This spring, Necronauts by Ryan Habermeyer is coming to a city near you!
Stillhouse Press is coming to AWP this march
Stillhouse Press will be tabling at AWP, March 5-7. Find us on Bookfair Boulevard at Booth 1053 with Poetry Daily, hosted by George Mason University and Watershed Lit: A Center for Literary Engagement and Publishing Practice. Find Watershed Lit at Booth 1051 and graduate student journals Phoebe and So to Speak at Booth 1055.
Mason’s MFA of Creative Writing program will also be promoting at AWP. The MFA program includes a large list of courses and specialties for each student, offering opportunities such as a publishing certificate and the chance to work within several of the organizations under Watershed Lit mentioned above, including Stillhouse Press itself. If this interests you, stop by Booth 1035 to learn more about our program!
Books, merch, and more…
Stillhouse fans can expect to find recent titles such as highly praised and award-winning story collections, queer and genre-bending speculative novels, and more stunning fiction, nonfiction and poetry from our backlist on sale at our booth. Our table will also be selling EXCLUSIVE copies ahead of the official publication of our March title Necronauts (along with a chance to get your copy signed by the author ahead of release!). Alongside books, merch, and more, buyers that stop by have the chance to earn discounts on the books they purchase in person at AWP by signing up for our newsletter. Chances range from 25% off a purchase to winning a free book.
Author signings:
Several of our published authors will be holding book signings at our booth and some fun additional activities.
Thursday March 5, 10:30am-12:00pm
Join Ryan Habermeyer, author of Necronauts (officially out March 17!), for a meet-and-greet and consultation on your writing. Stop by, grab an exclusive signed copy of Necronauts, and bring one piece of flash fiction or micro-fiction and receive feedback from Habermeyer. (Pages can be printed or emailed to editor@stillhousepress.org).
Friday March 6, 11:00am-12:00pm
Join Paul Jaskunas for a meet and greet and signing of his novella The Atlas of Remedies, a multi-generational immigrant saga-in-miniature which blends historical realism with the stuff of dreams. Stop by and say hello!
Friday March 6, 1:00pm-2:00pm
Join Miranda Schmidt for a signing of their debut novel, Leafskin and a tarot reading for your writing practice. Bring a writing question or creative struggle to the table and receive a tarot reading from the author along with your signed book.
Saturday March 7, 9:30am-10:30am
Dennis James Sweeney signing The Rolodex Happenings alongside submission consultations. Stop by to say hello and bring one question about submitting for the author of How to Submit and receive a brief consultation from Sweeney along with your signed copy of The Rolodex Happenings.
Related Events:
Wednesday, March 4
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
2640 St Paul St, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
An offsite open mic night hosted by GMU student journals Phoebe and So to Speak, featuring a reading by Ryan Habermeyer.
Thursday, March 5
9:00 AM – 10:15 AM EST
Start-Up Literary Centers on Campus: Years 1 & 5
Room 320, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
An onsite panel hosted by Watershed Lit.
3:20 PM – 4:35 PM EST
Whose Story Is It Anyway? A Framework for Writing (or Not Writing) the “Other”
Room 302, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
An onsite panel featuring Miranda Schmidt and Stillhouse Press’s alum and podcast producer Carol Mitchell.
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST
🚫BURNING OF THE BOOKS: Long live the republic of imagination!
Poe Room, 9th Floor Indigo Hotel, Baltimore
An offsite discussion event hosted by the Cheuse Center for International Writers and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
Friday, March 6
10:35 AM – 11:50 AM EST
Double Exposure: Writing, Submitting & Publishing in Literary/Mainstream Outlets
Room 310, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
An onsite panel featuring Stillhouse author Dennis James Sweeney
6:30 PM EST
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
4MLK | UM BioPark, 4 N Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Baltimore
An offsite dance event hosted by City Lit Project, Watershed Lit, George Mason University, and more.
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
A Reading with Poets & Writers Get the Word Out 2025 Fiction Cohort
The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD 21209
An offsite event featuring Stillhouse author Miranda Schmidt
Saturday, March 7
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST
Believable Fictions: A Poetry & Prose Reading Afternoon
American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy, Baltimore
An offsite reading featuring Watershed Lit’s Gregg Wilhelm.
