We closed out 2023 with the final installment of my 2023 book lists. Looking into the future, we have many books to be excited about. Though the LLB2 team and our contributors have named just a few as our most anticipated, I speak for all of us when I say it was no easy task selecting just a few because there are so many noteworthy books arriving in the world this year. Below you'll find our most anticipated books with a bit of information about them, some contributors included a brief note about why they're looking forward to the books as well. Even though we don't have all the book covers or information for each book yet, we didn't want to miss an opportunity to put them on your radar. With smaller presses especially, these things don't become available until closer to the publication date. We will be updating this post as we get more information about each of these books so keep an eye out.
2024 will be another excellent year for books, dear friends. Support these writers through buying their books, requesting a copy in your local library, and/or writing a review.
Francisco Aragón is looking forward to....
Four Way Books
September 2024
AND
(title is not currently available)
FlowerSong Press
Fall 2024
Brent Ameneyro is looking forward to....
University of Wisconsin Press
March 2024
"I enjoyed his chapbook At Night My Body Waits, winner of the 2021 Two Sylvias Press prize."
New Directions
February 2024
"Glass, Irony & God was transformational for me, so I'm always excited to see new work from her. "
Laura Villareal is looking forward to....
Tiny Reparations Books
May 2024
"Vanessa Angélica Villarreal is one of our best contemporary poets and cultural critics. Her writing contains an incisive ache and necessary depth to interrogate our 21st century lives. I have admired Villarreal’s writing since her first book Beast Meridian and delighted over her critical and personal essays on pop culture over the last few years. I look forward to digging into this collection when it comes out. "
Black Lawrence Press
March 2024
"Pentimento is a book I have been waiting for since 2021 when Joshua Garcia’s poems arrived in my inbox. I was editing a folio at West Branch Magazine and felt immediately connected to the voice of the long poem he sent me. It perfectly melded the lyric and narrative. It included photographs of the poet overlayed by biblical verses. Joshua Garcia's voice is singular. His poems witness the world with an artist's eye, a photographer's sensibilities, and a poet's skillful ear."
Haymarket Books
July 2024
"I loved Faylita Hick's first book HoodWitch and couldn't wait for their next book. When I read the description of A Map of My Want I knew I absolutely had to read it. The jacket copy describes Hick's second collection as, "'An offspring of Audre Lorde’s seminal essay “Uses of the Erotic,” Hicks’s A Map of My Want follows a nonbinary femme as they explore the sensual intersection of the personal and the political, a crossroads to which their sexual liberation brought them after their escape from a religious cult.'"
Diego Báez is looking forward to...
Nightboat
September 2024
"This third book by Bendorf promises to deliver tender, daring, brave, impeccable poems. Consider these lines from the title poem of his third book: "Testosterone, yes, I take it. Which is not the same as fighting. / The shape you see has nothing to do with me, or the rooster."
Texas Review Press: The University Press of SHSU
Fall 2024
"Former Poet Laureate of San Antonio (2018-2020), author of If I Go Missing (Slough, 2014), and creator of a colorful series of visual poems, Frontextos (a blend of frontera and texto—border/text), Quintanilla returns with his second book, about which the author says: "It has taken approximately ten years to say, in less than 100 pages, what I've been wanting to say since I first started writing in English."
jo reyes-boitel is looking forward to...
FlowerSong Press
Spring 2024
"Carmen Calatayud has her second book, This Tangled Body, arriving in Spring 2024 from FlowerSong Press. Calatayud's writing moves through the Latinx diaspora as an embodied thing, with ramifications on the narrator's relationships with others and with the self. Calatayud has a way of displaying the inevitable haunting feeling that comes with this kind of introspection and worldview. Her first book, In the Company of Spirits, was an Andres Montoya finalist. And her work as a therapist and migration rights activist informs and complicates understanding.
Graywolf Press
April 2024
"Sara Daniele Rivera's forthcoming book, The Blue Mimes, is the winner of Academy of American Poets First Book Award. This book centers on the ways we experience and process loss, especially in the aftermath of mourning and the human condition. Her work is stark and evocative."
Somos En Escrito
Spring 2024
"The forthcoming Somos Xicanas Anthology edited by the group at Somos En Escrito, will be out Summer 2024. The anthology is multi-genre and multi-generational creative writing from both established and new writers exploring Xicana identity within lifestyle, values, principles, politics, education, spirituality, family, motherhood, movements, art, and more. For more information: http://www.somosenescrito.com."
Alfredo Aguilar is looking forward to...
Copper Canyon
2024
AND
Alice James Books August 2024
Dimitri Reyes is looking forward to....
Tupelo Press
February 2024
Penguin Poetry Series
August 2024
S. Salazar is looking forward to....
Acre Books
March 2023
"I'm honestly most excited about Jose Hernandez Diaz's collection Bad Mexican, Bad American. It's going to be a strong collection, and the cover is GORGEOUS."
Reyes Ramirez is looking forward to....
TRP: The University of SHSU
January 2024
"This special edition release of Esteban Rodriguez's Lotería will be his book of poetry, originally released in 2023, republished as a deck of 54 cards. If this isn't an amazing remix of the classic game and of the book as a form that I've been waiting for, then I don't know what is."
Deep Vellum
May 2024
"This long awaited collection by my fellow Houston poet incorporates visual, textual, political, and personal languages that pay homage to artistic communities, the self, and the city in a way that serves as creative and archival record."
Forthcoming Books by Our LLB2 Team
Of course, I also want to mention that LLB2 has cause for celebration! My co-editor Brent Ameneyro’s debut collection A Face Out of Clay will be out this summer and our Unique Niche columnist Diego Báez’s debut book Yaguareté White will be arriving this February. We encourage you to check them out.
The Center for Literary Publishing
June 2024
University of Arizona
February 2024