New Authors Approach...
2025 & partial 2026 catalog revealed.
Remember button mashing?
You know those video games where they have ‘locked’ characters in a silhouette and you have to win with specific characters or combos to unlock them? Thankfully, this isn’t a fighting game…these authors are not pixels. They are living, breathing humans who wrote kick-ass books. UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN-LEFT-RIGHT-START!
2026
Welcome the following authors to the TW family…
Shannon Frost Greenstein — Through the Lens of Time (hybrid prose; historical fiction)
Kristine Esser Slentz — Face-to-Faces (hybrid poetry; on relationships & sex)
Christopher Klingbeil — Landscape, Dad! (poetry; epic nature poem)
and returning to TW once again…
Cody Roggio — A Switch Flipped in Me: Collected 2010-2024 (poetry; addiction & recovery)
Ross McMeekin — Pepperleaf (novel; offbeat suburbia comedy)
2025
Just in case you missed our stellar 2025 book roster…
JP Infante — On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue (prose; academic, NYC-themed)
Hailey Spencer — Glass Labyrinth (poetry; choose-your-own-adventure)
Adrian S. Potter — The Blues Handbook (poetry; an ode to the Blues)
A.G. Valentine — The Apoptoptic Era (novella; ‘mysterious book’ meta)
Thalia Geiger — Red Death, Purple Dark (poetry; entropic decay)
and one cannot forget The Blooming debut chapbook series…
Jie Venus Cohen — Venus Limbs (poetry; Venus of Willendorf & medicine)
Abigail Michelini — Brace (poetry; Feminist relocation narrative)
Rayni K. Wekluk — Garbage City Poems (poetry; an angsty Atlantis of the mind)
K.O.—you win!
What a lineup this is. This run from 2025-2026 is 13 titles. That’s a lot by any metric! It’s an interesting blend of people I’ve known for years, met at a reading, worked with in the past, or have no idea who they are…just kidding. We had meetings already. I have a general idea. Good people, the lot of them. You can read all of their bios and see their faces in our digital catalog.
Let’s drop the controller and get real for a minute…
I was adamant and ultimately declined to take on more chapbooks for 2026. Mostly because I have no idea if I’ll be able to print them. The Workhorse, our printer, is nearing the end of its decade-long duty cycle. What a terrible Game Over screen! These things are hundreds, nay, thousands of dollars. So much so, that most companies rent them. A used printer is on the table and we’re accepting donations to our Printer Fund on the TW website.
Or, if you rather just read our beautiful books with your hard-earned cash, NOW is the time to become a Westie. As I wrote this last night, someone renewed a subscription. A coincidence? Well, maybe not! It is $100 a year, billed once a year i.e. set-it-and-forget-it. We will mail you a copy of each of the above books as they launch, plus some extras like our seasonal quote bookmarks, stickers, and any limited edition extras. It’s a huge discount off the list price ($16.99 per book/$10.99 per chapbook) and helps us immensely to control our bills, attend festivals, pay authors, commission artists, and everything in between.
Now, let’s turn off the game system and go outside. Preferably with a book or two!
Extra Bits
Capturing the disastrous toll of the criminalization of drug use on communities, families, and individuals, JP Infante pairs literature with buying cocaine, screen time with addiction, and cinema with harm reduction. It’s modern literature for New Yorkers & U.S. Americans. Critical, gritty, & emboldening, On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue is a masterful, critical collection of contemporary inner-city life. Preorder now for $15.99 + stickers & a bookmark.
TW TALES #5 Cabin Fever is coming soon. Listen to the dynamic and brilliant prose of Thirty West author Anna Vangala Jones & Thirty West editor, Caterina Alvarez. An open mic follows the features. Please register below and join us with some poetry and stories of your own.
A Writers Party, Philadelphia’s alternative to AWP, is happening next month. As cohosts, we will periodically promote upcoming readings, events, and workshops as the schedule solidifies.