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.  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.  “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.  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.  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.  PORTLAND, OR; October 31, 2022-- The Paper Boy & The Winter War is an intimate collection of short stories that carries the reader through childhood tragedy and into the unexpected self-reflection of an alcoholic. The characters in these thirty-two stories struggle with loss, love and addiction. In Penny Candy, Simon is an ordinary boy whose family suffers a terrible tragedy. Their grief is palpable under the spectral menace of the tallboy. In Clean Meat, something as mundane as a cow transforms an evocative, gothic village. The locals play off each other in an attempt to decide the bovine's fate. The Last Defender hews the not so subtle economic divide in our culture, reflecting on two lives that merge in a singular tragic moment. In Direct TV, a father receives a satellite signal in his head. The signal floods his brain with the contents of whatever channel his family decides and his wife and daughter end up using him and his newfound knowledge. Slum Flower follows the journey of a young nurse from employment, to living under a bridge. Her attempts to get clean and return to a normal life—however shaky—are both genuine and tenuous. Through each story’s intimate journey, the characters in The Paper Boy & Winter War divulge specific truths about what it means to suffer loss, and how these losses affect one's relationship with themselves.
About R.E. Hengsterman R.E. HENGSTERMAN is a former emergency room nurse. Born in Virginia and raised in New York, he holds masters' degrees from Appalachian State University and the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he took up short story writing. He currently lives in North Carolina with the family and occasionally wears pants. Visit www.rehengsterman.com or @robhengsterman for more. 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 Paper Boy & The Winter War is available as a paperback (204 p.; 978-1-956692-37-2) 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: R.E. Hengsterman  PORTLAND, OR; October 11, 2022 -- Next year, 2023, will mark the half century of the first 9/11; an event that shocked the world and ended with the thousand-days of Allende's autochthon peaceful Chilean way to socialism, “and turned my world upside down forever,” Torres recalls. Looking back into his memories, the author continues: “In a few months the dreams of a more just society were smashed into bloody pieces ... The dreams were shattered but not destroyed … an underground Resistance Movement spread throughout the country spearheaded mostly by women, relatives of the prisoners and of those who disappeared. One year after my first 9/11, I re-joined the Revolutionary Student Front … ”
Walks Through Memories of Oblivion is a collection of short stories and essays about resistance, prison, and exile; a creative nonfiction narrative based on true events. This is a debut book by Fernando Andres Torres, who at 18 y-o was a political prisoner during the military regime that, with the help of the United States, overthrew democracy and established a brutal civic-military dictatorship (1973-90) in Chile. Praise for Fernando Andres Torres “... delicious piece of satire, rich with symbolism and pathos.” Vimbai Shire Beyond White Space Ltd. “Fernando Torres makes the past present in powerful stories of political repression, unfathomable cruelty, and transcendent solidarity. The filtered light of memory illuminates with deep reflection in Walks Through Memories of Oblivion. Written against the vast burials of history in human terms, this book insists on exhuming what rarely emerges from the routine of lying silence. No history of Chile -- or of the world as a whole -- can be anywhere near complete without the truths that Torres intensely reveals in these pages.” Norman Solomon Journalist Executive Director, IPA Institute for Public Accuracy Washington DC “...powerful. Moving... has depth... it is important. Must not be forgotten. The scenes give me a taste, make me want to know more about each of these guys and what they went through, make me want hear them talk and joke around the table. The contrast between their pasts, which is always there, and their present conversations is very poignant. They reinforce each other … you have a SPECIAL book.” Daniel Rudman Playwright Berkeley, Ca. About Fernando Andres Torres Fernando Andres Torres is a short-story writer, poet, musician and a freelance journalist currently contributing in English and Spanish to various San Francisco Bay Area media, including La Opinión de La Bahía, San Francisco Bay Guardian, El Tecolote, La Voz de Richmond, El Reportero, and Radio Bilingue. He is volunteer associate editor and U.S. correspondent for the web magazine Dilemas, and editor of the blog LatinOpen.wordpress.com. Under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Torres joined the