Unlikely Books

07/11/2024

07/05/2024

Unlikely Event on Thursday, July 18 - https://mailchi.mp/9c3538693397/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17383272

07/01/2024

RIGOROUS: a journal by Black, Indigenous, & People of Color is now accepting submissions for its final issue!

Edited by Rosalyn Spencer and Kenning JP García, Rigorous is an online journal highlighting the works of authors, artists, critics, and educators of color. They publish fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, visual art, sound art, audiovisual art and movies, cartoons, and any other artistic creations by people of color. No fees, no payment. Check them out at

Rigorous: A journal by people of color

06/17/2024

COMING VERY SOON: "Nemo Under the League," a volume of textovisual poetry by Vernon Frazer from Unlikely Books!

06/16/2024

New Writing at Unlikely Stories - https://mailchi.mp/b81abe8fbe4e/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17382268

06/02/2024

RIGOROUS is accepting submissions for its final issue - https://mailchi.mp/407969c09a5a/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17381500

05/30/2024

Mitch Mackey is a New Orleans electrical contractor and all-around great guy with nephrotic kidney disease. Can you help him get through dialysis financially?

Hi, I’m Jonathan and I’m organizing this GoFundMe to help my good fri… Mitch Mackey needs your support for Support Mitch Mackey's Fight Against Kidney Disease

05/20/2024

Videos and Writing at Unlikely Stories - https://mailchi.mp/a17b9c2f7019/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17377755

05/05/2024

Cool New Stuff at Unlikely Stories - https://mailchi.mp/7a906e3abcd4/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17376843

04/30/2024

Unlikely Stories, an electronic journal of literature and art that’s been running since 1998, is currently seeking submissions. We’re looking for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, visual art, music, movies, and criticism of all of those things. Although we are open to submissions from anyone, we’re particularly looking for the voices of women at this time. (Trans women are women, duh.) For more information, check out our incredibly wordy mission statement / submission guidelines at

Our guidelines intend to inspire, not restrict. Do your thing, just keep the word count sane. What is Unlikely Stories Mark V? Unlikely Stories Mark V is the new incarnation of the electronic magazine, Unlikely Stories, which has been published on the Web, more-or-less continually, since 1998. We pu...

04/26/2024

Pssst. Pssst. Hey there. HELLO. Did you perchance miss the YouTube of our April 3 reading featuring Valentine Pierce, Tiana Nobile, David Rowe, and Caroline Rowe? See it now at

On April 3, 2025, the Unlikely Saints (a production of UnlikelyStories.org) gathered at Bar Redux in New Orleans for a night of poetry, cupcakes, and fun! Va...

04/25/2024

So, wow. The New Orleans Poetry Festival. Where does one start.

In 2021, the virtual-only NOPF was a week long, and I, in my role as Technical Director, was there for almost every minute of it, starting the Zoom rooms and keeping an eye out for trolls. This year, thanks largely to the vision of fellow organizer Sean F. Munro, the NOPF expanded from four in-person days to six, adding shows in Baton Rouge, Metairie, Hammond, and Thibodaux. I’m a full-time parent now, and had to miss three of those shows, but I stuck it out for everything in New Orleans Thursday through Sunday.

But on Wednesday, Jessica Kinnison and I drove out to Thibodaux, Louisiana, where we met four other poets in the “NOPF Road Show,” the new expansion of the program. We were generously fed by Chris Monier, who hosted the event in Nicholls State University. There, I read a handful of the poems I’ve written in the New Orleans Sculpture Garden, and spoke openly about my eldest daughter’s su***de in October, which inspired several of them. Given that decision, the experience was not entirely pleasant. But the company was wonderful, Chris is a delight, and Jessica and I stopped by two country stores, where I purchased head cheese and she refused to try it.

Thursday was Locals Night at the always-wonderful Saturn Bar, and this year was a fine mix of readers of very diverse aesthetics. I got to catch up with Kenning JP García and Rone Shavers, which is always wonderful, and newly meet some more friends of theirs. It was a fun evening that required relatively little of me, especially compared to Friday, when Bill Lavender and I began the day by setting up the physical area of the NOPF, including the bookfair. We got all the meeting rooms arranged, but I quickly realized I’m no longer physically competent to lay out many of the bookfair tables. Fortunately, several other members of the advisory board arrived to help.

