ANGELA FLOURNOY is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Southern California. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa and Trinity Washington University, and worked for the Washington, D.C. Public Library. Her debut novel THE TURNER HOUSE will be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2015.
When the Harvest Comes (2025) Denne Michele Norris "Denne Michele Norris writes with confidence and grace about some of life's biggest concerns: family, love, safety, grief, and most importantly, how to be true to one's self."
Liquid (2025) Mariam Rahmani "Provocative, intelligent and bold, Liquid is a novel that lingers. Rahmani's ability to access humor at the perfect moment, and her keen understanding of the power and perils of vulnerability make her the best kind of observer-an honest one."
The Fertile Earth (2024) Ruthvika Rao "An astonishing, intelligent epic set during the early decades of post-Independence India... A novel you will not be able to forget."
Great Expectations (2024) Vinson Cunningham "The aptly titled Great Expectations announces Vinson Cunningham as a novelist of singular style, wit, and ambition. Read Great Expectations and see our recent past, our present, and even our future anew."
Ours (2024) Phillip B Williams "In Ours, Phillip B. Williams creates a fictional town with a complicated, magical history that is as thrilling to explore as the Macondo of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. The mysteries at the heart of this novel are deeply considered, as is the concept of freedom itself. With a poet's precision of language and a seasoned storyteller's attention to character, Williams has written a truly one-of-a-kind epic."
Blackouts (2023) Justin Torres "Justin Torres is a master of the urgent, surprising sentence. Blackouts is a stunning achievement of re-creation, imagination, and tender, tender care."
Witness (2023) Jamel Brinkley "In Witness, Jamel Brinkley explores the longings and fears of his characters with a tenderness and generosity of spirit that makes the reader hurt when they hurt, and rejoice in life's surprising moments of joy alongside them. He renders worlds both familiar and new with precision and clarity, showing the many ways that place has the power to mark people, whether they be young boys, old men or the people society pushes to its margins. Read Witness and allow yourself the pleasure of seeing the world as Brinkley sees it."
Temple Folk (2023) Aaliyah Bilal "Aaliyah Bilal is a gifted storyteller who understands how to build a world that feels both particular in its contours and universal in the challenges, triumphs and yearnings of its characters. The stories that make up Temple Folk explore love, faith, loyalty and disillusionment while offering up gorgeous langauge and unforgettable imagery. Temple Folk feels like no collection I have read before and announces Bilal as a literary talent worth championing."
A Map for the Missing (2022) Belinda Huijuan Tang "A Map for the Missing is a sure-footed, deeply-considered novel that pulls the reader in with its urgency from the outset. Through this narrative of love, familial duty, the costs of charting one's own path and the enduring allure of paths not taken, Belinda Huijuan Tang proves herself to be the best kind of storyteller: one who writes with heart and courage."
The Seaplane on Final Approach (2022) Rebecca Rukeyser "The Seaplane on Final Approach is an adventure story about the peculiar fantasies that make up our ideas about adventure in the first place. It is a tender trickster of a novel, told with humor, insight and just the right amount of raunch, and readers will delight in Rukeyser's singular storytelling prowess. Read it now."
Nobody's Magic (2022) Destiny O Birdsong "From the very first page of Nobody's Magic, when I could hear the voice of the protagonist as if she was sitting next to me, I knew I was in the hands of a confident, one-of-a-kind storyteller. Here is a world full of complex, memorable characters who feel real, with stories unlike any I've read before. Destiny O. Birdsong has a gift; how lucky we are as readers to benefit from it."
Fiona and Jane (2022) Jean Chen Ho "Fiona and Jane is the book I did not know I was waiting to be written--one that brilliantly examines what it feels like to be young and woman and hungry for a meaningful life right now. Via language that is tender, shot through with humor and undergirded with lyricism, Jean Chen Ho has created a universe of mothers, daughters, lovers and, vitally, friends who become sisters. Read this remarkable work of fiction and feel the world open up around you."
Luster (2020) Raven Leilani "Raven Leilani's sentences pulse and writhe and shimmer and gut-punch. Above all they tell the truth, even when it hurts."
