RJ McDaniel: All Things Seen and Unseen
RJ McDaniel’s novel is an incisive reflection on identity and wealth, and a refreshing racial queer story of survival.
Erin McGregor: What Fills Your House Like Smoke
E. McGregor combines the lore of family history with personal memory, vividly parsing patterns of inheritance, particularly through the maternal line.
Yilin Wang: The Lantern and the Night Moths
The Lantern and the Night Moths is Yilin Wang’s love letter to modern and classical Chinese poetry, the art of literary translation, and Sino diaspora communities.
Li Charmaine Anne: Crash Landing
This YA debut is a searing ode to queer identity, growing up in an immigrant community, and carving a place for yourself in the world with the help of your friends.
Leanne Dunic: Wet
In photographs and language shot through with empathy and desire, Wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe.
Kara Stanley: The Pain Project
The Pain Project is a beautiful, humane, thoughtful inquiry into the challenge of living with chronic pain and how Stanley and her husband navigate its impact on their lives.
Robyn Braun: The Head
Robyn Braun’s novella is a surreal and penetrating tale of academia, work life and surviving trauma.
Margaret Nowaczyk: Marrow Memory
This is a story of constant effort, of growth, of tragedy and of triumph, and most of all, of the importance of openness.
Brent van Staalduinen: Unthinkable
Brent van Staalduinen’s Unthinkable is a well-paced action/thriller and a tense tour of the apocalypse-in-progress.
Kevin Spenst: A Bouquet Brought Back from Space
Through multiple locales, languages, and spiritualities, A Bouquet Brought Back from Space both subverts and sublimates traditions of religious poetry, love poetry, and song.