1:45 PM – 3:00 PM EST
Lightning Strikes Twice: Writing & Editing Flash Fiction
Room 323, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
An onsite panel featuring Michelle Ross.
Submissions are open
During AWP, our submissions for nonfiction manuscripts are open! Stillhouse Press is currently seeking memoirs and essays, deadline: March 10. Come meet our student editors and staff to connect and learn about what its like to publish with Stillhouse Press.
More about the submission process and our guidelines can be found here:
Author Highlight: Getting to Know Ryan Habermeyer
Our spring launch of Ryan Habermeyer's playful and atmospheric debut novel, Necronauts, is on the horizon! Written in the form of ninety-five newspaper obituaries and interspersed with vernacular photography, Necronauts is a loosely reimagined Pinocchio tale and ode to campy old sci-fi films. By turns philosophical and whimsical, savage and sentimental, Ryan Habermeyer’s funhouse ride through the American West is also an intimate portrait of fathers and sons and a searing satire of 1980s Americana—where addictive religious paranoia and suspect science blur into a quixotic fever dream full of reckless fantasy.
To provide readers with a little more insight on the author, Stillhouse Press talked with Ryan to get a peek into his writing process, hobbies, and more.
Q: What’s your favorite way to get in the zone of writing?
A: I would say long drives, because highway hypnosis is a real thing and I love it, but walking does the trick too. Wandering, meandering, getting lost. It’s like stepping outside of yourself and freeing your brain from the drudgery of your own life. One walk in the morning, one in the evening. I’m out there walking and talking to myself. It helps to vocalize it so you can hear the words and ideas take shape inside you. Long walks are great for working out story problems and generating new possibilities. But the writing itself? That’s just work. You sit down and do it. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. But I do love some dromomania.
Q: Outside of teaching and writing, what do you enjoy doing?
A: I got the travel itch. My wife grew up a military brat and was something of a nomad, so she got me hooked on never wanting to stay in the same place too long. We’ve lived in five states, visited another twenty-four, and been to twenty-one countries. I can’t imagine life without travel. I do a lot of cooking too. Sometimes I think it would be bliss to retire and become a BBQ pitmaster. There’s a strange alchemy to BBQ. I’m fascinated by anything that is a fusion of art and science.
Q: What was the inspiration behind Necronauts?
A: Oh, this is a dangerous question. So many different inspirations over so many years. The obvious one is I really love campy 1950s sci-fi movies. There’s something oddly magical about them. They’re so bad they’re good. And I wanted to pay homage to that genre and time period somehow because I hadn’t seen it done before (but it probably does exist out there somewhere). But I’m not a fan of hard sci-fi with the space opera and expansive world-building and techno-gadget obsession kind of thing. I like lo-fi sci-fi—where there’s a surreal science fiction premise but the focus is on the gritty realism of that otherworldly thing. I think Kate Folk does this better than anyone I’ve seen in Out There. So, I had this idea kicking around my head for years about a kid with a cosmonaut helmet grafted onto his head who watches too many of those campy sci-fi movies and starts believing he’s an alien. And then the cosmonaut boy builds a catapult to launch himself into outer space to reunite with the mothership. I thought it was a pretty good idea. But it took me forever to find the right stylistic vehicle to tell that story. It wasn’t until I started writing the book as a series of obituaries, and then localized the story in the Utah desert, that I was able to stitch everything together.
Q: What kinds of books do you enjoy reading? Any favorite books or authors?
A: I’m a fan of old school fabulists like Borges, Calvino, Kafka, Angela Carter, Lenora Carrington, and Bruno Schulz. And stylists like Nabokov and McCarthy. Lately, I’ve been drawn to experimental fiction. Books that blend fiction and non-fiction; books that take lyrical risks with language; books that experiment with form. László Krasznahorkai. W.G. Sebald. Thomas Bernhard. Olga Tokarczuk. Benjamín Labatut. Robert Walser. I secretly think I was born in Eastern Europe and smuggled out. I love satire too. Rabelais. Sterne. Swift. Don Quixote. Viktor Pelevin’s Oman Ra. Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Hrabal’s I Served the King of England. I wish real literary satire would make a comeback.
Q: What times of day would you say were the best for writing for you?
