It’s been a busy publication month for NER authors! Emily Pittinos, published in NER 40.1, released her debut book of poems, The Last Unkillable Thing (University of Iowa Press), a compilation of tender reflections both elegiac and ecological rooted in the domestic and natural worlds.
Essayist, poet, and pie lady Kate Lebo recently published The Book of Difficult Fruit (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), a collection of twenty-six lyrical essays (with recipes) centered on fruit, giving “insights into relationships, self-care, land stewardship, medical and botanical history, and so much more.” Her essays have appeared in NER 35.2 and 36.4.
Jehanne Dubrow’s Wild Kingdom (LSU Press) is a book of poetry that explores the landscape of academia and holds a mirror to its inhabitants, asking within its pages “how scholars and educators can work to ensure that institutions of higher learning continue to nurture students and remain places of rigorous critical thinking.” Dubrow has been published frequently in NER, most recently with the poem “What Do You Give the War That Has Everything” in NER 41.2.
In his seventh volume of poetry, Selected Poems 1983-2020 (House of Anansi Press), Steven Heighton brings together previously unpublished works as well as key poems from past acclaimed collections to create a volume that showcases what critics have called “a defining lyric poet of his generation.” Heighton’s past work has been featured in NER 35.1 and 38.3.
Dan O’Brien, acclaimed poet, playwright, and former Guggenheim Fellow in Drama, published A Story That Happens (CB Editions), a series of four essays that “offer hard-won insights into what stories are for and the reasons why, ‘afraid and hopeful’, we begin to tell them.” O’Brien’s performance piece, “The House in Scarsdale: A Memoir for the Stage” was featured in NER 38.3 and his memoir, “Dear Brother,” appeared in NER 40.2.
Finally, Rona Jaffe Foundation award winner and NER’s new staff reader in poetry, Tiana Nobile, released her debut poetry collection Cleave (Hub City Press). In its conversations, the book “grapples with the history of transnational adoption, both her own from South Korea and the broader, collective experience” while exploring the nature of familial relationships and love.
You can shop these April titles and more on the New England Review’s Author Books Spring 2021 Bookshop page.
New England Review celebrates forty consecutive years of publishing new voices in poetry, fiction, and essays with a reading at the 2018 AWP Conference in Tampa, FL. The five featured authors have appeared in NER as early as 1978 and as recently as 2018!
