1. The World After Alice by Lauren Aliza Green
2. Trust Her by Flynn Berry
3. Selected Plays by Abe Koogler
“Koogler’s characters are earnest, idiosyncratic, and suspicious of hierarchy. Often bitingly funny, Koogler’s plays…reveal larger truths about the economic and racial systems under which we all live.” – The Yale Review
Deep Blue Sound: “If anything links all of these people, it is an aching loneliness. That they are trying to figure out what happened to orcas, which are remarkably social animals, is among the nice touches that Koogler has sneaked into his group portrait.” – New York Times
Fulfillment Center: “steeped in a luminous and illuminating empathy that feels both uncommon and essential right now.” – New York Times
Aspen Ideas: A fast-paced and darkly comedic thriller about an annual conference of the famous and well-connected, held high in the Colorado mountains.
Kill Floor: “Melancholy and moving. A very closely, and often quite beautifully, observed character study.” – Chicago Tribune
Advance Man: Ripe with experimental language, movement and absurdism, a surprising comedy exploring what it means to be a politically engaged American.
4. The Black Girl Survives in This One, co-edited by Desiree Evans
“Be warned, dear reader: The Black girls survive in this one.
Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.
The bestselling and acclaimed authors include Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maika & Maritza Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado. The foreword is by Tananarive Due.” – Macmillan Publishers
“This anthology makes a statement: Black women belong in horror…Projects like this — brave, necessary — celebrate Black women, and will hopefully inspire the future of the genre.” —The New York Times Book Review
5. Untenable Mystic Charm by Travis Tate
“Untenable Mystic Charm beams with scathing humor and poetic tenderness. travis l. tate’s stylish debut grapples with city life, its absurdly demanding jobs, flared artistic egos, and missed connections, in a way that’ll make you wonder why go out at all? Cancel your tonight plans, and read this instead.” – Fernando A. Flores, author of Valleyesque and Tears of the Trufflepig
“Often traditionally narrative— “for the men who flew in and out of his life like carrier pigeons”— sometimes experimental like a fractured play or poem — “Hand to milk. Hand to cake. Hand to strawberries.” “the air in the room shifts, turns light pink” — the stories in travis tate’s debut fiction collection are erotic, searching, and as soon as you think you can predict what will happen next, they’re like “psych!” Such as when I thought all the characters were millennials but then it’s like, Nope now you’re in Bavaria in the 19th-century!” – Chessy Normile, author of Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party