A: With teaching, four kids, and juggling life…I write when I can. I do a lot of thinking and note-taking during the day, and then the writing comes easiest at night after it’s been stewing in my head. I used to write every day, but now I write in bursts. Like a volcano of pressure bubbling inside me until I have to write it all down. I don’t like this habit, to be honest; I much prefer the old days when I would write out everything longhand, multiple drafts of just pen and paper, but life is life and it often gets in the way of writing. You make time when you can.
Q: Did you ever experience writer’s block while writing Necronauts? If so, how did you navigate it?
A: Does taking seventeen years to write the book count as writer’s block? Yes and no. The first time the cosmonaut boy appeared in anything I wrote was this terrible novella I submitted to workshop the last semester of my MFA program. My professor at the time, Chris Bachelder, told me the story was a mess but there was something about that cosmonaut boy worth keeping. I’m glad I listened to him. But I wouldn’t say that writer’s block in the traditional sense was the struggle. I loved the idea I had, this boy watching too many sci-fi movies and believing he was an alien, but I was never satisfied with how I was telling the story. For me, writing is a matter of form and voice. If I don’t have those, I can’t move the story forward. So, I wrote bits and pieces on/off again for over a decade. Vignettes and anecdotes. But I couldn’t figure out the right voice for the cosmonaut boy and I disliked writing his story in the conventional novel style with character arcs and dramatization and plot points, etc. After a close friend died, I had this epiphany of sorts at the funeral that I should revisit the book but tell it through a series of obituaries. Maybe this sounds batshit nuts, but it really felt like my dead friend tapped me on the shoulder from beyond the grave and gifted me that idea. In a way, he became my cosmonaut boy and guided me through to finish the book.
Q: Do you have any superstitious things that you have to do or have with you when you write?
A: I’m superstitious in other aspects of my life, but not with writing. I don’t have any rituals or habits. I hear cocaine and Chivas regal worked for Hunter S. Thompson. Maybe I should give that a try and the next book won’t take so long to write?
Q: What’s your favorite snack to accompany your writing?
A: I used to eat pistachios pretty regularly while writing, but then I got fixated on those infuriating ones that won’t crack open. Schrödinger’s pistachio, I called them. I had to stop all snacking while writing. I often get distracted by metaphysical conundrums.
Q: How often would you write? Did you set time aside each day or each week?
A: With Necronauts, after fifteen years of those false starts and dead-ends, it took me about six months or so to do a complete rewrite start to finish. Then I had a sabbatical from the university where I visited Utah and wandered about the desert for a few weeks. That really gave the book its flavor. When I came back, I was writing pretty much every day for three months until the sabbatical finished. Living inside the book like that day in and day out was pretty intense. I’d never written like that before. It felt like a fever dream.
Q: How did you get into the mindset of your characters?
A: I think I’m like most writers in that I often pull little details and tidbits from my life or the life of family members and friends and insert them into my stories. My brothers like to read my stuff and hunt for these Easter eggs, trying to see if there is family lore that makes it into print. But creating a character often starts with me. Whether that’s channeling something from my own experience, or exploring some anxiety, trait, habit, desire, or curiosity I have. I probably struggled most with figuring out the cosmonaut boy in the novel. Here’s this kid—might be human, might be an alien, nobody knows—wearing this helmet that makes it so nobody hears what he might be saying. And he tries to use sign language but nobody pays attention or takes the time to learn his language. So, there’s this constant miscommunication the whole book. Every conversation he’s in there’s this slight disconnect where people are talking over each other and not quite hearing him and he’s not quite hearing them. And the root of that, if I’m psychoanalyzing myself here, came from having a daughter born with some hearing disabilities coupled with my own mid-life hearing loss. But obviously much of the story is invented and imagined too. My characters are also completely unlike me. I do a lot of eavesdropping in public, so my characters often begin as someone I’ve been watching and listening to. I’m a voyeur. Writers have to be. Most characters have a starting point in reality and I invent from there. I like starting with something real and then pretending. I’ve been pretending at pretty much everything I do all my life. Husband, father, son, professor, writer. It’s all pretend.
Q: Did you do anything specific to get into a scene that you were writing? If so, what is it?