So we were ready for the night’s excitement. Marc Vincenz arrived with a number of people from Lit Balm: An Interactive Livestream Reading Series, many of whom I knew online, but was meeting in person for the first time. It was great to hang out with so many new faces, and to see other folks, particularly Michael Anania, again. Marc and I went out for drinks—beer for me, and wine for him. The bartender didn’t have change, so I overtipped. Then he started feeding me free tequila shots. How could I decline such a thing? I could not. I mean, obviously I should have declined such a thing, but I did not decline. I did not.

Friday night’s show was a showcase on Korean poetry, with three Korean poets and two American translators (one of whom lives in the States, the other in Korea) performing their poetry. Before the performance, there was a lively, exciting roundtable in which the panelists’ energy fed together in some really entertaining ways.

After that, Marc Vincenz and Dennis Maloney presented a Madhat Press / White Pine Press party at the Artisan Bar and Cafe, which was good, raucous fun until midnight or so. Knowing how much I had to do the next day, I called it a night then.

Saturday was intense. Per usual, I staffed two bookfair tables: the Unlikely Books table and helped out at the Lavender Ink / Diálogos table. I additionally sometimes covered the MadHat Press / White Pine Press table. I was to staff them from 9am to 5pm. At 12:15, Jessica Kinnison came to relieve me, and I hustled across the street to St. Roch Tavern.

For several years, the NOPF has been hosted by the New Orleans Healing Center and the theater inside it, Cafe Istanbul NOLA. This year, we decided we needed to expand, and I forged a relationship with St. Roch Tavern. So I ran across the street to the tavern to make sure the sound was set up. It wasn’t, but the owner, John, and I figured it out.

It was then time for An Unlikely Stories Reading at the New Orleans Poetry Festival. I presented Jeff Weddle, Michael Ruby, Tara Campbell, Kenning JP García, and Christopher Shipman, five veterans of the Unlikely world. None of them live in the area, and it was so good to see them all and spend some time together, especially with Shipman, who lived here for years before moving away. (His latest Unlikely Book, Getting Away with Everything, a collaboration with Vincent Cellucci, is a bittersweet, comical book of poems on leaving the Big Easy.)

We only had an hour, then I grabbed some takeout and returned to the bookfair, where I held steady until 5. As I was leaving, John expressed enthusiasm for the crowd, who were hopefully buying many drinks. It’s my hope that he remained pleased, and that the Festival and the Tavern work together for many years.

After the bookfair closed, I had dinner, then returned to Café Istanbul for the NOPF's main feature: Carolina Ebeid, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, and the Cornelius Eady Trio. I’d seen Cornelius’s music before, but Ebeid and Diggs’s performances were completely new to me (other than the research I had done when we were planning the Festival). Everything was fascinating, and brilliantly done.

A group of us went barhopping after that, but called it relatively early, and on Sunday, I was back at the bookfair from 9-4.

There is so much that I missed by working that bookfair. I’m proud to do it and it needs to be done, but the NOPF is a huge and complex affair, and no matter what you do, you’re going to miss a lot. I wish I could’ve seen Michael Anania speak with Paul Hoover and Maxine Chernoff. I wish I could’ve heard Laura Mattingly read. To be clear, I regret nothing: I sold books off all three tables, and I put some valuable books in eager readers’ hands. I just want to say: the NOPF offers a lot to do, and a lot to miss. This year, it offered more to do and miss than ever before.

Today, I wrote my letter of intent, which states I support the NOPF and intend to continue working for them. (The Festival has to submit it to the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities for grant purposes.) I used the phrase “difficult to overstate” to communicate the NOPF's importance. It would be equally difficult to overstate how important the Festival has become to me. It’s no longer practical for me to do much traveling, so the NOPF is now my primary opportunity to hang with poets from out of the area. But even if I were traveling more, the NOPF would absolutely be the literary event closest to my heart. It’s a beautiful, fantastic experience, orchestrated by some wonderful people, in a perfect environment in the best city in America. I am so proud to be working on it, and delighted to experience it.

This year, we put together an emergency panel on the collapse of Small Press Distribution and what publishers can do to find a new distributor. As we did, it struck me that this was an opportunity to really help people. But I believe the Festival always really helps people, and a growing number of people in a growing number of places. I believe that making beautiful things makes the world a better place. And the NOPF is beautiful, and it encourages, incubates, and shares many beautiful works of art.

