Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. His work has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub, and elsewhere. A winner of the 2021 Narrative Prize, Talty’s work has been supported by the Elizabeth George Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts (2022). Talty teaches courses in both English and Native American Studies, and he is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in creative writing as well as the Institute of American Indian Arts. Talty is also a Prose Editor at The Massachusetts Review. He lives in Levant, Maine.
If the Dead Belong Here (2025) Carson Faust "If the Dead Belong Here is a thunderclap of a novel - fierce, lyrical, and unrelentingly intimate. Carson Faust writes across time, bloodline, and grief with mythic authority and needlepoint precision. This is a story about hauntings both literal and inherited, a child gone missing, and the women who carry everything that came before. Faust doesn't just bend form - he breaks it open. Because what needs to be carried here won't fit inside a neat arc or a clean ending. This book doesn't offer closure - it offers witness: to generational grief, to girls who vanish and those who are left to search, to the slow violence of silence, to the ways history seeps into the body and stays. What it asks in return is that you stay too."
Salt Bones (2025) Jennifer Givhan "In Salt Bones, Jennifer Givhan delivers a novel taut with a mother's fierce love and the corrosive power of secrets. With language that is both precise and visceral, Givhan plunges readers into El Valle - a landscape that is at once lush and poisoned, alive with myth yet grounded in harsh realities. The narrative unfolds as a masterclass in voice, its characters complex and deeply human, each bearing the burden of a past that refuses to remain buried. Givhan trusts the silences, allowing tension to seep through unspoken words, creating a story where what's left unsaid resonates the loudest. Salt Bones demands to be read because it understands trauma and the brutal necessity of confronting it; this is storytelling at its most urgent and haunting."
The Original Daughter (2025) Jemimah Wei "A beautifully crafted exploration of family, identity, and the complexities of cultural expectations. Wei is a talented, indelible writer with much to offer to a world that is in desperate need of saving."
Old School Indian (2025) Aaron John Curtis "With its profound exploration of identity, language, and cultural survival, Old School Indian commands attention. Through the vivid and deeply human lives of a Mohawk family, Curtis weaves a narrative that insists we listen closely and engage deeply. The characters, grounded in both tradition and the challenges of modernity, speak with a voice that is both urgent and timeless, drawing us into a world where every word, every action, carries the weight of history and the hope for the future. Curtis strikingly balances humor and gravity, creating a story that forces us to confront our assumptions, demands to be heard, and ultimately reminds us of the enduring, sacred power of storytelling. Old School Indian joins the ranks of the finest fiction written by Indigenous peoples, past and present. This is a novel of pure heart and mastery."
The Antidote (2025) Karen Russell "Russell's prose is something to be savored. Every sentence is meticulously crafted, each one revealing layers of meaning that draw you deeper into the narrative. Her language is both lush and sharp, weaving a dreamlike quality into the story that makes the characters' emotional journeys feel all the more visceral. Memory is both the poison and the cure here, something that simultaneously traps and liberates the characters. They move through their world with the weight of what's unspoken pressing down on them. It's a novel that asks the reader to sit with discomfort, to walk alongside its characters as they confront their unresolved histories. Russell navigates these emotional landscapes with care and respect and the distinct gift she carries that is heaven - I mean Love."
Waiting for the Long Night Moon (2024) Amanda Peters "In the follow-up to her debut, national bestselling novel The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters returns, this time with a collection of stories: Waiting for the Long Night Moon. The stories in this collection captivate with a blend of traditional Indigenous storytelling and Peters's signature spare, evocative prose. Both heart-wrenching and triumphant, these stories span an astonishingly wide spectrum of the Indigenous experience - from the humiliations of systemic racism to the enduring strength and dignity of Indigenous life. Peters reminds us, time and again, that where there is trauma, there is resilience, where there is grief, there is joy, and where there is loss, there is love and the promise of a future that rises from within the human experience. These are stories at their best, stories that will turn any reader's preference of the novel to that of the short story form - this is a collection where each short story is its own explosion of the heart that puts itself back together again for the better. Peters has given us a gift, and while it is this book, it her time and energy she spends to create such brilliance on the page."
We Burn Daylight (2024) Bret Anthony Johnston "Yes, it is spellbinding. Yes, it is explosive. Yes, it is a must-read book. An ineffable work of fiction, We Burn Daylight is full of characters grappling with the ways loss and language and space and desire make it so hard to speak not to the loss but to each other."
Wandering Stars (2024) Tommy Orange "In his follow up to There There, Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars is a powerful and indelible work of fiction. There is so much the reader is given: love, hate, happiness, despair, knowing, unknowing, failure, redemption, and more, all of which is to say that this is a book of life - a necessary story for everyone. For the sake of knowing, of understanding, Wandering Stars blew my heart into a thousand pieces and put it all back together again. This is a masterwork that will not be forgotten, a masterwork that will forever be part of you."
An Ordinary Violence (2023) Adriana Chartrand "An Ordinary Violence is surely a gripping and haunting novel, one that will hold you from the first word to the last, but what makes it so potent and memorable is the way Adriana Chartrand tells this story with such grace and humility. There is horror, and then there is horror - An Ordinary Violence has both. This is an unforgettable novel."
Dearborn (2023) Ghassan Zeineddine "Dearborn is one of the funniest, truest, and most heartfelt books I have ever read. Zeineddine writes with so much grace and understanding, so much love and compassion, so much mastery that these stories will become part of who you are."
And Then She Fell (2023) Alicia Elliott "And Then She Fell is an incredible and indelible novel. It's full of wonder and surprise, full of life and heart. This book is a gift that breathes life into the reader. Alicia Elliott has given us a knockout - a book so good you can't put it down."
The Road to Dalton (2023) (Dalton Novels, book 1) Shannon Bowring "Paved with beauty, grace, humility, and love... a triumphant work that reminds us what literature should be."
No One Dies from Love (2023) Robert Levy "No One Dies From Love is one of the most original collections I have read in recent years. Again and again I found myself stunned by Levy's stories: their depth and range at making the heart expand to encompass the wonders of the world."
The Last Catastrophe (2023) Allegra Hyde "I always keep an empty space on my bookshelf for my next favorite book, and The Last Catastrophe has taken that spot. A dazzling and unassumingly brilliant collection, Allegra Hyde's stories take hold and never, ever let go. These aren't stories you will forget - these are stories that will become part of your DNA: undeniable elements of the human experience. The Last Catastrophe is a masterwork of hope against a changing - and oftentimes unforgiving - world."
(b.1991)
