Jenny Zhang in Hyphen

May 16, 2012

Hyphen Magazine names Jenny Zhang one of the ten next-gen Asian American writers to look out for.

Read the article in which each writer discusses an author who influences them. Jenny tributes Hans Christian Andersen, in particular, the bombastic sense of entitlement and tragedy in his fairytales. Find the preview online, and the entire article in the print version.

Grab a copy of her book, Dear Jenny, We Are All Find, from our catalog.

Octopus Books on Ploughshares

May 5, 2012

Victoria Chang says some nice things about Octopus Books, and some of our favorite small press friends, over at Ploughshares.

Check out the eight small presses which she says provide "intriguing work... work that is different from my own and work that pushes some kind of boundary, that makes me reconsider how I perceive something."

We're glad to keep such good company.

Christopher DeWeese on HTML Giant

May 4, 2012

Christopher DeWeese talks about writing The Black Forest on HTML Giant.

"...I think maybe that’s the case with a lot of the “stuff” inside my poems: the pretzels and bear-suits gain a certain power because they are the only things in the poem-rooms each voice inhabits. I like how naming them makes them so important, so for example that pretzel becomes sort of the realest thing in its poem, the center around which the terms of the narrative space of the poem flexes and distorts. It creates space by filling it. It absorbs light."

Go here to read a poem from The Black Forest.

Heather Christle Believer Poetry Award

May 1, 2012

The Trees The Trees, Heather Christle's second book from Octopus Books, won the 2nd Annual Believer Poetry Award. Congratulations to Heather! Check it out, and read what the Believer said about this “unusually sensitive young woman moving through a fragmented—a dauntingly, majestically, at times kaleidoscopically fragmented—world.”

Heather's first book, The Difficult Farm (2009), is now available in its third printing. Same great book, available now in a color that's better than salmon. Grab a copy from our catalog.

Octopus Books T-shirts

April 29, 2012

We have Octopus Books t-shirts for sale!

They're tri-blend American Apparel in white on black or black on grey, and they look good on all of us.

The shirts cost twenty dollars, and are available in extra small, small, medium, large and extra large.

Click this picture to go to the catalog page and buy one through PayPal!

Submission Month

April 20, 2012

Welcome to our new Octopus Books site. Thanks for coming by. We've added author pages with links to reviews and interviews. More author videos are soon to come.

We'll use this front page as a place to tell you about news and events. For example:

The month of April is our open submission period for full-length manuscripts. It's our favorite time of year. We'll read the manuscripts anonymously and choose one or two to publish in 2013. This is how we find the books we make. It's so exciting. You know that manuscript you're finishing up? Send it to us before April 30th. We'd love to read it.