Chilean resistance and in 1975 he was arrested by the regime’s secret police. While imprisoned, he recited poetry and hand-wrote messages with quotes about optimism and hope to pass among fellow prisoners. After being expelled from Chile and exiled in 1977, Torres continued to write poetry and short stories. His first book of poetry, co-authored with Victoria Miranda; On the Edges of a Countryless Weariness, was published under his pseudonym Camilo Feñini by Ism Press in 1986. Some of Torres fiction and non-fiction stories have been published in many magazines including ME: Multicultural Echoes, the magazine of the Department of International Languages, Literatures and Cultures of Chico's California State University. Torres has also been awarded fellowships by the New America Media in San Francisco. In 2018 his story Head Stew was selected as The Best New Writing 2018 by Hopewell Publications. In 2019, Scenes of Exile, a story based on Torres' exile, was published by The Bare Life Review Magazine, a journal of Immigrant and Refugees Literature. Other literary works by Mr. Torres have been published by Somos en Escrito Weebly; by Nobrow Fiction (2020); and by Lonely Cryptid Media (2020). Currently he is a member of the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.org, and of the review panel of The Intrepid News Fund. As a composer and musician, Torres was a founding member of Latin American music ensemble Grupo Raiz, and have collaborated with many international musicians such as David Byrne, and shared the stage with American jewels like Pete Seeger and Holly Near. 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. WALKS THROUGH MEMORIES OF OBLIVION is available on October 11, 2022, as a paperback (172 p.; 978-1-956692-35-8) 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; September 27, 2022-- The Year of the Monster explores American culture as commodity and comorbidity. From black holes and animal extinctions to death row trauma porn and the redacted scripts of Hollywood abuses: these sixteen stories subvert traditional notions of justice, challenge vulnerable characters to survive in transgressive spaces. Mixing traditional prose with screenplay and script-hybrid, and certainly not without hope, The Year of the Monster encourages close examination of how American media and our complicity in its marriage of violence and culture perpetuate the human and environmental crises.
Praise for Tara Stillions Whitehead “If you mix a cocktail of Octavia Butler, Mary Robison, and early Jayne Anne Phillips, you might get something approaching Tara Stillions Whitehead’s style. Yet her style is highly original and all her own: shape-shifting and subtle. Her language packs real power. The stories in The Year of the Monster deal with love and unlove, math and physics, deception, truth, and loss – – both personal and cultural. As they navigate life’s obstacles – both spiritual and societal -- her characters show resilience and stamina even when darkness looms. “God and Laundry” is one of the best short stories I’ve read in years. But read them all, every story – from cover to cover. The entire collection sparkles.” —Larry Fondation, Martyrs and Holymen “With a deftness and economy of language that calls to mind Etgar Keret, and a tender veil of grit and glamor reminiscent of the late Eve Babitz, Tara Stillions Whitehead’s The Year of the Monster is cinematic, and captivating. In sixteen stories, ranging from a jarring back-and-forth between movie execs, and an intimate, sultry portrayal of a community ripped apart and renewed by a tornado, Stillions Whitehead’s writing demonstrates an unending capacity for humanity, the kind that is necessary right now. It has to be said: The Year of the Monster is officially required reading.” —Shannon Wolf, Green Card Girl "The stories in The Year of the Monster are tender, truthful, fiery and finely wrought. Tara Stillions Whitehead has built a collection that leaves little doubt as to her range and mastery as a storyteller. This book could be studied at the level of language alone as her sentences are both elegant and exacting. The people who inhabit these stories have been through some things and there are no easy answers, but let this book serve as a short course in self-acceptance, grit, honesty, and survival. I'm in awe of Whitehead's intelligence and heart, fully on display in these pages. I know she has many more books ahead of her. I can't wait to read every one of them." —Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works “Not all black holes are the size of suns or weigh as much as a galaxy” writes Tara Stillions Whitehead in the title story of her potent, hypnotic hybrid collection The Year of The Monster, “Some are small, microscopic, atomic-sized holes.” Freckle-sized black hole on the inner thigh, deleted scene, trauma, alienation, addiction, grief–such invisible centers of gravity litter the landscapes of these stories, drawing their narrators toward transgressions and obliterations, to which they are simultaneously attracted and repelled. But they, and we, are