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The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go, by William Woolfitt Appalachian poet William Woolfitt's latest collection, The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go, brings together elegy and awe. Part environmental documentary, part folk songbook, each poem manifests places riddled with mystery, moving from climate change and rural resilience to more personal vignettes of individuals carving out homes in West Virginia and Tennessee. Despite the ongoing presence or threat of disaster, Woolfitt's voice clings to beauty while seeking what can still be salvaged and preserved. William Woolfitt grew up in Farmington, West Virginia. He is the author of four poetry collections, two story collections, and an essay collection. Ring of Earth (stories) was published by Madville Publishing in 2023; Eyes Moving Through the Dark (essays) is forthcoming from Orison Books. He attended Fairmont State University, Hollins University, and Penn State University, and lives in Southeast Tennessee. Praise for The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go: "The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go by Will Woolfitt is a bittersweet hymn for the author’s West Virginian upbringing and the undeniable legacies of a mining town–where 'the fires in the mountains will not stop burning.' These poems are both elegiac and reverent, grounding in their histories and stunning in their imagery. The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go reminds me why poetry can do what no other art form can–both testimony and revelation, it binds us to the past even as it enables us to envision new futures. As Woolfitt writes of Appalachia–'Here, the mouths I feed, / the fuels I go through like water, / the smoldering earth where they’ll bury me.' In this world 'where the living / cry to their buried ones, and a bent woman reads from her holy book / by candlelight,' these poems exist as a geography of home and a cartography of Appalachian roots–'meadows laced with unseen / cavities—an understory of tunnels.'” —Joan Kwon Glass, author of Night Swim "Here is a people’s history of Appalachia mired in coal slurry and sawdust, thick with the stink of industrial toxins. But do not despair; The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go is not a death knell but more like a church bell ringing clear across a valley and calling us home. Will Woolfitt’s poetic practice uses not dread but song and singing to bring a vital music to these 'stories choked by grief.' Here is a people’s history of Appalachia whose melodies are brutally honest, unforgettable, and reminiscent of 'what it’s like to be alive to wonder and dread.'” —Marianne Worthington, author of The Girl Singer “Woolfitt’s slow-burning lyrics haunt and illuminate, telling of waters sickened with coal mine run-off, tree limbs rattling like dry bones, smoldering earth. These poems testify about the devastation wrought by greed and privilege while also daring to imagine a new story, where the refinery captain has thrown his watch away and where weeds transform into flowers under a little boy’s gaze. Deftly balancing tenderness and truth, these poems are an admirable addition to Woolfitt’s already impressive collection of work.” —Leah Silvieus, author of Arabilis Details: Publication date: June 18, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-960215-18-5 Trim size: 6 x 9 in 76 pages Looking for more Belle Point poetry? Check out our 2024 subscription!

The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go

The Hungry and the Haunted, by Rilla Askew About the Book From the author of The Mercy Seat and Fire in Beulah comes a new collection of six stories troubled by ghosts that linger in our present moment. Set primarily in eastern Oklahoma during the 1970s, The Hungry and the Haunted is Rilla Askew’s testament to young women and other outsiders navigating relationships, social change, and the power of place during increasingly precarious times. Some haunted by ancient wrongs, others yearning to escape or reckoning with primal griefs, each character wrestles with the bonds that wound them and the places that keep them tethered to their roots. This collection is not to be missed by anyone interested in questions of what becomes of our stories as we struggle to write them ourselves.Known for her award-winning historical fiction, Askew evokes with resonant period detail the lives of earlier generations in these stories that speak to our current era of fragility and change. About the Author Best known for her American Book Award-winning novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Fire in Beulah, Rilla Askew has long been telling hidden Oklahoma stories. She’s the author of five novels, a book of short fiction, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s a PEN/Faulkner finalist, recipient of the Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas, and a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Praise for Rilla Askew: "Rilla Askew--a storyteller of truth and grace in all she writes, whether novel or essay--moves us to compassionately consider Oklahoma in all its faces. Oklahoma's is rough story of theft and coercion, of beauty and tenderness. In Most American, Askew teaches us to see with wiser eyes." -Joy Harjo "Five generations of Rilla Askew's family have occupied southeastern Oklahoma. Celebrating this birthright, she has concocted of it her own Faulknerian kingdom. Askew is writing a mythic cycle, novels and stories that unsettle our view of the West's settling. In a continuous fictional mural populated with hardscrabble souls - credible, noble and flawed - Askew is completing the uncompleted crossing of the plains. Trusting prose that is disciplined, luxuriant and muscular, she is forging a chronicle as humane as it is elemental." -Allan Gurganus, May 20, 2009, American Academy of Arts and Letters Foreword Reviews Selected Publicity: Tin House interview Okie Bookcast interview (podcast) Details: Publication date: September 17, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-960215-17-8 Trim size: 8.5 in. H | 5.5 in. W Pages: 160 Edelweiss listing Looking for more Belle Point prose? Check out our 2024 subscription!

