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Sarabande, 735 Lampton Street, Louisville, KY (2025)

02/03/2025

Get excited!! ⚡️ZINE LUNCH! ⚡️is back THIS FRIDAY with “Zines as Bullhorns” with Kyle Tran Myhre. Join us for this free, virtual workshop February 7 at 12 PM EST.

writes: There is a rich history of zines as tools for activism, resistance, and community-building. We’ll talk about how zines support movement work and share tools and tactics of our own.

Kyle Tran Myhre (aka Guante) is a poet and activist whose work explores the relationships between narrative, power, and resistance. He’s performed at the United Nations, been featured on a Grammy-winning album, been a member of two National Poetry Slam championship teams, and visited countless colleges, conferences, and festivals, using spoken word and storytelling as doorways into critical dialogue. His most recent book, Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough, is available now via Button Poetry.

Learn more and register at the link in our bio!

01/28/2025

We are thrilled to welcome Erin Dorney to the team as our new Managing Editor!

Erin is a graduate of Syracuse University () with over ten years of experience in the literary arts field, including project management and strategy. Prior to joining Sarabande, she has worked as an academic librarian, grants writer, and directly with clients as a marketing consultant. Erin is the author of Yes I Am Human I Know You Were Wondering (Autofocus Books , 2025) and has exhibited her literary artwork at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and Susquehanna Art Museum.

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Erin!

01/15/2025

We are honored to announce that the National Endowment for the Arts () has once again extended its generous support to Sarabande and approved a grant in the amount of $25,000.

This funding allows us to continue our mission: championing diverse forms, discovering innovative voices, and publishing work that challenges and inspires. We are so grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts for their continued trust in us, our authors, and the work that we share with the world.

We also offer a warm congratulations to our fellow Southern literary arts organization recipients, , , and , as well as to our fellow Louisville arts organization recipients , , and !

Access the complete list of NEA grant recipients at the link in our bio. Congratulations to all!

01/01/2025

✨🪩✨ HAPPY 2025! ✨🪩✨ We're ringing in the new year with the opening of three submission opportunities!

Now through February 15, Sarabande is accepting full-length manuscript submissions to the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, and the Sarabande Prize in the Essay.

Ed Park will select the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Diane Seuss will select the winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, and Leslie Jamison will select the winner of the Sarabande Prize in the Essay.

For each prize, we are pleased to offer an award in the amount of $2,000, as well as publication of the manuscript with an introduction from each judge, and a standard royalty contract.

Learn more and submit your manuscripts at the link in bio!

12/16/2024

⚡️ZINE LUNCH!⚡️ presents “Garden,” a free, virtual workshop with Séamus Isaac Fey this Friday, December 20 at 12 PM EST.

writes:
In this zine making workshop, we will answer prompts on the theme of “Garden.” Join us in our construction of a zine celebrating our growth, who we’re blooming into these days. Prompts and playlist provided, but make sure to bring all of the seeds you’ve been planting in your internal garden.

Séamus Isaac Fey (he/they) () is a Trans writer living in LA. Currently, he is the poetry editor at Hooligan Magazine (), and co creative director at Rock Pocket Productions. His debut poetry collection, decompose, is out with Not a Cult Media (.media). He has an essay forthcoming in Dopamine Press’ WITCH anthology, edited by Michelle Tea. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review (), Poet Lore, The Offing (), Sonora Review (), and others. He loves to beat his friends at Mario Party. Find him online .

Learn more and register at the link in our bio!

12/09/2024

⚡️ZINE LUNCH!⚡️ presents “Mama Let’s PRAISE!,” a free, virtual workshop with KB Brookins this Friday, December 13 at 12 PM EST.

writes:
Arguably, praise is one of the oldest and most poetic modes of thinking and being. You ever had a hella good Crunchwrap Supreme, or had a GOOD nap that you’ve been waiting to take for your whole life? 9 times outta 10, we’ve all felt bliss that deserves praise — maybe even a poem. We’ll close-read a few poems that do praise well — love poems, odes, and the like — and then write praise poems of our own using prompts that KB will provide.

KB Brookins () is a writer, cultural worker, and artist from Texas. They are the author of How To Identify Yourself with a Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press 2022), Freedom House ( 2023), and Pretty (Alfred A. Knopf 2024). Follow them online at .

Learn more and register at the link in our bio!

12/03/2024

This , we invite you to ✨keep Sarabande independent✨ with a tax-deductible donation. Being an indie publisher means our acquisitions are guided first and foremost by what excites us creatively. By donating, you help us cultivate literary excellence and publish vital works. Keep Sarabande independent by donating today! Link in bio.

