“Once I started reading these stories, I couldn’t stop. They absorbed me thoroughly, with their taut narratives and evocative language—the language of a poet.” —Jay Parini, Middlebury College D. E. Axinn Professor of English & Creative Writing and author of Jesus: The Human Face of God and The Last Station

NER congratulates contributor Michael Coffey on his first collection of short stories, The Business of Naming Things (Bellevue Literary Press, 2015), which includes his story “Sons,” originally published in NER 34.1. Coffey’s essay “Waiting for Nauman” has appeared in our online NER Digital series, as well.

Publisher’s Weekly: There is no conventional narrative here… This collection which features first-, second-, and third-person narration, is vibrant and unsparing.

Edmund White, author of Inside a Pearl and A Boy’s Own Story: “Michael Coffey brings us so close to his subjects it is almost embarassing. Whether he’s writing about a sinning priest or a man who’s made a career out of branding or about himself, we can smell Coffey’s protagonists and feel their breath on our cheek. Like Chekhov, he must be a notebook writer; how else to explain the strange quirks and perfect but unaccountable details that animate these intimate portraits?

Michael Coffey has published three books of poems, a book about baseball’s perfect games, and co-edited a book about Irish immigration to America. He is a former co-editorial director of Publishers Weekly.

 

“Mark Wisniewski has constructed a fabulous noir that touches on the third-rail of American life and the inside rail at the track. His voice is down-to-earth and sharp, delivering swift, salty pages concerning murder and jails, justice and damaged souls.”—Daniel Woodrell, PEN Award winner and Edgar-nominated author of Winter’s Bone

We are pleased to announce the publication of NER contributor Mark Wisniewski‘s newest novel, Watch Me Go (Penguin Putnam). His story “Karmic Vapor” appeared in NER 25.1.

Mark Wisniewski has published two novels, Show Up, Look Good and Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman. His stories have appeared in a number of publications including Southern Review and Antioch Review.

“The pure, muscular story-telling of Mark Wisniewski’s Watch Me Go made it irresistible.” —New York Times bestselling author Salman Rushdie

 

Congratulations to NER contributor Paul Muldoon on the publication of his newest book of poetry, One Thousand Things Worth Knowing: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015). Muldoon, originally from Ireland, is Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor at Princeton University and poetry editor of the New Yorker. His most recent collections are Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Horse Latitudes (2006), and Maggot (2010). His essays on Fernando Pessoa, Emily Dickinson and Seamus Heaney have appeared in NER 23.4, 24.2, and 34.2, respectively.

“. . . another wild, expansive collection from the eternally surprising Paul Muldoon, 2003 winner and poetry editor at the New Yorker. ‘Watchfulness’ is the buzzword surrounding this one, and it seems as great a place as any to start the 2015 reading year.” —Publisher’s Weekly

 

It is with pleasure that we announce the release of NER contributor Philip Metres‘s newest poetry collection, Sand Opera (Alice James, 2015), an exploration of war in the modern age through examinations of the Abu Ghraib prison, childhood perspectives, and the role of the US government. Metres is the author of A Concordance of Leaves, abu ghraib arias, To See the Earth, Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront Since 1941, and other books. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry and has garnered numerous awards, including two NEA fellowships, four Ohio Arts Council Grants, the Arab American Book Award, and a 2014 Creative Workforce Fellowship. He teaches literature and creative writing at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Metres’s translations from Russian were published in NER 34.3-4, and his poetry has appeared in 22.3, 23.4, and 25.4.

“Phil Metres transforms our prostrate sorrow and gracious rage against the banal evil of the administered world into aria and opera.” —Fady Joudah, author of Alight and The Earth in the Attic