Available NOW! 'Midwest Futures: Poems & Micro-Stories from Tomorrow's Heartland'!

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NOW ON SALE! 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 responses 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 of the American Midwest’s character, population, and landscape. By winnowing the chaff of old geographic and cultural stereotypes, they achieved a bumper crop of narrative prospects!”

To inspire and motivate further explorations, the anthology includes a special bonus section of 7 discussion-starters and prompts, for use in workshops, book clubs, classrooms, and other gatherings. Each prompt is based on a selection of stories and poems found in the anthology! Just “add your own rocket fuel!”

To commemorate the launch, Middle West Press also developed a bumper crop of themed T-shirts, stickers, magnets, and coffee mugs, available for sale at its newly established on-line merchandise store. Designs include:

Randy “Sherpa” Brown is the editor of the previous Middle West Press futurist anthology Giant Robot Poems: On Mecha-Human Science, Culture & War (2024). His other editorial credits include the anthologies Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear (2023), and Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War (2019). He is a member of the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA), and lives and works in Central Iowa.

Now available in print and Kindle e-book today, Mar. 4, 2025!

MIDWEST FUTURES: Poems and Micro-Stories from Tomorrow’s Heartland (90 pages, Middle West Press LLC) available a $14.99 trade paperback edition through Amazon and other booksellers, as well as a $9.99 Kindle e-book edition exclusively via Amazon.

“Middle West Press LLC (www.middlewestpress.com) is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.”

Find us via social media via: linktr.ee/middlewestpress


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