A: To piggyback on what I said before, getting those cosmonaut boy scenes right with the disjointed dialogue that miscommunicates and disconnects was sometimes a struggle. But what was more challenging was finding the right style for writing the obituaries. I needed a certain degree of realism and verisimilitude. I needed each obituary to feel like an actual obituary even if it wasn’t, even if it was really a micro-narrative part of a longer novel. That’s the tricky thing about nesting a fictional story in a nonfiction form. It has to look and feel like the real thing even it’s a kind of fakery. It was a juggling act but also a kind of sleight of hand. I did quite a bit of research on the obituary style. And I must have read a few hundred actual obituaries and death notices going back as far as the 18th century. They have this long, fascinating rhetorical history. They used to be these spiraling narratives written in an ornate style with literary flourish and include random details and digressions, especially in the 19th century. Other times, they were brief to the point of being absurd. And I loved those contradictions about the form. So, I borrowed here and there and experimented until I found what I felt was the narrative voice.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about being a professor?
A: The power, for sure. Being a professor is like being a cult leader. You have so much cultural influence and prestige and public adoration and they give you one of those tweed jackets with the elbow patches so the kids become your devoted zealots. I’m drunk on that power. And the grading. Nothing says professional bliss like reviewing freshman composition essays and the occasional student fanfic erotica.
Q: What’s the coolest thing you saw while you lived abroad?
A: The Kafka museum in Prague was fantastic. And the bog bodies in Copenhagen. At the train station in Kraków—which is one of my new favorite cities—a man stopped me and said his name was Cosmos and wanted to know if I would ride to Jupiter with him on a flying carpet. This happens to me more often than I would like to admit. My wife can vouch. Random people often approach me when we’re traveling with questions, ideas, rants, sermons, who knows. Another guy stopped me outside the grocery store in Poland and tried to sell me his wellness book about how eating twenty-three eggs a day will basically make me immortal. Maybe I have a face that screams weirdos welcome. I also nearly got stabbed in Morocco by a guy quoting Kerouac. He was trying to mug me. That was cool because I didn’t die.
Q: Does your writing process change depending on what you’re writing?
A: Yes? No? I haven’t thought about it before, honestly. Not sure my process changes, but I do feel a shift between genres. I find nonfiction, especially lyric essays, far more liberating and easier to write. I can slip into that style and voice much quicker than I can a character in a fictional story. I think my brain works better in fragments and anecdotal segments, writing that builds through associative leaps. In many ways, nonfiction is more pleasurable to write these days. I don’t feel as constrained or self-conscious. And the act of research is a delight. But it’s more exhausting, too, maybe because I’m often culling details from my own life and experience and finding ways to splice those into some other narrative. And that drains me emotionally. With fiction, I feel the stakes less, which is maybe why I’m prone to being a bit more savage in my fiction than with nonfiction (at least, this is what my wife tells me). I’m more detached when writing fiction. I think the pleasure of fiction is pretending, but the satisfaction of nonfiction is discovering.
Q: What inspired you to become a professor?
A: There’s the romantic idea of being a literary professor where all you do is sit around and read and write all day and drink gin from a flask and enjoy the life of the mind. And that’s a nice fantasy, certainly one that captivated me when I was an undergrad, but the reality is much different. It’s not Dead Poets Society. It’s a lot of meetings and politics and nitty gritty bureaucracy. I studied microbiology and zoology as an undergrad for three years before shifting to literature. Clearly, I became a professor to disappoint my mother who wanted a doctor in the family.
Q: How do you come up with ideas to write about?
A: Living. Reading. Listening. Traveling. Watching movies. Staring out the window. Paying attention. Especially the last one. I often tell my students that one of the things I can’t teach them is intellectual curiosity. If you’re not curious about things, if you’re not obsessed with stuff, if you’re just sort of floating through your days without noticing the shape of clouds, or wondering what Prague smelled like in 1732, or hypothesizing which way the toilet water will swirl on Mars—if you’re not curious you’re not going to have any ideas. With my first book, there was a story in the collection about an enormous foot that washes ashore in this small town. And it kinda terrorizes the town and they terrorize it back. The idea for that came from a newspaper headline I saw about severed feet washing ashore in in the Pacific Northwest. That image struck me. But I didn’t have the story until I took the “What if?” leap and made it a gigantic severed foot and wrote it in the 1st POV plural with how the town was fascinated and terrified by this foot. So, it’s that combination of curiosity and imagination. I feel like being a writer is noticing what others overlook. So, I try to be curious. And do a lot of daydreaming. To come full circle: that’s why I love walking. I’ll just walk and walk and let my mind wander into weird territories. It’s almost like the stories are waiting there and I have to walk my way into them.
