This last month was, as I mentioned in my previous post, a tough one, but I have many reasons to be happy. Some of those reasons came to me in the mailbox lately, and I thought I’d share them with you, too.

Punch-Outs & Love: History-on-Strings by Red Shuttleworth

Is there anything better than getting a surprise chapbook in the mail? Red Shuttleworth sent me an inscribed copy of this beautiful book last week, and I devoured it. Red Shuttleworth is the read deal; his poems have grit and grime and all the heart in the world. No one writes the American West like Red.

After Alluvium by Thom Dawkins 

I had the good fortune to read this book while it was in its developmental stages, and as lovely as it was then, After Alluvium is even more striking in this slimmed-down version. I love Thom Dawkins’s ear for the poetic line, and his surprising musicality that reminds me, in its way, of Anne Sexton’s.

Then there are the things I expect in the mailbox soon-ish, which are making me happy before the fact:

Sex With Buildings by Stephanie Barbé Hammer 

Stephanie Hammer is one of the smartest women I know, and I cannot wait to see what she’s done with her first poetry chapbook. With Stephanie’s exuberant imagination and the brains to back it up, I fully expect this chapbook to be killer.

Surrounded by Water by Stefanie Freele 

Stefanie Freele, our Fiction Editor at the Los Angeles Review, is already an important voice in the flash fiction world, and her second short story collection, just released form Press 53, will only solidify that position.

A Real Emotional Girl by Tanya Chernov

My writing partner and best poetic bud Tanya is expecting her first book this September. I’ve had the pleasure of reading is book throughout its development over the past few years, and I cannot wait to the rest of the world to read it, too.