree of fixedness or whether one’s identity must always remain in flux. Through these arrivals and departures, Jalubí chronicles the search for a family’s small farming village of origin and ultimately becomes a search for the self. As the speaker writes in the collection’s closing lines, “Being one person in this lineage is no more/than being one letter of a language:/written yet unaware of words.” Praise for Emily Paige Wilson In this book a keen ear for sound and a powerful love of language combine to create intelligent, lyrical poems that live vibrantly in the borders between nationalities and relationships where understanding truly happens. The result is a lively, rich and deeply felt debut of arrivals and departures that honor Wilson’s family and heritage, as well as language itself. I am duly impressed. —Mark Cox, Author of Readiness and Sorrow Bread, New and Selected Poems: 1984-2015 What is translation? Wilson would answer: alchemy, a snare, to have and halve, or “the space the rain takes as it falls.” Here, language is scrutinized against a blue light. Every facet is up for examination in Jalubí—linguistics, sound, ancestry—and the turning and layering is part method, part spell. This book is a vessel—Wilson, a force of wind. These poems will put a river in your mouth. —Leah Poole Osowski, Author of Hover Over Her and Exceeds Us About Emily Paige Wilson Emily Paige Wilson is the author of Jalubí (Unsolicited Press, 2022) and two chapbooks: Hypochondria, Least Powerful of the Greek Gods (Glass Poetry Press, 2020) and I'll Build Us a Home (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. The publisher can be followed on Instagram and Twitter: @unsolicitedp Jalubí is available on May 24, 2022 as a paperback (104 p.; 978-1-956692-15-0) 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. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Emily Paige Wilson epw7427@gmail.com |
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