Joanna Acevedo 196 pages Flexible Press (2021)
Read this if you like: Jennifer Wortman, Susan Minot, Alice Munroe
tl;dr summary: Glimpses in the lives of thirteen people who are all very bad at love each in their own unique way.
Matthew Cheney 270 pages Third Man Books (2023)
tl;dr summary: Genre-spanning and blurring collection that is a study in crafting voice and balancing realism against absurdity.
Read this if you like: Juan Villoro, David Foster Wallace, literary horror
Christine Stroud 58 pages Disorder Press (2017)
Read this if you like: hybrid stories, fragmented narratives, grief and loss narratives
tl;dr summary: Twin grieves and remembers her sister in the aftermath of her suicide
See the book on Disorder Press’ website
Jason DeYoung 44 pages The Cupboard Pamphlet (Volume 42, 2020)
Read this if you like: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Carmen Maria Machado, character-driven apocalyptic horror
tl;dr summary: Three people survive together during a quiet apocalypse
See the book on The Cupboard’s website
Brandon O’Brien 64 pages Interstellar Flight Press (2021)
Tl;dr summary: Eldritch horror meets pop culture meets Blackness meets black humor, all mixed together and with line breaks
Read this if you like: Elwin Cotman, speculative poetry, hip hop culture
Corey McCullough 326 pages 2018 (Self-published)
Read this if you like: The Chronicles of Narnia, Dragonlance, Wheel of Time
tl;dr summary: Western PA teenager is pulled into a magical alternate dimension in a good-vs-evil-quest meets coming-of-age adventure.
V. Castro 141 pages Creature Publishing (2021)
Tl;dr summary: Teenage girl gets possessed by sin-eating Aztec goddess
Read this if you like: Mesoamerican mythology, folk tales and fairy tales, spiritual horror
Toshikazu Kawaguchi 272 pages Hanover Square Press (2019)
Tl;dr summary: Intersecting stories of the employees and patrons of a café with a time travel seat.
Read this if you like: Haruki Murakami, Twin Peaks, magical realism
Elwin Cotman 89 pages Nomadic Press (2023)
Read this if you like: mythic fantasy, punk poetry, Haruki Murakami tl;dr summary: Combination poetry collection and story about a galaxy-traveling wizard
Virginia Woolf 329 pages Mariner Books (1928)
Read this if you like: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, magical realism, literary satire
tl;dr summary: 16th-century aristocratic English teenager grows up into a 19th-century British woman and has many adventures along the way.