repelled even more forcefully by the casual brutality of Hollywood plotlines, American dreams, the casualties of apocalypse and empire. In language of glitter and grit, paralyzing twilights, and prismatic undertows, Stillions Whitehead resists resolution, expanding the narrative universe, defying both genre and gravity. What survives a black hole? The answer isn’t an end but an action: just turn the page and surrender to the irresistible pull of the next utterly absorbing story.” —Erin Rodini, And if the Woods Carry You “The Year of the Monster by Tara Stillions Whitehead is a must read! Stillions Whitehead writes with beautiful, razor-sharp language about the lingering darkness shadowed by the glitz of Hollywood. Whitehead takes us beyond the spotlights, the gossip, and the fandom to capture photographically and emotionally the people behind the scenes. In this vision of Los Angeles, we see the dreamers, the schemers, and the day workers who are fighting for their lives. The prose is fierce with each line an escalation, and an opportunity to see the world washed in sepia tones given a full-color blush on the big screen. Stillions Whitehead is a star, and this book shines brilliantly due to her ability to put the reader into odd, but meaningful moments of suspension as we're caught up in the lives of these unique characters. These stories will break you into pieces, and then soothe you back together. A Triumph.” —Tommy Dean, Hollows About Tara Stillions Whitehead Tara Stillions Whitehead is a filmmaker and multi-genre writer living in Central Pennsylvania. Graduate of University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television Production and San Diego State University’s Creative Writing MFA Program, her writing and films work to subvert the toxic cultural narratives endorsed by popular media and the institutions that profit from stigmatizing and disadvantaging marginalized and historically oppressed groups. Her writing was included in the 2021 Wigleaf Top 50 and has been nominated for various awards, including Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, AWP Intro Journal Awards, and the Pushcart Prize. A former DGA assistant director for television, she is currently Assistant Professor of Film, Video, and Digital Media Production at Messiah University, where she serves as production faculty for narrative filmmaking. Her hybrid chapbook/concept album, Blood Histories, was published by Galileo Press in 2021. 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 Year of the Monster is available on September 27, 2022 as a paperback (202 p.; 978-1-956692-33-4) 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: Tara Stillions Whitehead  PORTLAND, OR; September 20, 2022--“I Still Go to Bed with Water” sets its readers loose and untended, like the wild critters from a menagerie of collected memories. One day cooped up, the next fending for themselves in oddness. But oddness and strange intimacy is the resting temperature of this collection. Each poem is a type of pit stop – from childhood solitude to foreign corners and over to heartbreak – where we glimpse from the road what once was and how it becomes something entirely different in the rearview. Embracing humor and gratitude – and even Burt Lancaster – the language here is at turns cryptic, precise, sometimes German, and other times nodding to the flowers of the Romantics. “I Still Go to Bed with Water” is an ode to the resounding perfection of imperfect memory.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR MELANIE SEVCENKO “Melanie Sevcenko is a luminous poet. Her work is deft and revealing, gorgeous with texture. I Still Go To Bed With Water is deeply moving, both tender and dark, soft as silk and jagged as broken glass.”--Victoria Gosling, author of Before the Ruins ABOUT MELANIE SEVCENKO Melanie Sevcenko is a poet, radio producer, and recovering bohemian. She moved to Portland, Oregon by way of Berlin, Germany, where she lived for almost a decade and hustled as a film critic and reporter for various outlets. Her poems have appeared in Permafrost Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Verse Daily, Black Heart Magazine, apt, The Fourth River, and more. She is quite proud of the title of her poetry chapbook, We Slept in Body Bags, Just in Case, which was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press. She’s also an Irish and Canadian citizen and is probably a distant relative of Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko. These days, Melanie works in public radio and podcasting and has contributed to NPR, The Guardian, and Marketplace, amongst others. In her off-time, she can be found lighting bonfires in backyards or buried under her 16-pound orange tabby. 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 STILL GO TO BED WITH WATER is available on September 20, 2022 as a paperback (130 p.; 978-1-956692-32-7), e-book, and audiobook. Retailers and libraries can order copies through Ingram.  