To preorder Necronauts, click here.
Book Tour: Tell Me Yours, I'll Tell You Mine by Kristina Ten
Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine Book Tour Calendar
The Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tel You Mine book tour is in full swing!
Oct. 16
Rochester Book Launch & Slumberless Party
With Kristen Felicetti (Log Off). Author talk, reading, nostalgic refreshments, and sleepover activities. 7:30 p.m. ET at The Unreliable Narrator. Please RSVP.
Oct. 18
Barnes & Noble Author Signing
Rochester, NY (University of Rochester location). 4–6 p.m. ET.
Oct. 24
With Cynthia Gómez (The Nightmare Box and Other Stories), M. M. Olivas (Sundown in San Ojuela), and Tamika Thompson (Unshod, Cackling, and Naked). 7 p.m. PT at Tally Ho! Books in Oakland, CA.
Oct. 25
"Femmes & Thems Destroy Fairy Tales" with Syr Hayati Beker (What a Fish Looks Like), Lauren C. Johnson (The West Façade), and Ploi Pirapokin. 6:30 p.m. at Adobe Books & Arts Cooperative.
Oct. 27
In conversation with Tomas Moniz (All Friends Are Necessary, Big Familia). 7 p.m. PT at Green Apple Books on the Park in SF, CA. Please RSVP.
Nov. 2
Workshop (10 a.m., Ball & Socket Arts) followed by reading and conversation (3 p.m., ReRead Booksellers at the Watch Factory) with Lara Ehrlich (Bind Me Tighter Still). Cheshire, CT. Please RSVP.
Nov. 7–9
Twentynine Palms Book Festival
Happy Poetry Hour (Nov. 8, 1 p.m. PT at 29 Palms Inn). "Voices of the Desert" reading (Nov. 8, 6 p.m. PT at The Palms in Wonder Valley). Red Light Lit show (Nov. 8, 8 p.m. PT at Out There Bar). Book fair slingin' with Bri Gonzalez (A Wellness Check). Twentynine Palms, CA.
Nov. 22
Greece, NY (Mall at Greece Ridge Center location). 12–3 p.m. ET.
Nov. 23
Barnes & Noble Author Signing
Buffalo, NY (Clarence Mall location). 1–3 p.m. ET.
Nov. 29
Barnes & Noble Author Signing
Pittsford, NY (Pittsford Plaza location). 1–3 p.m. ET.
Dec. 4
In conversation with Emrys Donaldson (The Iridescents). 7 p.m. ET in Rochester, NY. Please RSVP.
Jan. 24
Barnes & Noble Author Signing
Buffalo, NY (Walden Galleria location). 1–3 p.m. ET.
Mar. 11
Monthly speculative fiction reading series hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. 7 p.m. ET in NY, NY.
Mar. 17
Monthly reading series. 7 p.m. ET at Barrow's Intense Tasting Room in Brooklyn, NY.
Kristina Ten’s Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine Preorder Swag, Storygraph Giveaway and More
Stillhouse Press is excited to announce Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine preoder swag launch, a Storygraph giveaway with limited edition items, and prizes that will be launched on the author’s, Kristina Ten’s, birthday!
Now that Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine is available for presale, we want to show our appreciation for the support of Kristina’s upcoming collection. So, any reader who preorders Kristina’s debut collection directly through Stillhouse Press will receive a special edition sticker of a sprinting hare and a handmade friendship bracelet that doubles as a bookmark with little bunny beads attached on the ends. Hurry and get them while supplies last!
The fun doesn’t just stop there – If you like your fiction in tasty morsels and your genres mixed; if you like fabulist, speculative stories of Kim Fu and Kelly Link; if you’re looking for your next spooky read for this October, Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine should be your next pick.
To prepare for spooky season, Stillhouse Press is hosting a Storygraph giveaway. Starting August 19th through September 18th Stillhouse Press will be giving away 20 signed print copies of Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine. Each copy will include a personalized note from the author, as well as one special edition tarot card that was designed by artist Paige Wetherwax. For more insight on her work, you can find her on Instagram @bighugebug.
To enter the giveaway, check out Storygraph.
Wait there’s more – on September 9th between 12am and 11:59pm to celebrate Kristina’s birthday, all copies of Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine that are preordered will be signed by the author!