The Hungry and the Haunted

Brazos, by Justin Carter Publication Date: August 6, 2024 A stark and lonely voice rings clear in Justin Carter's debut collection. Brazos teems with ghosts, bloodlines, and gas flares, tracing a "river cloaked in mud" that trudges toward the Texas Gulf Coast. In these poems, a complex Millennial coming-of-age story emerges amidst the grief for a place that seems to disappear while standing still—always haunted by the ways "we've all been pulled under" the currents of violence, identity, and change. Justin Carter's poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Bat City Review, DIAGRAM, and other spaces. Originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, Justin currently lives in Iowa and works as a sports writer and editor. Brazos is his debut collection. Praise for Brazos: “Justin Carter’s Brazos offers a vital portrayal of coming of age in small-town Texas, one that is both elegiac and incisive as it recalls a place where too many people, like the pecan tree planted in the family’s yard, ‘barely grow.’ These haunting lyrics explore the disaffection of the townsfolk, particularly the white boys and men whose rage so often brims into violence. When one neighbor kills another, Carter’s speaker recognizes him as a man ‘who, like so many of the men / who commit violence here, // was a local: born & raised here, / a man who looked like me.’ The speaker of these poems, someone who has left and changed, looks back with bewilderment and alienation, but also tenderness, especially for his friends and family left behind, as he mourns a place and a time when he could still ‘pretend to belong somewhere.’” —Corey Marks, author of The Radio Tree and Renunciation“In Justin Carter’s powerful first book, home is a bittersweet space. He makes visible the consolations of the working-class and he slows down time with arresting details, brilliant phrasing—a lyricism that refuses to avert its gaze. Sports-watching, familial narratives, and the trapdoors of teenage-hood are rendered in unflinching and tender language. But ‘there is a strangeness / in the air,’ an unsettling narrow-mindedness the speaker refuses to pledge allegiance to. Carter’s ability to love and to call out is transformative. Here, poetry is a path forward.”—Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine and Slow Lightning“Brazos emerges from Brazos as both place and spirit, mostly spirit. The physical place, like the human body, has been compromised by greed, time, stupidity, and is now an amphitheater of ghosts. How the poetry, a relentless dirge, can be so gorgeous, is testimony to the truth it is hellbent on excavating: fracking, crystal meth, Home Depot, American culture—our deadly muses—abet us as we seek ‘to control our own destruction.’ Carter, like Odysseus’s sirens, beckons our ‘old boat.’ Our ears are opened, almost eager, for the moment he will grab us, tear us apart. But never fear: our fear will be ‘replaced eventually / by the fog of waking.’ Brazos is a suicide note. Irresistible, communal, decided.” —Larissa Szporluk, author of Virginals“Justin Carter’s Brazos brings us to the small towns of Texas, the state routes and parking lots, a Texas of memory and nostalgia, violence and beauty, ‘soft skin & nights driving down dirt roads.’ Here, the Brazos River fills with dead fish, silt and forgetfulness and the men work pipelines and petrochemical plants. Here memories of a rough childhood mix with the adult knowledge that the past is irretrievable, that ‘we used to burn trash together / & now we burn nothing … / It rains for months. / The rain is the ghost of us.’ These poems are rich and complex, nuanced and intelligent, calling up lost time so vividly. Justin Carter is a terrific poet. I will return to Brazos with pleasure.” —Kevin Prufer, author of The Fears Details: Publication date: August 6, 2024 Trim size: 6 x 9 in ISBN: 978-1-960215-22-2 Looking for more Belle Point poetry? Check out our 2024 subscription!

Brazos

Take Me Home, by Bethany Jarmul Take Me Home tells a story of growing up and getting out while still loving what’s left behind. Among the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Bethany Jarmul describes her early experiences with a voice both as vivid and as fragile as the scenery and people around her. In this vulnerable mini-memoir, Jarmul offers glimpses into the hopeful process of clinging to places that have shaped us even as we no longer quite fit inside them. Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer and poet. She’s the author of two chapbooks, and her debut poetry collection Lightning Is a Mother is forthcoming with ELJ Editions in 2025. Her work was selected for Best Spiritual Literature 2023 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on social media: @BethanyJarmul. Details: Publication date: June 25, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-960215-20-8 44 pages 5 x 7 in Plan ahead and order our next 2024 Chapbook Subscription!

