Debutiful interviewed Jamie Figueroa about her debut novel, BROTHER, SISTER, MOTHER, EXPLORER. When asked about how “being othered…as a child influenced [her] writing,” Figueroa said: “When you were pushed to the margins in the community you grew up in and around, you’re given a very particular vantage point to observe. Because there is this subtext that you are not safe, you become hyper vigilant. You are activating all of your senses, constantly. That can really be fatiguing and traumatizing, but it can make for the perfect environment for an artist to potentially reference that experience of watching and taking in those details. I would say that’s what it did for me.” Catapult published the book on March 2, 2021.

FIGURE IT OUT by Wayne Koestenbaum is a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. The Randy Shilts Award “honors the journalist whose groundbreaking work on the AIDS epidemic for the San Francisco Chronicle made him a hero to many in the community. This award recognizes the best nonfiction book of the year by or about gay men, bisexual men, and/or trans men, or that has significant influence upon the lives of queer men.” Soft Skull published the book on May 5, 2020.

Wayne Koestenbaum’s collection of fables, THE CHEERFUL SCAPEGOAT, is featured on The New York Times Book Review’s New & Noteworthy. They write: “These charmingly insouciant short stories by the noted critic, poet and essayist exhibit the same surreal whimsy that distinguishes his work in other formats.” Meanwhile, Negar Azimi raves for Bookforum: “Koestenbaum’s imaginative magic extends to his sentences, sensuous and syntactically adventurous, rarely a means to an end but ends in themselves—bravura, permissive, frivolous. His lines make one’s own feel anorexic, dull by comparison.” Lastly, the collection received a glowing blurb from COSMOGONY author Lucy Ives, who praises it as “an elegant, rude book—beautiful and acerbically composed. Like scenes scripted by Edward Gorey and directed by Ryan Trecartin, Wayne Koestenbaum’s brief parables manage to be at once delicate and extreme, vile and flowery, coolly precise and gorgeously insane. I don’t know anyone else who writes like this.” Semiotext(e) published the book on March 23, 2021.

EVERYBODY by Oliva Laing has earned another starred review, this time from Kirkus. They write: “Laing reveals in visceral detail society’s terror of ‘different kinds of bodies mixing too freely’ and envisions a future in which that terror no longer exists. Intellectually vigorous and emotionally stirring.” W.W. Norton will publish the book on May 4, 2021.

Robert Jones Jr. joined the Bookworm Podcast for an interview and reading of his novel, THE PROPHETS. G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the book on January 5, 2021.

MINOR FEELINGS by Cathy Park Hong is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in the Autobiography category. The award is presented annually to “the finest books published in English in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism.” One World published the book on February 25, 2020.

2034 by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis will make its debut on the New York Times Bestseller list for the week of March 28th, at number 6 on both the Combined Print & E-book Fiction and Hardcover Fiction lists. Penguin Press published the book on March 9, 2021.

BBC History praises THE IRISH DIASPORA by Turtle Bunbury, writing: “This fascinating assortment of case histories, spread across 1,400 years and six continents, is an impressive feat of research. All of the chapters are based on a solid body of up-to-date historical writing. The summaries of often-complex historical background to the lives explored are models of lucid compression. The short biographies themselves are lively yet judicious, packed with vivid detail but willing, where necessary, to question or dismiss colourful legend. And the reader will come away with a new sense of the many ways in which Ireland has interacted with the world beyond its shores, and of some of the extraordinary careers that have resulted.” Thames & Hudson will publish the book on April 6, 2021.

THE FINAL REVIVAL OF OPAL & NEV by Dawnie Walton is Black Girl Magic Wine's first ever book club pick. The novel is also featured on Library Journal’s list of “The Best Debut Novels of Spring and Summer 2021.” 37 Ink will publish the novel on March 30, 2021.

The AU Review praises Jamie Figueroa’s BROTHER, SISTER, MOTHER, EXPLORER as "exquisite…filled with rich imagery and lyrical prose. Figueroa packs plenty into the novel’s modest page count, with characters both tangible and all-but magical bursting off the page…Brimming with elegant, poetic writing, Figueroa has offered us a truly original debut. An absolute must read." Library Journal also features the novel on their list of “The Best Debut Novels of Spring and Summer 2021,” praising it as "[g]orgeously rendered.” Catapult published the book on March 2, 2021.