PORTLAND, OR; September 6, 2022-- Scapegoat, by T.K. Lee, is his second collection of poetry, and in it, Lee continues deepening his artistic voice by centering the same unnamed narrator, introduced in his first collection, in more intimate and recognizable moments of vulnerability: Having Love and Having Loved. Far from what one might call love poetry, Lee effectively teases out the traditional tropes in this second collection, branching into experimental forms, at times. Yet, even in his playful and innovative approaches, he doesn’t allow his subject to grow maudlin or overly sentimental, The poems in Scapegoat thematically ebb and flow, catching and releasing the reader along with the narrator, as he struggles to learn the hardest truth of natural law: That to fully live, one must finally leave…whether that may mean a job, a home, or a marriage. Which he does, in each case, and fails, each time, and like the prodigal son, he gives in and returns to his childhood home, resigned at last to wait it out, until something becomes familiar again. But Fate is waiting for him there, to make sure he doesn’t miss the bigger lesson: That giving in is not the same as giving up.
About T.K. LEE T.K. LEE is an award-winning member of the Dramatists Guild of America, the Society for Stage Directors and Choreographers, and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, among others. In addition to poetry and drama, he has also crafted prize-winning short fiction and is core faculty in the nationally ranked MFA programs in Creative Writing as well as in Theatre Education, at the historic Mississippi University for Women, the nation’s first public academic institution for women, in Columbus, Mississippi. 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. Scapegoat is available on September 6, 2022 as a paperback (98p.; 978-1-956692-29-7) 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: T.K. Lee  If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Off the top of my head, Rainier Maria Rilke. He’s one of my favorite poets of all time, though I’m certainly aware of how strange this could get… maybe he’d offer advice to the tune of “Letters to a Young Poet”... but more likely I could practice my German and blow his mind with Impossible (fake meat) schnitzel. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Hanif Abdurraqib is certainly up there on my list. A poet, essayist and cultural critic, his latest book “A Little Devil in America: Notes on Black Performance” took my breath away. It’s crushingly fervent, poignant, and essential. I think his prose is the closest anyone has ever gotten to conveying how it feels to live inside a movement or a song. What books are on your nightstand? I’ve got Adrienne Rich’s “The Dream of a Common Language,” TV writer Michael Schur’s book “How to Be Perfect,” which is basically a humorous and rudimentary guide to moral philosophy, and my e-reader is open to Joan Didion’s essay “Where the Kissing Never Stops” about Joan Biaz. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? From my memory I likely read all the books that were assigned, but I do remember skimming the whole way through “The Great Gatsby.” I felt it had little to do with what I was interested in or how I viewed life and the world around me at that time. And this line: “The more in tune with the times we were, the more we drank, and none of us contributed anything new” is brilliant, but I think is only found in that awful Baz Luhrmann remake. Go figure. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? Office supplies of all kinds. Or maybe the wine section at the Grocery Outlet. Does writing energize or exhaust you? It certainly does both. Similar to exercise, there’s the initial dread and exhaustion, just coming to terms with starting the process. But once you get going, and drain the muck from the taps, it feels incredibly rewarding to create something, no matter the volume… then onto the fun stuff, like getting out of your head and being with people. What is your writing Kryptonite? True crime podcasts and streaming content. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? I think I live in block form… and then only sometimes do I melt a little and the goods run off and onto the page. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I suppose my first trip to Europe, solo, as a 24-year-old. I farmed in the Pyrenees, connected with relatives I’d never met before in Ireland, and eventually found my home in Berlin. I’m still mining those experiences for my writing. What does literary success look like to you? Not having to work a day job; acquiring a large stone house somewhere on the Mediterranean and hosting a writing residency for people of all backgrounds; cooking together and sipping wine in the heat of summer nights; thinking, sketching, scribbling into the next day.  PORTLAND, OR; August 30, 2022--A memoir in verse, Elisabeth Blair’s because God loves the wasp documents two and a half years she spent living in two abusive facilities for “troubled teens” during the late 1990s. The wilderness camp and emotional growth boarding school were modeled on the teachings and tenets of Synanon, a mid-20th-century cult.
