Horse Less Press

Today at OPEN, an interview with Christopher Shipman and Vincent A. Cellucci on their collaborative process!

We’ve added three new chapbooks to our catalog! You can now order copies of DIRTY PARTY POEMS by Kiley McLaughlin, SLEEPTALK OR NOT AT ALL by Emily Brandt, and TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE by Leah Rogin-Roper for $8 each, or get any two chapbooks for $14!

We are so excited to introduce you to our newly-embiggened editorial staff! We have added MANY new people to our collaboration this summer, which means it’ll probably take us the month of September to get everything & everyone up and running together — thanks for your patience and YAY! We are looking forward to what’s to come.

Jen Tynes, Founding Editor, Books Editor

Jen Tynes lives and teaches in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the author of  the full-length books Hunter Monies (Black Radish Books, forthcoming), Trick Rider (Trembling Pillow Press),Heron/Girlfriend (Coconut Books), and The End of Rude Handles (Red Morning Press) and the chapbooks New Pink Nudibranch (Shirt Pocket Press), Here’s the Deal (Little Red Leaves Textile Series), You’re Causing a Disturbance (Dancing Girl Press), The Fabulous Bilocation of B. Lee (Projective Industries), The Black Mariah (DoubleCross Press), Autogeography (co-authored with Michael Sikkema, Black Warrior Review), See Also Electric Light (Dancing Girl Press), and The Ohio System (co-authored with Erika Howsare, Octopus Books).

Sade Murphy, Chapbooks Editor

Sade Murphy a poet and artist from Houston, TX. Sade is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, ​the author of Dream Machine (co-im-press, 2014)​, and a columnist at Real Pants (Lonely Britches and What’s the Tea). They are pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Activism​ at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Soham Patel, Chapbooks Assistant Editor

Soham Patel is a Kundiman fellow. Her chapbook, and nevermind the storm (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs) came out in 2013. Her work has been featured at Fact-Simile Editions, Copper Nickel, CURA and other places.  She is a PhD Candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Shelly Taylor, Chapbooks Assistant Editor

Shelly Taylor is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Lions, Remonstrance (Coconut Books Braddock Book Prize, 2014) and Black-Eyed Heifer (Tarpaulin Sky, 2010), as well as three chapbooks,Dirt City Lions (Horse Less, 2012), Land Wide to Get a Hold Lost In (Dancing Girl, 2009), and Peaches the Yes-Girl (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2008).  Hick Poetics, co-edited with Abraham Smith, an anthology of contemporary rural American poetry, is newly released from Lost Roads Press (2015).  Born in deep southern Georgia, Taylor now lives in Tucson and is a lecturer at the University of Arizona, a bartender, and a barrel racing hopeful.

Erika Howsare, Chapbooks Assistant Editor

Erika Howsare learned to write poems in Ohio, Rhode Island, and alongside Lewis & Clark. She’s the author of Elect June Grooms and Oak Knock (horse less press), The Ohio System (with Jen Tynes, Octopus Books), and a collaboration with Kate Schapira, FILL: A Collection, forthcoming in 2016 from Trembling Pillow Press. She lives in Virginia, amid a tangle of invasives.

Jessica Comola, Horse Less Review Editor

Jessica Comola is the author of Everything We Met Changed Form and Followed the Rest (forthcoming from Caketrain Press in early 2016) and the chapbook What Kind of Howly Divine (Horse Less Press 2014). Her work has previously appeared in jubilat, Tenderloin, Dreginald, EOAGH, and Smoking Glue Gun. She is working toward a PhD at the University of Denver.

Michael Sikkema, Books Assistant Editor, Horse Less Review Assistant Editor

Michael Sikkema is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, Futuring, January Found (both from Blazevox) and May Apple Deep (from Trembling Pillow Press). He is also the author of several chapbooks most recently Time Missing (from Grey Book Press). He’s interested in mycelium and dark matter. He is the founding editor of Shirt Pocket Press, a ragtag kitchen table chapbook operation based in Grand Rapids, MI.

Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia, Horse Less Review Assistant Editor

Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia is the author of This Sentimental Education, ROBOT, and Yawning on the Sands in addition to being the founder of ALTPOETICS. They are a poet, humorist and drummer originally from Brooklyn, NY. They now reside in Albany, NY where they received a degree in linguistics. Their work has appeared in ditch, Caliban, Barzakh, BlazeVOX and Brooklyn Rail. As well, they have performed in upstate NY and Western MA including lengthy readings of the epic poem, ROBOT, with the no wave band – Hill Haints. More of Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia’s work can be found at kjpgarcia.wordpress.com.

Jen Denrow, Horse Less Review Assistant Editor

Jennifer Denrow is the author of California. She lives in Colorado with a poet, a dog, and a baby.