Take Me Home

Of Fathers & Gods, by Jim Roberts Of Fathers & Gods is a debut collection of short fiction that delves into the relationships between fathers and their children: the good, the bad, and the awful. In these emotionally charged stories, a young expectant father, on the edge of homelessness, loses his religion and duels with a street preacher; fifty-year-old twins, survivors of foster care, war, and prison, fight over the decision to finally meet the father who abandoned them as infants, and hold him to account; and a Pulitzer-winning, ageist professor seeks to quash the writing dreams of an elderly student while coming to terms with how much love he’s lost as a result of his career. These nine stories open a window into the most primal elements of the human condition—childhood and parenting—and show us how, try as we might, we can never fully escape the bonds of blood. Jim Roberts grew up in rural East Texas. After college, he lived and worked briefly in Houston before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1980s to pursue a business career. Now a full-time writer, he and his wife, the artist Donna Berry Roberts, split their time between Ohio and Texas, depending on whim, changes in the weather, or the beckoning of distant haints. His fiction has appeared in Prime Number Magazine, Rappahannock Review, Snake Nation Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Arlington Literary Journal (ArLiJo). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice named to the finalist list for the Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Award. Of Fathers & Gods is his first book. Praise for Of Fathers & Gods: “They say Jacob wrestled with the Lord; writers like Jim Roberts continue that tradition of spiritual grappling. Of Father & Gods is an auspicious debut, nine stories that will pin you every time.” —Aaron Gwyn, author of All God's Children and Wynne’s War “From the first story (loaded with grief, guts, and grit) to the last (unforgiving with tongue-in-cheek), Of Fathers & Gods provokes as much as it coaxes. Characters have sharp edges that Roberts uses to trim up his stories. Every once in a while they nick, or even slice into you. The words he wraps them in are surgical in their precision. Whether the setting is downtown Brooklyn, or a lazy Texas river, Roberts creates atmospheres intricate enough to bury family secrets. Men populating the book are the fathers you know—some you wish you didn’t. With them Roberts asks old questions, but offers fresh answers from cover to cover: What do gods make of fathers? What gods do fathers make?” —Toby LeBlanc, author of Dark Roux "Jim Roberts writes with truth and clarity. Each searing story gets to the heart of humanity. A collection you’ll devour and then go back to for seconds." —Mark Westmoreland, author of A Violent Gospel and A Mourning Song “These are stories haunted by father figures, both present and passed, and by the many ways they’ve failed their children. Through stories about kidnapping, prosthesis creation, family secrets and mass shootings, Roberts never loses sight of the thumping, bleeding hearts of his characters, yearning for better lives. If you’re looking for the firm, no-nonsense truths of Flannery O’Connor and the raw, hardscrabble edge of Denis Johnson, this is your book. You would be wise to pick up a copy.” —John Matthew Fox, Founder of Bookfox and author of I Will Shout Your Name Foreword Reviews Details: Publication date: May 14, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-960215-15-4 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" 170 pages Looking for more Belle Point prose? Check out our 2023 bundle!

Of Fathers & Gods

Atchafalaya Darling, by Shome Dasgupta In Shome Dasgupta's latest collection, the dream-like world of South Louisiana shimmers through one of its most original voices. Atchafalaya Darling contains local music scenes, crumbling homes, and creature comforts amid the convergence of wild hopes and rural spaces. Each story navigates the nature of memory, lost or found, sprinkled like spice into the red of the crawfish. While this collection often portrays immense grief—whether from hurricane winds or splintered dreams—​each character clings to a love for place and the people who make it home. Atchafalaya Darling is an homage to Cajun culture, providing ten glimpses into this region like a series of faded Polaroid pictures held under the sun. Shome Dasgupta is the author of The Seagull and The Urn (HarperCollins India), Cirrus Stratus (Spuyten Duyvil), Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West Publishing House), The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books), Histories Of Memories (Belle Point Press), Anklet And Other Stories (Golden Antelope Press), Pretend I Am Someone You Like (Livingston Press), Spectacles (Word West Press), Mute (Tolsun Books), i am here And You Are Gone which won the 2010 OW Press Contest, and a poetry collection, Iron Oxide (Assure Press). His fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, American Book Review, New Orleans Review, Arkansas Review, New Delta Review, Necessary Fiction, Louisiana Literature, Jabberwock Review, Parentheses Journal, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. His work has been anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press), Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press), Best Small Fictions 2023 (Alternating Current Press), The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing (&Now Books), and Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 (Gival Press). He lives in Lafayette, LA, and can be found online at shomedome.com and @laughingyeti. Praise for Atchafalaya Darling: “There’s so much tenderness in these stories, all wrapped in vibrantly bubbling scenes and conversations. Dasgupta cares about all these characters and it shows all over the pages and pulls a reader in.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and The Butterfly Lampshade Praise for Histories of Memories: “In the vulnerable, gorgeously written, and brilliantly illustrated Histories of Memories, Shome Dasgupta offers the reader an unflinching account of love and loss, failure and redemption, pleasure and pain. Dasgupta layers locations—Kolkata, Edmonton, Munich—with soundtracks—Dr. Dolittle, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Magnolia—and family—mother, father, uncle, brother, with friends, lifelong and long gone: a mixtape filled with his distinctive lyricism.” —Melissa Llanes Brownlee, author of Hard Skin and Kahi and Lua “Page by page, these stories transport, restore, nourish, and remind. They bring us chocolates and curries, mud and family, songs and sights from all over the planet. More than anything, they show us humanity. And for that, for this author, I am truly grateful.” —Jack B. Bedell, Poet Laureate of Louisiana, 2017-2019 “Shome Dasgupta charts a sometimes surreal and always beautiful crossing of time and space….The past is always accessible, even as it shapeshifts on the altars of remembrance. Dasgupta reveals the radiant potentials of short form storytelling.” —Ra’Niqua Lee, author of For What Ails You Details: Publication date: July 9, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-960215-19-2 160 pages Trim size: 5.5" x 8.5" Looking for more Belle Point prose? Check out our 2024 bundle!

Atchafalaya Darling

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