Black Lawrence Press imprint: 21 books

Much like the characters contained within, the four stories and one novella that comprise the collection do their best to explore how we balance the life we want to live with the one that we already have. Set in the northwest, Marcel Jolley's stories touch on fishing, fathers and sons, death and loss,...

Gillis as only Gillis can: the politics of love, human action as theater, and the dreams we dream and chase forever. The Consequence of Skating, Steven Gillis' fourth novel, blends politics, drama, ice skating, mountain climbing, the music industry, and world affairs-not to mention artificial intelligence...

Winner of the St. Lawrence Book AwardLosing Camille is grounded in the American Midwest, but the characters that inhabit its ten stories are on the move—from youth to independence, safety to adventure, and familiar reassurance to dangerous possibility.

Florence Armes Hosmer, born in 1880, was a farmer's daughter determined to succeed as an artist. Acclaimed in the early part of the twentieth century, she has fallen almost entirely from view. This is the story of how Miss Hosmer, a feisty New England woman, painted her way through the new century...

A look at the lives of five young men who, during the Vietnam era, start a commune in Australia—and a look at how young men often look to the wild to find themselves and the consequences this sometimes yields. The Rosebud Farm project was born of idealism, commitment, and virtue, all deeply rooted...

This collection of three short stories, winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition, is about humans trying to understand themselves and each other, specifically across cultural borders, against the backdrop of war, and within the confines of marriage.

The winner of the Hudson Prize, this collection of stories, mainly set in the Southwest, digs deep into the lives of its characters. Daniel Chacon’s writing is very lucid and dips into Carveresque plain talk at times, but he isn’t afraid to use pretty descriptions as well.Daniel Chacon...

Temporary People explores the human condition in all its most vulnerable exposures. Sharp and satirical, it is a breathtakingly paced romp, and the end will leave you drop-jawed and wanting more. Temporary People is a book for the ages and Steven Gillis delivers."Temporary People is a vicious...

“Imaginative, informed, at times brash, Anis Shivani will go far.”—The Brooklyn RailIn these eleven stories of novelistic breadth and ambition, global tensions and harmonies come alive as rarely seen in contemporary fiction.  Shivani takes the measure of the fallout from globalization as well...

“Place is a character in Patrick Michael Finn’s fiction. It's almost as if the setting, like the working-class characters who people his stories, has an ethnicity. The characters try to go on with their lives while the place broods and mourns around them. And all the while the narratives driven by...

“The men in this collection seethe with something close to rage or desperation or both while remaining recognizably and sympathetically human, and that rare combination makes the experience of reading The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men feel as dangerous as a knife fight.” -Michael Knight, author of...

Dark, cerebral stories of the American grotesque that light up hidden corners of the individual and national consciousness.

These linked short stories, all set in Nebraska, feature a range of characters: a bus driver mourning the death of his infant, an octogenarian preparing for death, a girl trying to cope with her parents' divorce, and a woman whose obsession with a decades-old crime has taken over her life.

“Hardy Jones writes with admirable clarity and directness about growing up under an overbearing and unapologetic father.”—Thomas Russell“Every Bitter Thing is a very readable, intense, and compelling addition to the literature of difficult, harrowing childhoods. The story feels very real . . . it will affect you deeply.”—Moira Crone