Now that that’s said, something else needs to be said. Despite seeing very little of the Festival from the bookfair, I witnessed three poets, intelligent people who should know better, use their stage time or their poems themselves to talk about what poetry is and/or should be, and, by implication or directly, what poetry IS NOT and/or SHOULD NOT BE. They were all wrong. They were inherently wrong. Saying what poetry isn't is just embarrassingly wrong. If you're inclined to view another person's work and decide that it's not really poetry, please keep your wrong and bad thoughts to yourself.

Next year is the tenth Festival, and I can only imagine that it will continue to grow in positive and exciting directions. I can’t wait to be involved and attend.

04/23/2024

Were you not in Thibodaux, Louisiana for my afternoon reading last Tuesday? How could you not be in Thibodaux, Louisiana? I read new work alongside Jessica Kinnison, Ha Jaeyoun, Hwang Yuwon, Jake Levine, and Albert Belisle Davis! It was tons of fun and I hope you watch it at

The New Orleans Poetry Festival took the show on the road in 2024. In partnership with the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Literature Translation...

04/15/2024

The New Orleans Poetry Festival is HERE! - https://mailchi.mp/ac5c22d086b2/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17307935

04/11/2024

On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 17, I'll be reading my own poetry at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisisna! This is part of the New Orleans Poetry Festival Road Show, and I'll be reading with some fantastic Korean poets and translators, as well as authors from Thibodaux and New Orleans. If you're in the area, I hope you can make it!

03/30/2024

Statement from Unlikely Books

It is with a heavy relief that we announce that Unlikely Books will be drastically cutting back on output and that submissions are permanently closed.

Speaking as editor-in-chief, I’ve experienced a couple of drastic lifestyle changes that have reduced my literary productivity. First, my wife, Rosalyn Spencer, and I have recently adopted a young child, and I am now a full-time parent. While we were navigating those legal proceedings, my eldest child died unexpectedly at the age of 29. This has had, at least for now, a significant impact on my own productivity.

I am older, sadder, and busier than I was when I added Unlikely Books to the Unlikely Stories family. I wish to continue the high quality and volume of publication at Unlikely Stories Mark V, and continue our local projects, including the Unlikely Saints reading series and our involvement in the New Orleans Poetry Festival. Meanwhile, Tobey Hiller, our editor, needs to focus on her own writing in a way she hasn’t been able to since taking the job.

Something’s got to give, and it’s going to be Unlikely Books. We will be publishing the occasional special project but will not be looking at submitted manuscripts.

That said, Unlikely Books is still part of the Unlikely Stories family and is not disappearing entirely. We will continue to print, distribute, and support our existing titles. But if you are the author of an Unlikely Book and would like to shop it around to a more active press, we do understand and will take it out of print for you.

If you are the author of an Unlikely Book and are waiting on royalties, please be patient: we’ll be caught up this summer.

And, as we say, we are working on some special projects. Our plans for 2024 and 2025, in no particular order:

A yet-to-be-titled poetry book by Sheila E. Murphy
Spells for the Wicked, Marc Vincenz’s follow-up to his previous Unlikely Books poetry volumes
Nemo Under the League, textovisual poetry by Vernon Frazer
A reprint of The Other Side of the Mirror by Aileen Bassis
and Love Has Been Liquidated IV, a choose-your-own-adventure poem by John Bryan which will only appear online

Thank you for reading this and for your support over the years. Please continue to read, submit to, and support Unlikely Stories Mark V, which will continue to publish online, as it has since 1998.

With appreciation,
Jonathan Penton

03/23/2024

Writing! Art! and April Events! - https://mailchi.mp/883dfb483dcd/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17306139

03/20/2024

Rest in Poetry, Neeli Cherkovski.

03/13/2024

EDITOR FRIENDS: Is anyone familiar with ProQuest? They've approached me about Unlikely Stories. Should I work with them? Here is a picture for the algorithm.

02/24/2024

Rest in Poetry, Lyn Hejinian.

02/21/2024

Just found out that Sally Connolly will be speaking on a tome from Unlikely Books at the The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture: Fata morgana by Joel Chace! Check it out, if you're there!

02/11/2024

Happy Mardi Gras! Or AWP! Or Superbowl! Whatever! - https://mailchi.mp/4a07f8a5f713/unlikely-stories-mailing-list-17302700