October Is Booked: Find Unsolicited Press Authors Out in the Wild
October is doing what October does best: filling the calendar, making us leave the house, and giving us excuses to buy another book. Unsolicited Press authors are reading, teaching, talking, signing books, appearing at festivals all month long. From Portland to San Francisco, Michigan to New York, our writers are showing up in bookstores, libraries, workshops, festivals, and literary spaces across the country.
If you are near one of them, go. Independent literary events survive because people decide to leave the couch, walk through the door, buy the book, and sit in the room together. Here is where you can find us in October.
October 3 | Christy Prahl at Glendora Bookshop
Buchanan, Michigan | 4–5 p.m.
Christy Prahl heads to Glendora Bookshop to share from Catalog of Labors, her new poetry collection from Unsolicited Press. Prahl's work examines labor, memory, family, place, and the systems that shape ordinary lives. This is a chance to hear the collection where poetry is supposed to live: aloud, in a bookstore, surrounded by readers.
October 4 | Unsolicited Press at Litquake's Small Press Book Fair
Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco | 11 a.m.–4 p.m.
Many of our authors are heading to San Francisco. Our beloved Bay Area cohort will be among the mamy wonderful authors at Litquake's Small Press Book Fair! The fair is free, with a suggested donation to Litquake.
October 8 | Elisa Carlsen, Frances Badalamenti, Amy Baskin, & Summer Stewart at Up Up Books
Portland, Oregon | 7–8 p.m.
On Thursday, October 8 at 7 PM at Up Up Books, Summer Stewart, Elisa Carlsen, and Amy Baskin join moderator Frances Badalamenti for a conversation inspired by MOTHER! about care, identity, gender, obligation, creativity, and the many ways we mother people, projects, communities, families, and ourselves.
October 8 | Aileen Keown Vaux + Laura Read at Annie Bloom's Books
Portland, Oregon | 7–8 p.m.
Yes, October 8 is apparently trying to make Portland choose sides! If you’re on the west side, pop into Annie Bloom’s! Aileen Keown Vaux joins Laura Read for a night of poetry and new work. Vaux will read from Sad Man Happy Hour, their new Unsolicited Press collection rooted in the Pacific Northwest.
The book takes on queer alienation, memory, disaster, county fairs, true crime television, COVID, landscape, and the strange business of continuing to be alive through all of it. It is funny where it should not be, tender without becoming precious, and interested in the Northwest as a real place rather than a postcard.
October 10 | Yvonne Osborne at Charlin's Book Nook
Frankenmuth, Michigan | 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
Yvonne Osborne will be signing books and meeting readers at Charlin's Book Nook, including copies of her Unsolicited Press novel Black River. If you are in Michigan, this is an excellent reason to meet the person behind the book, talk writing, and support an indie bookstore all at the same time.
October 17 | Amy Shimshon-Santo at No Fest Poetry Marathon
Los Angeles, California
Amy Shimshon-Santo joins the No Fest Poetry Marathon Fundraiser at Beyond Baroque in Los Angeles, appearing during the afternoon's Honoring Ancestors & Lineage segment. The marathon brings poets together across traditions, generations, and communities for an extended celebration of poetry and the literary spaces that keep it alive.
October 17 | Lara Lillibridge at Literary Cleveland's Memoir Mixer
University Heights, Ohio | 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Lara Lillibridge will be one of the featured instructors at Literary Cleveland's Memoir Mixer at John Carroll University. Lillibridge, whose Hysterical Harlot is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press, has built much of her career around memoir, creative nonfiction, and the work of turning lived experience into literature. The day includes craft instruction, conversation, and community for memoir writers at multiple stages of the process. She is also teaching Literary Cleveland memoir and creative nonfiction classes throughout October, so Ohio writers have several chances to work with her this month.
October 18 | Marianne Villanueva at the Filipino American International Book Festival
San Francisco, California
Marianne Villanueva appears at the Filipino American International Book Festival at the San Francisco Public Library, including an afternoon panel and the INKSTORM reading. The festival brings together Filipino and Filipino American writers, readers, artists, and publishers for conversations about literature, identity, history, migration, and storytelling.
October 22–24 | Jill McCabe Johnson at the Skagit River Poetry Festival
La Conner, Washington
Jill McCabe Johnson joins the Skagit River Poetry Festival for several days of readings, panels, workshops, and poetry. Johnson's memoir Learning to Spar is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press, and this festival offers Pacific Northwest readers a chance to encounter her work in conversation with a larger community of poets and writers.
October 24 | John J. Trause at the BEST of BREVITAS Festival
New York City | 12–3 p.m.
John J. Trause joins the 23rd Annual BEST of BREVITAS Festival of the Short Poem at the Bowery Poetry Club. Trause is the author of The Box of Torrone, published by Unsolicited Press, and will be part of an afternoon devoted to the short poem and the writers who keep finding new things to do inside very small spaces.
October 26 | Julie Akins at Bloomsbury Books
Ashland, Oregon | 7–8 p.m.
Julie Akins comes to Bloomsbury Books in Ashland to discuss Bone Deep: Love and Survival in a Broken Healthcare System. The book follows Akins through an extraordinary collision of caregiving, illness, public responsibility, medical uncertainty, and survival after her husband suffers a devastating stroke and her own health begins to fail.
