Rio Cortez’s forthcoming debut poetry collection GOLDEN AX received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer praises: “Cortez maps untrodden historical and speculative terrain in poems of stunning breadth and intimacy in this exquisite debut…Unflinching and generous, this bold collection opens new vistas in contemporary Black poetry.” The collection also received a stunning blurb from AIN'T BURNED ALL THE BRIGHT author Jason Reynolds, which reads: “GOLDEN AX is a mirror maze where every poem elongates or widens the reader. Though Cortez leads us through a personal journey that embodies the distortion of the archived and the imagined, I couldn't help but feel at the end of it that I'd been in congress with some of my own lesser-recognized selves. I've never read anything like it. Truly a sublime experience.” Penguin Books will publish GOLDEN AX on August 30, 2022.

THE PINK HOTEL, Liska Jacobs’s forthcoming third novel, received a positive review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer praises the book as “amusing” with a “chaotic climax [that] is something to behold,” adding: “Readers…will be easily carried along by the rollicking madcap sensibility.” MCD will publish the book on July 19, 2022.

Nada Alic’s debut short story collection BAD THOUGHTS earned strong praise in a review from Publishers Weekly. They write: “In Alic’s candid and humorous debut collection, women explore their darkest thoughts and fears…As the characters wrestle with what’s missing from their lives, the author finds mordant hilarity. The more Alic leans into the weirdness, the more addictive this becomes.” Vintage will publish the book on July 12, 2022.

Kim Kelly’s new book, FIGHT LIKE HELL, is enjoying a whirlwind of positive press following its publication. Kelly sat down with Vogue to discuss the book, which interviewer Emma Specter refers to as “a timely ode to the labor movement” that "carefully situates the current resurgence of union power within its historical context...with depth and nuance.” The book received generous praise in a review from Publishers Weekly: “Journalist and union organizer Kelly debuts with a rousing look at the contributions of marginalized groups to the U.S. labor movement…Shedding new light on key players and episodes within a diverse range of industries—from textile and trucking to sex work—this invigorating labor history is also a powerful call for today’s workers to fight for their rights.” Meanwhile, The Washington Monthly notes its success in addressing issues on the macro level (“call[ing] out the hypocrisy of advertising the availability of the American Dream as available to all then denying some people the opportunity to work”) and the micro level (“an inspired instruction manual for labor organizers”), while a starred review from Library Journal declares that “this accessible, inspiring, and instructive read belongs in school libraries, in university classrooms, and in general readers’ hands for its lessons about workers’ united power and the unfinished business of workplace justice.” The book has been featured as a must-read title by The Philadelphia Inquirer, PW Daily, CNN, The New York Times, Bustle, Thrillist, and more, and excerpts have appeared in The Washington Post, Engadget, and Teen Vogue online. One Signal Publishers published FIGHT LIKE HELL on April 26, 2022.

THE MOVEMENT MADE US by David Dennis, Jr. in collaboration with his father, David Dennis, Sr., published this week to much fanfare. Andscape published an excerpt from THE MOVEMENT MADE US titled “The night a veiled threat encouraged a white mob to leave a Black church alone.” Dennis Jr. participated in interviews with the podcasts For Colored Nerds, Reckon Mag, and Edge of Sports, as well as ESPN’s Around the Horn and The Right Time with Bomani Jones, before beginning a book tour with a string of independent booksellers across the American South. Harper published THE MOVEMENT MADE US on May 10, 2022.

THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones, Jr. was announced as the winner of The Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, which “recognizes outstanding first novels or story collections by LGBTQ authors.”
G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the book on January 5, 2021.

Publishers Weekly ran an exclusive ten-page excerpt of Afropunk co-founder James Spooner’s graphic memoir, THE HIGH DESERT. Harper will publish the book on May 17, 2022.

The Boston Globe published a rave review of Samantha Hunt’s lauded nonfiction debut, THE UNWRITTEN BOOK. Reviewer Priscilla Gilman writes: “Author of the brilliant short story collection THE DARK DARK (2017) and the wonderfully odd and moving novel MR. SPLITFOOT (2016), Samantha Hunt is one of our most interesting and bold writers…THE UNWRITTEN BOOK [is] a characteristically wild effort that defies genre distinctions, flits from the profound to the mundane with fierce intelligence and searching restlessness, and at its best, delves deep into the recesses of the human heart with courageous abandon… THE UNWRITTEN BOOK ponders and enacts this art of losing with an intoxicating blend of humor and pathos.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on April 5, 2022.

Joseph Earl Thomas’ debut memoir SINK is a Publishers Marketplace “Buzz Books” pick for Fall/Winter 2022. Grand Central Publishing will publish the book on February 21, 2023.

STRANGERS TO OURSELVES, the highly anticipated debut non-fiction by Rachel Aviv, is a Publishers Marketplace “Buzz Books” pick for Fall/Winter 2022. Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish the book on September 13, 2022.

Jordan Castro’s debut novel THE NOVELIST, received glowing reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Publishers Weekly praises the novel as a “meticulous accounting of a day in the life of a struggling Baltimore novelist,” adding that “[s]truggling creative types will undoubtedly see themselves in this confident and surprising chronicle.” Meanwhile, Booklist calls the book “a confident, unique take on autofiction, a form that lends itself well to Castro’s focus on the endless distractions of modern life, and it is hilarious and enthralling, to boot.” Soft Skull will publish THE NOVELIST on June 14, 2022.

The ACCIDENTALLY WES ANDERSON website has won two Webby Awards: the Webby Award for Websites and Mobile Sites in the “Art, Design, and Culture” category, awarded by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and the People’s Voice Award in the “Art, Design, and Culture” category, awarded by the voting public. Now in their 26th year, the Webby Awards have long recognized “the best of the internet.” Voracious published the ACCIDENTALLY WES ANDERSON book on October 20, 2020.