Middle West Press

In an anthology chock-full with revealing poetry and prose, approximately 60 emerging and established military writers unpack their stories of sacrifice, hardship, joy, and laughter in uniform. Contributors to Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear were challenged to capture their narratives in 300 words or less, or few lines of poetry. The Kindle e-book edition  is available for pre-order here at this link . The print edition will release Nov. 1, 2023. “Inspired by a prompt from writer and activist-veteran Vicki Hudson, the uniforms, objects, and souvenirs we found in closets, shoeboxes, and footlockers revealed not only anecdotes and war stories , but also threads of history ,” says project co-editor Randy Brown. “We discovered that stories from recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began to interweave with those from the Vietnam War , deployments to Korea , and even family stories from World War II. ” To motivate other writers, veterans, and rea...

Middle West Press LLC , an independent micro-publisher of military-themed and -adjacent literary projects, has issued a call for human-generated poems engaging with  “Giant Robot” technology themes. This is a "speculative poetry" market. What is a "Giant Robot" theme? For this project, the term "Giant Robots" can include examples of technologies in timelines both real and imagined, and of any size or (even formless) form . Living Ships. Loitering Drones. Taxi-cab AI. Robot Tanks. Virtual Soldiers. Space Explorers. Mecha-suits. In short, any vessel for exploring themes of human-electro-mechanical-cyber interaction, connection, and competition . The working title of this project is Giant Robot Poems: Poetry About Mecha-Human Science, Culture & War . Editors of the project write: Our intent with this project is to have fun , but also to illuminate, interrogate, and challenge (via the still-human domain of poetry!!!) the ways people think about emerging...

In a punchy collection of poetry packed with humor and grit, The Explosion Takes Both Legs: Noir Poems from the War in Iraq , former U.S. Army infantry-officer-turned-crime-writer J.B. Stevens delivers both action and insight into how Americans go to war in the 21st century. Despite the can’t-miss, explosive nature of some of his war stories, his poems are also often filled with stoic, deadpan grace . For example, he begins “A Ghost in an Arabian Desert” with ... “After we returned, We had a ceremony and the commander said many nice things, I got a Bronze Star. My mother and father and brothers met me at the base, Because my fiancée had cheated and left, And my brother brought me ice-cream. [...]” Stevens’ collection of noirish short-fiction,  A Therapeutic Death: Violent Short Stories , was published in 2022 by Shotgun Honey Books. Infused with TV and other pop-culture references, Stevens’ debut poetry collection,   The Best of America Cannot Be Seen: Pop Poems , was published i...