Small Press Pages July 2025

Small Press Pages July 2025

Despite the evolution of the publishing industry to involve various players besides large publishers (i.e. hybrid, independent, and small publishers as well as digital and audio books), books released by large presses still garner most of the attention. This column hopes to shed light on some of the diverse books published by small and independent presses. As author Charlotte Eriksson wrote in You’re Doing Just Fine, “There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.”

In this installment, we have essays, poetry, short fiction, and more!

Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity by Ellen Van Neerven (Two Dollar Radio)

Essays on sport and its troubled relationship with gender, sexuality, and race.

Apple Mind by Katie Richards (Small Harbor Publishing)

A poetry collection focusing on marriage, parenting, communication, and the beauty of the natural world. 

Be Gay, Do Crime by Molly Llewellyn and Kristal Buckley, Eds (Dzanc Books)

Sixteen wild stories featuring queerness and crime.

Emma by the Sea by Sarah G Levine (Bold Strokes Books)

A modern-day sapphic romance inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma

Deliverywoman: Stories by Eva Wiles (Influx Press)

Thirteen short stories focusing on human connection, meaning, and loneliness.

Nebulous Vertigo by Belle Ling (Tupelo Press)

A poetry collection—along with artwork and ideographs—that brings together everyday objects, culture, and fate. 

The Miniaturist’s Assistant by Katherine Scott Crawford (Regal House Publishing)

Historical time-slip fiction that involves art, love, and mystery.

Sex is never just about sex.

From the outside, Nika Stewart’s life looks perfect: two loving kids, a fulfilling job as an elementary-school librarian, and a wonderful second marriage to Ethan, her sexy husband. The only problem? She doesn’t want to have sex with him.

Maybe it’s the harrowing hot flashes and formidable fatigue, or maybe it’s trying to juggle a weed-junkie dad, an onerous stepsister, and the avalanche of responsibilities that have left sex just another chore to cross off the to-do list.

When an honest conversation with her best friend leaves Nika worried her aversion to sex might drive Ethan away, she begrudgingly agrees to see a sex therapist. But as the sessions go on, Nika discovers that talking about sex with a therapist isn’t the same as facing the problem with her husband and that sex with Ethan might not be the only problem after all.

Filled with humor, candor, and at least one pair of role-playing chaps, The Marriage Debt examines the hard truths about sex that overbooked women face in their forties, as well as the joys still to come once a woman knows who she is and how to ask for what she wants.