THE VARIETY PACK
author interviews, book reviews, press updates
Free Workshop June 18: Write Weirder Fiction: On Leaning into Your Own Strangeness
Variant Literature is excited to announce Write Weirder Fiction: On Leaning into Your Own Strangeness, a free fiction workshop led by Brandon Ahmad Haffner. Register here.
Publishers and editors often ask for new and “surprising work they’ve “never seen before.” But how do we actually do that? Given marketplace pressure to write sellable fiction with clear comps and the antiquated traditions of many MFA workshops, it can be difficult to find the courage and the right tools to create truly surprising work.
Arizona, Aliens, and the Limits of Connection: A Conversation with Suzy Eynon
In Terrestrial, Suzy Eynon renders the Arizona desert as both landscape and signal, a place where loneliness sits just beneath the surface and connection often feels out of reach. Set in the shadow of the Phoenix Lights, the novella follows Daisy, a teenage girl searching for meaning after she discovers a mysterious message that may or may not be meant for her.
We checked in with Sharon Kennedy-Nolle to talk about her work since the publication of Black Wick, her time as Poet Laureate of Sullivan County, and the questions shaping her current writing.
Announcing The 2026 Variant Lit Poetry Prize
Variant Literature is excited to announce The 2026 Variant Lit Poetry Prize judged by Todd Dillard. Submissions open from May 15th to June 15th.
Free Poetry Workshop May 21: Trusting the Image: List Poems
Variant Literature is excited to announce Trusting the Image: List Poems, a free poetry workshop led by writer Ashley Kim.
It Was Never Supposed To Be Shortlisted for the 2026 Lambda Literary Award
We’re proud to share that It Was Never Supposed To Be by Ben Kline has been shortlisted for the 2026 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry.
Free Poetry Workshop Feb 26th: The Weight of Small Moments
Variant Literature is excited to announce the first event in our new workshop series, The Weight of Small Moments: A Jane Kenyon Study, a free poetry workshop led by Ashley Kim on Thursday, February 26 at 6:00 PM PT.
Review of The Divide: Stories by Evan Morgan Williams
Evan Morgan Williams’ latest book, The Divide (Cornerstone Press February 2026), is a collection of short fiction rooted in the Mountain West. The stories collected here center on characters who face divides not unlike a land punctuated by mountain ranges: couples quarrel over past lovers while facing present obstacles, sometimes to the detriment of their potential survival; men recall the ghosts of lovers of the past while the chasm between themselves and their current partners grows; a brother is reminded of his lost sister and all the girls who are not her. The mountainous, often frigid landscape plays a large role here, complicating events, providing opportunities for characters to prevail against natural odds, or serving as a reminder of the peril these characters face as they wrestle with specters of the past.
Poetry as a Means of Survival: A Conversation with Sharon Kennedy-Nolle
Sharon Kennedy-Nolle is the author of the chapbook Black Wick: Selected Elegies (Variant Literature, 2021), which was a semifinalist for the 2018 Tupelo Snowbound Chapbook Contest and a 2020 Chapbook Editor’s Pick by Variant Literature Press. Her full-length manuscript, Not Waving, was a 2021 finalist for the Black Lawrence Press St. Lawrence Book Award, a 2021 and 2022 semifinalist for the University of Wisconsin Poetry Series Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes, and a 2022 semifinalist for the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Prize and the Brick Road Poetry Contest.
We checked in with Sharon Kennedy-Nolle to talk about her work since the publication of Black Wick, her time as Poet Laureate of Sullivan County, and the questions shaping her current writing.
Knowing and Naming: On These Strange Bodies by Court Ludwick
Court Ludwick’s debut collection, These Strange Bodies (2024, ELJ Editions), presents a hybrid assemblage of texts that is two parts fragmented memoir of early adulthood, one part poetic exploration of embodiment. Ludwick’s unflinching archaeology of self results in a book that is at once deeply personal and creatively inquisitive.
Announcing Our 2026 Best of the Net Nominees
We’re thrilled to announce Variant Lit’s 2026 Best of the Net nominees!
Residuum and Reclamation: On Our Human Shores by Josh Fomon
Our Human Shores (Black Ocean: 2025) is a dense yet lyrical examination of the limits and imperatives of human agency during the anthropocene. The book’s sprawling, kaleidoscopic mass of untitled poems features cyclical variation in form (left-aligned lines in stanzas, non-aligned lines in space, and justified-aligned prose in blocks) and frequent repetition at multiple levels (phonemes [rhymes], morphemes, words, and phrases).
The Museum of Future Mistakes: An Interview with James R. Gapinski
James R. Gapinski is the author of the novella Edge of the Known Bus Line, as well as the forthcoming short story collection, The Museum of Future Mistakes, which won the 2024 BOA Short Fiction Prize. They are the managing editor of Conium Press, a boutique literary publisher in Portland, Oregon, an Adjunct Professor in Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA program, and the Director of TRIO Student Support Services at Portland Community College.
Late to the Search Party: An Interview with Steven Espada Dawson
Steven Espada Dawson is from East Los Angeles and lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves as poet laureate. His poems “Waiter Park” and “Caldera” appeared in the Rehoming Remarkable Work issue of Variant Lit in Winter 2022.
Inside/Outside: An Interview with Rosalind Goldsmith
Rosalind Goldsmith’s short story “Inside the House Inside” appeared in issue 8 of Variant Lit in Fall 2021. Rosalind’s debut fiction collection Inside the House Inside will be published by Ronsdale Press in April 2025 and available in the U.S. in May. It is currently available for preorder.
When the Forest Finds You Reviewed in Fahmidan Review Series
We’re thrilled to share that Lannie Stabile’s poetry collection, When the Forest Finds You, has...
Ragnarok at the Father-Daughter Dance Reviewed in Tupelo Quarterly
We’re excited to share that Todd Dillard’s poetry collection, Ragnarok at the Father-Daughter Dance, published by Variant Literature, has been reviewed by Nicole Yurcaba in Tupelo Quarterly.
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