Alternating between painful clarity and surreal metaphor, the poems grapple with the shock and disorientation of being taken away in the middle of the night by strangers; the bewilderment of navigating expectations in an environment of institutionalized bullying, shunning, and sleep deprivation; and the gravity of the adulthood that follows. Writing in the second person, Blair confronts the reader, withholding the potential relief of distance. Ripping through a patchwork of disturbing descriptions—of violent staff, isolated and terrified children, and decades of brutal nightmares—she cradles her fierce testimony in sonorous language and striking imagery. The book’s tight corralling of traumas takes aim at the notion that inducing fear, despair, and shipwrecked helplessness can rehabilitate a child—the catastrophic doctrine of “tough love.” Praise for Elisabeth Blair Elisabeth Blair writes as a survivor of a sadistic and dehumanizing facility for “troubled teens”—or perhaps the word is “camp.” It certainly reminds us of the other, more famous camps, gulags, and re-education centers we’re aware of. Because Blair is also a brilliant poet, she can take us into the perceptions of the shattered person or, in this case, child. The child understands only the contours of coercion: “the storm wants specific things.” In fact, she no longer identifies as human, and, at times, that seems like a good thing: “You tell them you’re a slice of grass where a shadow falls—/your greens seem burnt/but they’re not.//They don’t believe you.” Blair’s language is barbed, destabilizing, and very much alive. This is an important book. -- RAE ARMANTROUT About Elisabeth Blair Elisabeth Blair is a Montréal-based poet and editor with an extensive background in music and visual art. She has been artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Wildacres, and ACRE. Her publications include two chapbooks--We He She/It (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) and without saying (Ethel Press, 2020)—and poems in a variety of journals, including Harpur Palate, Feminist Studies, and Juked. This is her first book. 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. because God loves the wasp is available on August 30, 2022 as a paperback (78 p.; 978-1-956692-28-0) 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: Elisabeth Blair Powerhouse Memoirist Andy Smart’s THE MORE YOU HATE, a Memoir-in-Essay Collection is Now Available8/16/2022
 PORTLAND, OR; August 16, 2022--THE MORE YOU HATE ME by Andy Smart is a memoir-in-essays collection that examines the author’s experience with his father’s suicide and the layered influence of the film Full Metal Jacket on both men. As Smart navigates the worlds of his past, present, and future, Kubrick's Vietnam war movie casts its long shadow over him; his is a story of what it means to live each day as a sequel to the last. This isn’t just a suicide memoir or a survivor’s victory lap, but a book about the hardest truths of being a son.
PRAISE FOR ANDY SMART “Family violence is the subject of many memoirs but I’ve not seen a book examine the nuance and indeterminacy of gun culture as it slips between the walls of the house next door. Smart’s narrative unfolds against the back drops of Hollywood and the NRA—America’s twin churches—where death is advertised in bright colors. At home the darkness streams down. This is a must read. I’ll wager you can’t put it down.” —Stephen Kuusisto author of Planet of the Blind About Andy Smart 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. 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 More You Hate Me is available on August 16, 2022 as a paperback (244 p.; 978-1-956692-27-3) 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: Andy Smart  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 |
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