Due to difficulties in obtaining information in advance of chapbook releases, chapbook listings for the previous month are published at the end of each month. This post contains information about prose chapbooks that we know about published during August 2026.
Information, including product descriptions, is provided by the publisher and not a critical judgment. If we cover the book on this site, links will be included.
IKE: A Publishing Project
Questionnaire for My Grandfather, Kim Adrian
Questionnaire for My Grandfather is a quietly devastating essay that uses the structure of a questionnaire to interrogate what can—and cannot—be known about a man who shaped her family’s history. Each prompt becomes a doorway into memory, silence, and inherited mystery, revealing how the stories we tell about our elders are often built from fragments, omissions, and the emotional residue they leave behind.
The essay is a vessel for grief, curiosity, and intergenerational reckoning. It is a portrait assembled through negative space, where the unanswered questions speak as loudly as the answers might have.
Bottlecap Press
WRONG PEOPLE, Jon Steinhagen
Someone’s life is defined by a natural disaster. Someone else advertises along the expressway for a lover. Others populate an abandoned cathedral as they double down on their looksmaxxing. A psychic takes a much-needed break from demanding spirits; an average teenager can’t help but find new planets.
What’s wrong with people? What makes them wrong? And what’s so wrong about being wrong?
WRONG PEOPLE is ten tiny novels that dwell on the odd, off-putting people, places, and things, from a judgmental discount given to those who are lost in sadness, a pet food taster trying to find love, friends who purposely redirect traffic, and cursed prosthetic devices. And who can say? Sometimes, the wrong people…might be us.
above/ground press
Bedtime stories for my imaginary friends, James Spyker
James Spyker is a book and paper artist based in Toronto. He lives in that building where you visited your great aunt when you were a kid. He occasionally returns to writing when blank pages become too much to bear.
Finishing Line Press
The Island of Ghost Ships, Jamy Bond
When Jamy Bond’s younger sister, Shelby, followed in her footsteps and joined the Peace Corps, it should have been a shared legacy of service. Instead, Shelby is killed in a violent car crash in South Africa, and Jamy is left devastated and desperate to understand her sister’s final moments. In The Island of Ghost Ships, Jamy Bond navigates the wreckage of grief through a series of short essays and a central haunting narrative. Part memoir, part investigative journey, this collection follows Bond as she travels to southern Africa and locates Shelby’s boyfriend, Mercito, who survived the crash. Together they retrace Shelby’s steps across a landscape of memory and loss. Through lyrical prose that is honest and tender, this collection is a powerful meditation on the bonds of sisterhood and the courageous search for light from the depths of darkness.
Don’t see a poetry chapbook published between 8/1 and 8/31 here? Contact us to let us know!
Contents
“This language offers one possible framing through which to appreciate the law’s capacity to hope for, request, and even command commitment to a more just future.” Read two poems by Maggie Wang, our first biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Possibilities for Action.”
Chapbook Poem: I’ll Never Look This Good Again by Douglas Piccinnini
“[The poem] came out of real pressure: despair, worry, and grief I wanted to hold unflinchingly, alongside the anxiety of becoming a parent… For me the poem became a meditation on all the feeling that surfaces precisely when we’re told to feel only joy.” Read an excerpt from Douglas Piccinnini’s chapbook, House of Bad Memories, along with a few words from the poet.
“She sees herself in carbon, the element that bonds with almost anything- not because it wants to, but because it has empty spaces and things keep showing up to fill them. Notifications. Noise. Needs that never stop arriving.” Read four poems by Joely Williams, our second biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Single Mother Considers the Periodic Table.”
ADHD in a Non-ADHD World: on Undersight by Alison Hurwitz
“[Hurwitz] shares moments of angst and moments of awe. More than that, there are moments of deep recognition. She sees herself in [her sons] and, in fact, receives a later-life ADHD diagnosis of her own.” Read the full chapbook review by new contributor, Nancy Murphy.
“The woman’s head & hair are lavishly dressed. I probably leapt off the logic of the hairdresser being blind and therefore had to work on the head/body/mind rather than just hair as a surface issue of presentation.” Read two poems by Irene Cunningham, our third biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “The Blind Hairdresser.”
Flash Fiction: Nova by Kimmy Chang
“‘Nova’ is a lyrical second-person story about the narrator’s first true encounter with death…the story presents loss not as beautiful in itself, but as the place where beauty begins.” Read the first original fiction piece of the Summer 2026 issue, “Nova” by Kimmy Chang.
“To fit the nuanced, dimensional experience of dysphoria and transition into narrative…often feels flattening, falsely assured. I wanted to look at this discomfort I felt, to see what was necessary in it.” Read three poems by Joshua Zeitler, our fourth biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Cobbling.”
Excerpt: “On the puzzle still inside my head” by Truong Tran
“I am trying to excavate memories. I am trying to negotiate the difficult realities of existing as a brown man in this country and within the consciousness of white America.” Read an excerpt from Truong Tran’s forthcoming book from City Lights, How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir.
“These poems try to make sense of how I arrived at a life that probably seems well thought-out, but has been one reactionary choice after another.” Read three poems by A.R. Dugan, our fifth biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Sleeptalking.”
Original Fiction: Muse by Somtoo Celestine Ezioha
“What I tried to trace was the underside. How watching someone closely for long enough becomes a substitute for approaching them.” Read the second original fiction piece of the Summer 2026 issue, “Muse” by Somtoo Celestine Ezioha.