Middle West Press

Now available for Kindle e-book pre-order !  Launching in print and Kindle e-book  March 4, 2025 ! In a first-of-its-kind anthology, 30 emerging and established voices of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror tell fresh new narratives of environmental and social transformation set in the American Midwest! Corn-fueled rocket ships! A jungle in Minneapolis! A Kansas City on Mars! Flooded suburbs! Tourist-trap family farms! A popcorn apocalypse! With insight, humor, and empathy , each creator offers r esponses to the turbulence of 21st century life, work, environment, and place . Through considerations of real-world challenges—including climate change, drought, wildfire, flood, and social isolation —they provide stories of resilience and growth.  “The best anthologies result in a collaborative act of magic and alchemy —writers become a generative hive-mind of possibilities,” writes anthology editor Randy Brown. “Our contributors cultivated new visions and interpretations ...

Middle West Press LLC , an independent micro-publisher based in Central Iowa, has issued a call for human-generated poems and micro-prose (300 words max.) telling fantastic stories of monsters in a 21st century American Midwest. The working title of this project is Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters . Deadline for submissions is Mar. 3, 2025. This anthology will published in both print and Kindle e-book formats . Publication is projected for Fall 2025. Contributors will receive one complimentary digital contributor’s copy. Submit via Submittable here at this link . This is explicitly a speculative poetry (and related micro-flash-prose) market. We welcome both established artists, and those experimenting with such genre narratives and forms for the first time. We want to read your poems and stories of monsters —whether your protagonists are giant or relatively human-sized; traditional, pop-cultural, or newly created —as set in (or against...

In an exciting new 190-page anthology, 66 emerging and established voices from the science-fiction-poetry and war-poetry communities have joined forces to deliver visions and explorations regarding 
how humans, Artificial Intelligence, and robots may learn to live, work, grow, and fight.  “Every day, our news feeds are crowded with dystopian reports of flame-throwing robots, killer drones, and cyber implants, ” writes anthology editor Randy Brown. “Against this virtual crush of ash and black, we wonder: If futurists and fictionalists, warriors and wargamers can deploy their respective toolkits to probe potential threats and opportunities, why not poets ?”   The anthology GIANT ROBOT POEMS: On Mecha-Human Science, Culture & War collects 92 poems involving concepts, narratives, and cautionary tales of “human-electro-mechanical-cyber interaction, connection, and competition.” To motivate other writers, veterans, and readers, the anthology includes a special section of...

  With a tip of the campaign hat to both April Fools’ Day and National Poetry Month , Middle West Press LLC has today launched a new digital chapbook featuring 10 humorous “war poems” about coffee. The $3 sampler, available as a Kindle e-book , collects new and previously published poems by the award-winning citizen-soldier-poet Randy “Sherpa” Brown, as well as the classic drill-sergeant essay “Listen Up, Maggots! It's National Poetry Month!” Find the digital chapbook at Amazon  here at this link . Randy “Sherpa” Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit—the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division —as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He served in uniform for 20 years, with one overseas deployment in 2003. He subsequently authored the award-winning poetry collection  “Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire.” He is a former editor of community and metro newspapers, as well as national trade and ...

Available starting today, Mar. 12, 2024, in both  Kindle e-book  and print editions ,  Lisa Stice’s latest poetry collection delivers a welcome bundle of poetic correspondence to a world of art and a world at war. “In her engagements with poets from Ireland to India, as well as U.S. military veterans and families,  Lisa Stice is an ideal correspondent with art and history ,” says the publisher. Stice is the author of the previously published poetry collections  Uniform  (Aldrich Press, 2016),  Permanent Change of Station  (Middle West Press, 2018),  FORCES  (Middle West Press, 20221), and the poetry chapbook  Desert  (Prolific Press, 2018). Most recently, she was the co-editor of the anthology  Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear  (Middle West Press, 2023). She currently lives in North Carolina with her U.S. Marine husband, daughter, and beloved Norwich Terrier named Seamus. Here’s wh...

The Veterans Studies Association has announced four books published by Middle West Press LLC in 2022-2023 have been recognized with honorable mentions in the inaugural  Senators Bob and Elizabeth Dole Biennial Award for Distinguished Book in Veterans Studies . The association's announcement reads, in part: " This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of veterans studies , highlighting works that engage with critical issues, perspectives, and experiences. " The Middle West Press books are: "The Time War Takes: Poems" by Jessi M. Atherton. A poetry collection about war and its aftermath by a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard. "Twelve O’Clock Haiku: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems"  by Randy Brown. A hybrid prose-poetry monograph exploring lessons derived from historical war poems, World War II airpower history, and war movies. "Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military...

Through a welcome bundle of poetic correspondence with an international community of artists and poets , a seasoned North Carolina poet and spouse of a U.S. Marine shares intimate insights and observations on creating history, family, community, and art. “In her engagements with poets from Ireland to India, as well as U.S. military veterans and families, Lisa Stice is an ideal correspondent with art and history ,” says Middle West Press LLC editor-publisher Randy Brown about Stice’s new poetry collection, Letters from Conflict. “She introduces us to old words and new friends.” “With the flow and scrawl of her metaphorical pen, Stice delivers every poet’s dream: accessible, illuminating conversations with our world-at-large —including our pasts, presents, and unfolding possibilities,” he says.  Lisa Stice is the author of the previously published poetry collections Uniform (Aldrich Press, 2016), Permanent Change of Station (Middle West Press, 2018), FORCES (Middle West Press, 2...

Middle West Press LLC , an independent micro-publisher based in Central Iowa, has issued a call for human-generated poems and micro-prose (300 words max.) engaging with themes of environmentalism, climate change, technology, and more through a lens of Midwestern experience. The working title of this project is Midwest Futures: Poems from Tomorrow's Heartland . Deadline for submissions is Jul. 1, 2024. Publication is projected for Spring/Summer 2025. Submit via Submittable here at this link . This is explicitly a speculative poetry (and related micro-flash-prose) market. We are interested not only in the gritty and grounded, but also near-future science-fiction-infused visions of the possible. For inspirations and vibes, see also movements such “Solarpunk,” “Eco-modernism” and “Climate Fiction” (“Cli-Fi”), as well as these potential exemplars of eco-poetry and other writing: Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota: Poems by Amelia Gorman “Botanical Fanaticism” and “Inte...

Middle West Press LLC seeks poetry manuscripts by a single author , comprising 50 to 100 poems each, for potential publication in 2024-2025. We are particularly seeking manuscripts that intersect in some way with the people, places, nature, and history of the American Middle West , especially those stemming from the lived experiences of women, poets of color, poets who identify as LGBTQ+, military veterans, and other marginalized voices. We are motivated by any work that helps renew and revise the milieu of the Middle West as a growing, changing, modern, complicated place . Our informal rule-of-thumb is that the modern U.S. states carved from the Louisiana Purchase, and/or states located west of the Ohio River and east of the Missouri River, safely define our intellectual playground . The Middle West is a moveable feast, however. We recognize that the Middle West includes themes, characters, and geographies that cannot be contained by mere borders . In fact, the Middle West may be mos...