Alice James Books

06/19/2025

This Juneteenth, we honor June Jordan — poet, activist, and truth-teller.

“We are the ones we have been waiting for.” ✊

May her legacy continue to inspire and challenge us.

06/18/2025

We’re thrilled to welcome Rosebud Ben-Oni back to Alice James Books for her newest collection, THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE IS YOU, out June 2027 🙌

These intellectual and expansive poems “let us experience the way in which Ben-Oni's brain processes ideas, theories, memory, past/present/future. We consider our flaws, our faults, and how they leave us exposed, how we should be protected and instead are devoured.” —Carey Salerno

🔗 More info: https://tinyurl.com/last-great-adventure (LINK IN BIO)
📚 Preorder now and get 20% off: https://bit.ly/last-great-adventure

06/12/2025

Esther Lin’s essay, “I Was Undocumented for 21 Years. This Is Why I Tell My Story,” is now featured in TIME Magazine 🌟

As immigration and deportation dominate the national conversation today, Esther's journey—arriving undocumented from Brazil at age four and living without status until 27—couldn’t be more timely.

Esther is the author of COLD THIEF PLACE, published by AJB in March, and this deeply personal piece further underscores why we believe so strongly in her work.

Deep thanks to TIME for amplifying Esther's voice and using their platform to bring such a powerful story to a wider audience.

📰 Read it now: https://tinyurl.com/djs8xdx2

06/10/2025

FREELAND by Leigh Sugar is out today from 🖤🤍

An urgent, devastating, and formally inventive debut, FREELAND traces an impossible love story between the author and an incarcerated writer — a bond that crosses the physical, political, and social boundaries of the U.S. prison system.

Through poems that interrogate mass incarceration, race, whiteness, mental illness, disability, and memory, Leigh Sugar offers a fierce, unflinching testimony of what it means to love, resist, and imagine freedom in the shadow of state violence.

"Freeland is a vibrant conjuring of a kinder, wiser world." —Idra Novey

Available wherever books are sold:

Leigh Sugar's poetry collection, FREELAND, published by Alice James Books.

06/03/2025

📦 Packing up advance copies of FREELAND by Leigh Sugar today—and bringing you with me!

Leigh Sugar's debut collection is raw, tender, and formally electric—a piercing look at love, disability, and incarceration. Out June 10 from Alice James.

🖼️ Cover art by Scott Gibson.
🔗 Preorder now at a discount: bit.ly/FREEL4ND (link in bio)!
💌 Want a review or desk copy? Email [email protected]!

06/03/2025

We’re thrilled to welcome Olatunde Osinaike to Alice James Books for his second poetry collection, IMAGE + LIKENESS, out August 2027 🙌

These sharp, sonically rich poems "...consider masculinity and its constructs as well as the importance of emotion, interior landscape, and individuality in relation to the visible, physical world." (Carey Salerno)

🔗 More info: https://bit.ly/4kwud76
📚 Preorder now and get 20% off: https://bit.ly/imglikeness

06/02/2025

🎉 We’re proud to share that AUTOBIOMYTHOGRAPHY OF by Ayokunle Falomo has won the 2025 Maine Literary Award for Excellence in Publishing! Huge thanks to the MWPA for honoring this extraordinary book 💙

📖 Published by Alice James Books in September 2024.

🔗 Check out the full list of honorees: https://tinyurl.com/r6fme5er

05/29/2025

Bay Area readers—this one’s for you! 🌟 Don’t miss acclaimed poet Mia Ayumi Malhotra, author of MOTHERSALT, as the featured reader at the Burlingame Public Library Poetry Open Mic on June 11 at 6 PM.

📍 Full event details at https://tinyurl.com/MSalt-BGame

05/28/2025

ICYMI: We’re thrilled to share that Sarah Ghazal Ali has won the Gold Medal in Poetry at the for her stunning debut, THEOPHANIES! 🏅✨

This honor is so deserved—congratulations, Sarah! 🤍

🔗 Check out the full list of honorees: https://tinyurl.com/TheoCBA94

05/23/2025

☀️ A little bright spot in the darkness today—we are pleased to share the cover art for SAINT CONSEQUENCE by Michael M. Weinstein. This collection is forthcoming in August from AJB.

🔊 Sound on to hear Michael's reading of "Gender Clinic," set against the author's personal photography!

🌟 SAINT CONSEQUENCE meditates on the body as a site of continuous change—both painful and beautiful, elected and imposed—to explore the often tangled journeys of physical and spiritual transformation.

🔗 Preorder at bit.ly/saint-consequence

05/22/2025

Calling for a Rally of Support 📣

With the sudden loss of our NEA funding and no clear path forward for future support, we’re facing hard questions about how to sustain our work—publishing bold, beautiful books that don’t chase trends, but lift up voices that need to be heard.

We’re committed to continuing. But we need your help.

If you believe in our work, now’s the time to show up:

– Give if you can
– Share this message
– Support our authors
– Connect us with people who care

Independent presses like AJB are the backbone of literary culture. We shouldn't have to shrink to survive.
🔗 Read our full statement at bit.ly/AJBNEAFund

05/20/2025

We had a great time celebrating COLD THIEF PLACE this past Sunday at this year's Gaithersburg Book Festival in MD! ✨ In an increasingly remote landscape, it’s always such a joy to champion our authors in person. Here’s AJB's events specialist, Lacey, cheesing with Esther! 🧀 📸