The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs
Beth Ann Fennelly
From W. W. Norton: “A new, genre–defying volume that explores family, marriage, motherhood, place, and coming of age with singular wit and emotional clarity… Fennelly explores her roles as a friend, wife, mother, and daughter, documenting a brush with an old flame or the devastating death of her sister in crystalline, precise sentences… Fennelly invites readers to share her affirming worldview—one in which even our smallest interactions are rife with possibility.”
Where the Wildflowers Grow
Terah Shelton Harris
From Sourcebooks Landmark: “From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption, asking readers to question what it means to stop surviving and start living… Leigh finds peace with the hard pace and soft nature of the farm, taking comfort in the life blooming around her. Maybe she’s not beyond redemption, not too broken for something good. And maybe, just maybe, Leigh starts to heal.”
Kin
Tayari Jones
From Knopf: “A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South…Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.”
Make Your Way Home: Stories
Carrie R. Moore
From Tin House Books: “In eleven stories that span Florida marshes, North Carolina mountains, and Southern metropolitan cities, Make Your Way Home follows Black men and women who grapple with the homes that have eluded them….Artfully and precisely drawn, and steeped in place and history as it explores themes of belonging, inheritance, and deep intimacy, Carrie R. Moore’s debut collection announces an extraordinary new talent in American fiction, inviting us all to examine how the past shapes our present—and how our present choices will echo for years to come.”
black frag/ments: poems
Lolita Stewart-White
From Hub City Press: “Lolita Stewart-White’s black frag/ments is a breathtaking series of narrative-lyric poems about the fragmentation of the Black body, family, and community facilitated by the historic and ongoing racism in the U.S. healthcare system. After her husband’s cancer diagnosis, Stewart-White finds herself haunted by the trauma Black Americans continue to face in medical settings. These poems, both brazen and tenderhearted, explore enduring love in the face of grief and hardship while drawing parallels to past injustices. Stewart-White expertly weaves ancestral and present voices together, resulting in an intergenerational archive that centers one family’s challenging journey in a broader context of how black people protest, repair, and revive.”
That’s How It Works: Thirty Years of Fiction from Hub City Press
Edited by Katherine Webb-Hehn
From Hub City: “That’s How It Works is a vibrant collection of fiction from Hub City Press’s first thirty years, showcasing the incredible talent nurtured by this community-driven literary press. Featuring contributions from Hub City Press authors, staff, and friends, the collection spans an impressive range of voices, styles, and stories. Set across the South and nation, they share a yearning for communication and connection. Edited by Katherine Webb-Hehn, with an introduction by Hub City Press Publisher Meg Reid.”