12/02/2024

⚡️ZINE LUNCH!⚡️ presents “The Temper Tantrum Poem,” a free, virtual workshop with Jay Délise this Friday, December 6 at 12 PM EST.

writes:
Have you ever cracked you eyes open at dawn and felt a need to scream from the top of your lungs? Ever caught your sleeve on a doorknob, and pondered the immortality of the crab? Have you ever received even one email? This workshop may be for you.
Using the DADAist poetry model, we’ll rip apart (or gently cut with scissors) newspaper articles, magazines, and anything else we can find to break it all, pick up the pieces, and glue them together to make a new thing. Participants are encouraged (nay, urged) to scream, shout, and let it all out. The horrors persist, but so do we!

Jay Délise (they/them, ) (official jester of Sugar Hill) is a writer, performance artist, and grape connoisseur, based in Harlem, New York. They have performed at The United Nations, The Schomburg Center, The Pulitzer Center, and Roundhouse. Their work has been highlighted around the world and in publications including Afropunk, Vagabond City, Glass Poetry Press, and Huffington Post.

Learn more and register at the link in our bio!

12/02/2024

Welcome to Sarabande, Extremely-Online Edition! Don’t miss these Cyber Monday specials:

📕Today, every purchase made will come with a free copy of the chapbook NIGHT ANIMALS by Yusef Komunyakaa.

📖 Earn 25% off orders over $50 with the code CYBERMONDAY25.

📚All book bundles are priced at 20% off!

Thank you for shopping independent this !

11/30/2024

This , support an independent and give the gift of reading! With a curated book bundle for every type of reader, we’re here to help you knock out that holiday shopping early. From “The Speculative Fiction Starter Pack” to “The Great Outdoors Bundle,” we’ve got you covered. (Did we mention all bundles are priced at 20% off?! You just might need to buy one for yourself!)

Head to the link in our bio to shop all Sarabande book bundles.

11/25/2024

🔔 ANNOUNCEMENT TIME! 🔔 In January, Sarabande will open for manuscript submissions to our annual contests. If that’s not exciting enough, we’ve got a roster of guest judges guaranteed to astound!

🥁 🥁🥁 In 2024, Ed Park will judge the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Diane Seuss will judge the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, and Leslie Jamison will judge the Sarabande Prize in the Essay!

For each prize, we are pleased to offer an award in the amount of $2,000, as well as publication of the manuscript with an introduction from each judge, and a standard royalty contract.

Mark your calendars for January 1 - February 15!

Full details for each submission opportunity at the link in our bio. ✨

11/22/2024

✨Sarabande’s Spring & Summer 2025 titles are officially available for pre-order!✨ Link in bio!

11/22/2024

Lesyk Panasiuk’s LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR is ✨NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!✨

The latest installment in the Sarabande Quarternote Chapbook Series.

In this chapbook, Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky offer a translation of Lesyk Panasiuk’s remarkable account of living in Bucha, Ukraine, during the apex of war and brutality at the hands of the Russian military. The result is a tremendous work that The Guardian describes as embodying “the idea of the rupture of language through the physical collapse of signs and lettering on buildings hit by missiles.” This slim book bears great weight.

“Lesyk Panasiuk’s chilling In the Hospital Rooms of My Country, in a tense, crackling translation by Kaminsky and Katie Farris, observes a language passing through extreme violence: ‘The language in a time of war / can’t be understood. Inside this sentence / is a hole—no one wants to die—no one / speaks.’”
—Uilleam Blacker, The Times Literary Supplement

“If war involves a fracturing of language, it is poetry that will eventually creep in to fill the gaps... Lesyk Panasiuk has produced poetry that embodies the idea of the rupture of language through the physical collapse of signs and lettering on buildings hit by missiles.”
—Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian

“‘Letters of the alphabet go to war,’ Lesyk Panasiuk reports; in the Ukrainian alphabet, he finds a beloved graphic landscape and a perilous materiality: ‘Through the broken window of / the letter д other countries watch how the letter i / loses its head, how the roof of the letter м / falls through.’”
—Christopher Spade, Poetry Foundation

Pre-order at the link in our bio!

Cover design:

11/22/2024

Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross’s THE LONGEST WAY TO EAT A MELON is ✨NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!✨

A cheeky debut of short fictions exploring the pitfalls and minor triumphs of the creative process. Equal parts melody and malaise, The Longest Way to Eat a Melon charts the activities of a cast of speakers who all grapple in their own ways with what it takes to conjure a self in the midst of discordance. A brain argues with a non-brain about how to remain productive from a place of exhaustion; two supernaturally inclined twins named Han are separated at birth; and an emerging artist paralyzed by possibility considers how best to transform a melon into a breakthrough work of art. Incorporating elements of fable, surrealism, satire, and art and cultural criticism, these stories have a playful peculiarity to them, an interweaving of self-deprecation and curiosity, of woe and hope, of absurdity and humanity. Reader, you will want to savor every bite.