Keep those calendars marked so as not to miss out on these amazing gifts from Stillhouse Press and Kristina Ten!
STILLHOUSE PRESS TO PUBLISH TELL ME YOURS, I’LL TELL YOU MINE, DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM KRISTINA TEN: AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW
Contact: Taylor Schaefer
Stillhouse Press Media & Marketing
publicity@stillhousepress.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 6, 2025
STILLHOUSE PRESS TO PUBLISH TELL ME YOURS, I’LL TELL YOU MINE, DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM KRISTINA TEN: AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW
FAIRFAX, VA (June 6, 2025) – Stillhouse Press presents the short story collection Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine from debut author Kristina Ten, to be released on October 7, 2025.
Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians, calls the collection “A joyous, incisive, inventive, and vital run of stories.” Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine gathers twelve short stories that, though varied in voice and theme, are united by their exploration of the darker undercurrents of childhood and play. Populated by living paper dolls, summer camp legends, and trivia nights gone wrong, the collection delves into memory, disobedience, alienation, and the eerie experience of inhabiting a body others seek to control. From a student who uncovers a sinister force in an English-learning CD-ROM to an empire clinging to hope through cootie catchers and soda-can tabs, each tale distorts a familiar game, revealing the unsettling consequences that follow.
According to Ten, this collection is for readers who “enjoy stories that stand alone like tasty morsels, but together make the perfect meal—especially those drawn to subtle horror and the nostalgia of childlore.” With haunting clarity and speculative flair, Kristina Ten crafts tales that, in the words of Kevin Brockmeier (The Brief History of the Dead), are “marvels,” each one offering new ways “to surprise and discomfort.”
Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine is available now for preorder exclusively from Stillhouse Press:
https://www.stillhousepress.org/stillhouse-store/tell-me-yours-ill-tell-you-mine
Kristina Ten’s stories appear in McSweeney's, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction, Nightmare, Lightspeed, Uncanny, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the McSweeney's Stephen Dixon Award for Short Fiction, the Subjective Chaos Kind of Award, and the F(r)iction Writing Contest. She has been a finalist for both the Shirley Jackson and Locus Awards. A graduate of Clarion West and the University of Colorado Boulder's MFA program in fiction, she was also a 2024 Ragdale writer-in-residence. Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine is her debut collection.
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STILLHOUSE PRESS is an independent book publisher based in Northern Virginia. We publish surprising, gutsy fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that can’t or doesn’t want to find a home in big publishing. We are drawn to the strange, the unconventional, the transcendent, the risky. By way of our relationship with George Mason University’s MFA, MA, BFA, and BA programs, we aim to provide educational opportunity through applied experience in the art of craft publishing – student staff are responsible for acquiring, producing, and marketing work from independent authors in the course of their professional education, allowing them to forge lasting professional relationships and step out with confidence into the greater literary community.
SAD GROWNUPS Named Winner of 2025 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
Sad Grownups named winner of the PEN/BINGHAM Prize for Debut Short Story Collection at the 61st annual PEN America Literary Awards on May 8, 2025.
Poets & Writers: Get the Word Out Publicity Incubator and Online Reading
If you’re an up and coming writer and want to learn how to successfully publicize your work, Poets & Writers’ Get The Word Out might just be the program for you!
Poets & Writers created Get The Word Out as a publicity incubator for new and upcoming authors who are guided under the mentorship of an accomplished book publicist. writers will develop and execute publicity strategies to maximize the exposure of their first or second book, reach readers, and create a platform to propel their literary careers.
A program like Get The Word Out is truly beneficial to small presses because it gives new authors a more hands on approach when it comes to the publicity of their work. This type of approach influences creative and unique collaborations with early career authors and small presses that can lead to new publicity strategies becoming permanent fixtures within the small press. This program has already given one of Stillhous Press’s new authors, Miranda Schmidt, a great platform to push her new debut novel, Leafskin. Miranda is a 2025 Get The Word Out Fiction Fellow. To find out more details on how to join Get The Word Out and become a fellow, check out Get Out The Word.
To celebrate their 2025 Fiction Fellows, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, Roohi Choudhry, Kerry Donoghue, Lacey N. Dunham, Shasta Grant, Laura Venita Green, Benedict Nguyễn, Miranda Schmidt, and Daniel Tam-Claiborne, Get The Word Out is hosting a free online Fiction Cohort Reading on April 2, 2025 at 7pm. RSVP to receive the Zoom link!