Steven Dunn, Reviews & Interviews Editor

Steven Dunn was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy he attended University of Denver and received his B.A. in Creative Writing. His first novel, Potted Meat, is forthcoming from Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2016.

Amorak Huey, Reviews & Interviews Assistant Editor

Amorak Huey is author of the poetry collection Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress, 2015) and the chapbook The Insomniac Circus (Hyacinth Girl, 2014). A former newspaper editor and reporter, he teaches writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His poems appear in The Best American Poetry 2012, The Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, The Collagist, Menacing Hedge, and many other print and online journals.

Sarah Cook, Reviews & Interviews Assistant Editor

Lately, Sarah Cook is thinking about: the limits of language + the need to write, say, keep trying; the moment one thinks, “that’s not something I would do/say/be,” and the moment that follows; self-care, productive failure, and side ponytails. She currently rollerblades in the state of Oregon. She has work forthcoming in Electric Gurlesque.

We are so happy to announce some newly-forthcoming publications! In early 2016, Horse Less Press will be publishing the following chapbooks:

Burnout Paradise by Christine Bettis

Habitat by Cassandra de Alba

Answering Machine by Daniela Olszewska

and in summer of 2016, we will be publishing the full-length book Ic by Serena Chopra.

Christine Bettis is a writer living in Las Vegas where she is pursuing her MFA in Poetry at UNLV. She is from Detroit.

Serena Chopra is a PhD candidate at the University of Denver in Creative Writing. She is the author of Ic (Horse Less 2016), This Human (Coconut Books 2013) and the chapbooks Livid Season (Free Poetry 2012) and Penumbra (Flying Guillotine 2012). She is a dancer with the modern dance company, Evolving Doors Dance, and was a 2011-2013 resident artist at the RedLine art gallery in Denver. She currently teaches at Naropa University and the University of Denver.

Cassandra de Alba’s work has appeared in Drunken Boat, Illuminati Girl Gang, Vector Press, The Nervous Breakdown, and Anti-, among other publications. She has competed in several National Poetry Slams and currently runs the Tumblr for the Boston Poetry Slam, whose follower count is directly connected to her sense of self-worth. She lives in an apartment called the Feral Bitch Palace in Medford, MA.

Daniela Olszewska is the author of four books of poetry, including cloudfang : : cakedirt (Horse Less Press, 2012) and Citizen J (Artifice Books, 2013). She self-identifies as a Chicagoan.

WE ARE SO EXCITED ABOUT THESE BOOKS! YOU SHOULD BE TOO!

This week at Horse Less Review, three poems by Liberty Heise!

Find the passerine that is least interesting to you, a bird song that comes across as monotonous. Then, become Lembeye hearing the Mellisuga helenae for the very first time. Your own adaptations have taken a turn. (read more) 

This week at OPEN – as part of our series on collaboration, an interview with Deborah Poe and Kyle Schlesinger! 

Up at Horse Less Review #18 today, three new poems by Trina Burke!

What could you even say
if I ate my son for breakfast?

The taste of him a nothing, like water.
There comes a time in every mother’s

life when she tires. Or is it hungers?
The simple arithmetic of abundance

can be miscalculated to tragic
consequences. (read more…)

Up at OPEN today, Sarah Cook engages with Jenny Drai’s The New Sorrow is Less Than the Old Sorrow. You can purchase a copy of The New Sorrow via Black Lawrence Press.

This week’s installment of Horse Less Review #18: from THE BOOK OF FORMER WISDOM by Nicholas Rosenfeld Grider! 

God is not a telephone pole you shimmy up and slap the top of

God is a forest of telephone poles both closer and farther away, God is both closer and farther away, the dust is still cherry red, the burlap blankets are black, or they’re not just blankets they’re also nets, and they snare what, or should you stay home and take off your tie (read more)

This summer, Horse Less Press has been working to expand and restructure its editorial board. We’re not finished yet, but I wanted to announce a few exciting new changes!

Sade Murphy will become our new Chapbooks Editor. Sade Murphy a poet and artist from Houston, TX. Sade is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, ​the author of Dream Machine (co-im-press, 2014)​, and a columnist at Real Pants (Lonely Britches and What’s the Tea). They are pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Activism​ at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Soham Patel will become our new Chapbooks Assistant Editor. Soham Patel is a Kundiman fellow. Her chapbook, and nevermind the storm (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs) came out in 2013. Her work has been featured at Fact-Simile Editions, Copper Nickel, CURA and other places.  She is a PhD Candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Steven Dunn will become our new Reviews & Interviews Editor. Steven Dunn was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy he attended University of Denver and received his B.A. in Creative Writing. His first novel, Potted Meat, is forthcoming from Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2016.

We’re so excited about this! Stay tuned for more!