Pre-order at the link in our bio!

Cover design:

11/22/2024

Sarah J. Sloat’s CLASSIC CRIMES is ✨NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!✨

The sophomore visual poetry collection from Sarah J. Sloat, whose Hotel Almighty was a 2020 NYT Editors’ Choice pick. Classic Crimes is a book of visual poetry sourced from William Roughead’s true-crime 20th century classic of the same name. Roughead’s text is known for its ghastly recountings of murder and deceit, though such gloom is barely detectable under Sloat’s sharp eye and transformative hand. In these erasure poems, each adorned with its own colorful, meandering collage, “public opinion [is] always willing to wink at the picturesque,” and “to sleep…[is] an interlude of little dinners.” Where mayhem once lived, Sloat invites readers into a brand new world, one blooming with whimsy, play, delight, and cheeky, liberating poetics.

PRAISE FOR CLASSIC CRIMES:

“A true artist of the book, Sarah J. Sloat has transformed another text into one of her uniquely satisfying visual and literary works. Sloat is an artist of transformations who takes one literary artifact and transforms it into another. The results are surprising, witty, beautiful and strange—the way all good art is strange. Erasure and collage, in Sloat’s hands, are a kind of radical archeology in which she discovers a story hidden within the original text and which she uncovers, draws out, illuminates and raises up. Classic Crimes is a work of genius from a bold and visionary writer.”
—Mark Wunderlich, author of God of Nothingness

“What a crime it would be NOT to enter these crime scenes! The poetry echoes in what’s been lifted, elevated out of the detritus of foregone misdeeds. Only Sarah J. Sloat can achieve such levitation. With surprising variations in their collage elements, these visual poems rise as small wonders, each a perfect little balancing act between its text and images.”
—Nance Van Winckel, author of Sister Zero

Pre-order at the link in our bio!

Cover design:

11/22/2024

Alina Stefanescu’s MY HERESIES is ✨NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!✨

Behold My Heresies: the latest and highly anticipated poetry collection from Alina Stefanescu. Riven by the tension between hagiographies, utopias, belief, longing, and grief, the poems of My Heresies catalog a personal and familial history originating in Bucharest, Romania and landing in Birmingham, Alabama. Whether through sardonic takes on old Bible myths or homage paid to French-Romanian poet Paul Celan, Stefanescu’s poems are laden in subtext, in imagery sometimes abstract and lush, at other times stark and shocking. My Heresies probes the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, and the result is a hauntological mapping of life, love, family, and womanhood.

“The lyrical sweep and abandon of these poems is stunning. The tonal variation here, too, is so special. This is a poet who can be direct, metaphysical, compelling, humorous, intimate, playful—the list goes on. Truly, here is enough fire in these pages for seven poets. What a spellbinding book.”
—Ilya Kaminsky

Pre-order at the link in our bio!

Cover design:

11/18/2024

Get excited! “Big Ideas, Short Forms: Sarabande Writers on the Art and Craft of the Short Form” featuring Khaled Mattawa, Kiki Petrosino, Whitney Collins, and Kristen Renee Miller is coming to the Conference & Bookfair in Los Angeles, California!

[Image ID: Headshots of Sarabande Books’ panelists against a salmon-colored background with branding]

11/18/2024

⚡️ZINE LUNCH!⚡️ presents “Talking Back: Remixing News & Archival Texts,” a free, virtual workshop with Aimee Suzara this Friday, November 22 at 12 PM EST.
artist writes:
As poets, we often turn to historical documents, news clips, photos, maps, journals, and interviews to write about the past, sometimes, like a DJ, or making a mixtape of voices and moments - making a conversation between the past and the present. How do we talk back to the past through our poetry, creating a conversation? Also, if these clips are from the news, how might interrogate that news, as we fill in what was missing - which voices were not voiced? Often a news clip, whether in the far past or current times, reveals the dominant narrative and omits perspectives. How can we as poets explore those silences or omissions?

Aimee Suzara (.artist) is a Filipino-American poet, playwright, multi-disciplinary performer and educator based in Oakland, CA. Her debut poetry book was SOUVENIR (2014) and her writing appears in publications including , and Raising Mothers. She teaches at San Francisco State University () and with her coaching business, Wild Tongues.

Learn more and register at the link in our bio!

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