Stillhouse Press to Publish LEAFSKIN, Debut Novel From Miranda Schmidt: Available for Preorder Now
Contact: Taylor Schaefer
Stillhouse Press Media & Marketing
publicity@stillhousepress.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 18, 2024
STILLHOUSE PRESS TO PUBLISH LEAFSKIN, DEBUT NOVEL FROM MIRANDA SCHMIDT: AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW
FAIRFAX, VA (October 18, 2024) – Stillhouse Press announces the publication of Leafskin, an intimate exploration of queer family-making and environmental upheaval from debut author Miranda Schmidt, to be released on March 25, 2025.
Leafskin is a novel of liminal spaces for anyone who has found themselves searching for connection between binaries: life and art, prose and poetry, body and nature, reality and magic. As Callum Angus, author of A Natural History of Transition, says, “It's into these intricate webs of relation that Leafskin settles like love, always shifting with the light.”
A poet and her husband have been trying to make a baby. But while undergoing fertility treatments amid a harrowing wildfire season, Jo reconsiders raising a child in a time of climate crisis. When her artist ex-girlfriend, who has always had an uncanny connection to nature, re-enters her life, Jo struggles to navigate the transformations in her relationships and realities.
An exploration of queer parenthood, love, and identity, Leafskin embraces the uncanny entanglements that root through Jo's life and her work to, as Maya Sonenburg (Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters) says, “probe what it means to make something grow in this time of…destruction: a tree, a marriage, a poem, a painting, a friendship, a child.” Leafskin interrogates how we create and what we become in a time of environmental devastation.
Leafskin is available now for preorder exclusively from Stillhouse Press: https://www.stillhousepress.org/stillhouse-store/leafskin
Miranda Schmidt’s (they/she) work circles the folkloric, the familial, queer magic, and the more-than-human world. Their writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, Orion, Electric Literature, Catapult, Phoebe, and more. They have received support from the Lambda Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Writers and the Bread Loaf Environmental Conference and taught creative writing at the Portland Book Festival, the Loft, the University of Washington, and Portland Community College. They are a PhD candidate at Bath Spa University and received their MFA from the University of Washington. Originally from the Midwest, Miranda now lives in Portland, Oregon. Leafskin (Stillhouse Press) is Miranda’s debut novel.
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STILLHOUSE PRESS is an independent book publisher based in Northern Virginia. We publish surprising, gutsy fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that can’t or doesn’t want to find a home in big publishing. We are drawn to the strange, the unconventional, the transcendent, the risky. We’re looking for work that pushes boundaries.
By way of our relationship with George Mason University’s MFA, MA, BFA, and BA programs, our aim is to provide educational opportunity through applied experience in the art of craft publishing – student staff are responsible for acquiring, producing, and marketing work from independent authors in the course of their professional education, allowing them to forge lasting professional relationships and step out with confidence into the greater literary community.
Book Tour: Sad Grownups by Amy Stuber
Sad Grownups Book Tour Calendar
The Sad Grownups Book Tour is in full swing!
October 8th: Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, KS
On publication day, join Amy in celebration of the release of her debut collection at 7 p.m.! Check out The Raven Bookstore for more information about the event!
October 16th: Wild East Brewing Company in Brooklyn, NY
Books Are Magic invites you for an evening of celebrating the art of the short story, with some of the genre's newest, freshest, and funkiest voices.
Whether you're a short fiction enthusiast, a reader just dipping their toe into the ocean of story collections, or an avid short story hater, we promise there's something in this line-up of writers for everyone! Magical realism, dark humor, folklore and mythology, dreams and nightmares—you never know where the next page will bring!
Enjoy an evening of short stories with Amy Stuber, Vincent Anioke, Janelle Bassett, Gina Chung, Nicole Haroutunian, Ananda Lima, Shannon Robinson and Lena Valencia.
Hosted by Books Are Magic, the event will be held at Wild East Brewing Company at 7pm at their location in Brooklyn, NY. Tickets are limited due to space, so make sure to RSVP for the event here! Check out their website for more information about this and other events.
October 17th: Fall For The Book Festival in Fairfax, VA
Join Amy for a solo panel, moderated by Hannah Grieco, and get a peek into her creative process at the Fall For The Book Festival!
This event will take place at 1:30 p.m. in the Roger Wilkin’s Plaza Tent at George Mason University, on Thursday, October 17th.
October 18th: Kramer Books in Washington DC
Join Amy in celebrating the art of short stories with five other debut authors. There will be a reading followed by a book signing at 7 p.m.!
October 22nd: Riffraff Books in Providence, RI
Join Amy at the Riffraff Bookstore at 6 p.m. in conversation with Maggie Cooper and Stephanie Trott!
October 29th: Rainy Day Books in Fairway, KS
Enjoy an evening with Amy at 7 p.m. on her last tour stop as she discusses her debut collection at Rainy Day Books. Check out Rainy Day's website for more information about the event!
Paul Jaskunas in Conversation with Olga Grushin to Discuss The Atlas of Remedies at Busboys and Poets - Tacoma on Monday, May 20th @ 6:30 PM!
Please join us on Monday, May 20, 2024 at 6:30 pm at Busboys and Poets — Takoma to support Catholic Charities immigration & refugee services.
Atlas is a story that imagines the trans-Atlantic migration of two children at the turn of the twentieth century. As Jaskunas was writing it, he was keenly aware of the countless children in our own time who have been forced to flee their native countries in search of new homes. In connection with this event, he’d like to do a little something to address the dire needs of the many migrant families newly relocated to our region. To that end, he’s encouraging those who can, to consider contributing to the Immigration & Refugee Services Program of Catholic Charities in Washington, which helps refugees find their footing and build their futures in the DC area.
Paul Jaskunas is the author of the novel Hidden (Free Press), which won the Friends of American Writers Award, and of Mother Ship, a poetry chapbook forthcoming in Finishing Line Press. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, America, and many other publications.
Olga Grushin is the author of three previous novels, Forty Rooms, The Line, and The Dream Life of Sukhanov. Her debut, The Dream Life of Sukhanov, won the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, earned her a place on Granta’s once-a-decade Best Young American Novelists list, and was one of The New York Times’ Notable Books of the Year.
Catholic Charities is the social ministry of outreach of the Archdiocese of Washington. Motivated by the gospel message of Jesus Christ and guided by Catholic social and moral teaching, Catholic Charities strengthens the lives of all in need by giving help that empowers and hope that lasts. To this end, we affirm and support the dignity of all human life, strengthen families and serve the poor and most vulnerable.
If you would like to attend this event, click here. If you would like to donate to Catholic Charities, click here.
Title Story From Wendi Kaufman’s “HELEN ON EIGHTY-SIXTH STREET” To Be Featured on Symphony Space and NPR’s “Selected Shorts” on April 17, 2024
Stillhouse Press celebrates the performance of Wendi Kaufman’s classic short story “Helen on Eighty-Sixth Street” on April 17 at New York City’s Symphony Space, where it will be read by Donna Lynn Champlin as part of the episode “Jane and Sarah’s Guide to Divorce and Happily Ever Afters” from “Selected Shorts.”
Nine and a half years ago, in August 2014, the story collection Helen on Eighty-Sixth Street was published as Stillhouse’s inaugural title—and though Wendi passed away later that year, we’re thrilled that her literary legacy lives on with this fresh new take on her moving and wickedly funny coming-of-age tale of family foibles and young heartache.
“Selected Shorts,” hosted by New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, is a book reading, live performance, podcast, and radio show all at once. Each performance takes place in the magnificent Symphony Space on Broadway, and features several short stories read by well-known actors.
This event will be performed in person and available to live-stream. Tickets can be purchased here. Each event is also broadcast at a later date over National Public Radio.
Debut Story Collection from Amy Stuber Forthcoming from Stillhouse Press, October 2024 - Now available for preorder!
FAIRFAX, VA—(February 2024)—Stillhouse Press is pleased to announce the October 2024 publication of Amy Stuber’s short story collection, Sad Grownups.
In her powerful debut, Stuber, an acclaimed writer of short fiction, explores the search for joy in a dying world, where being an adult means performing narrow versions of acceptability on repeat. Equal parts sad, funny, and poignant, each story is a small roadmap for release from the strictures of American consumerism, gender roles, and the strain of living through climate crisis.
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