2022 publications, an end-of-year roundup

Watching the end-of-year lists roll in from authors I admire, on the one hand, I feel like I didn’t publish much this year: a few poems, a book review. But it was gratifying to see so many books I had a hand in finally enter the world as beautiful, tangible objects meeting a brand new audience of readers. It’s also been a year of beginnings. I launched a newsletter mid-year, and started a business. I think it’s easy to feel like things we can make happen for ourselves “don’t count” or matter less, but lately I’ve been thinking of lighthouses, how they send out a glow that helps people orient themselves and find the glow’s source.

I’m grateful to the online journals that published my work this year, and to the amazing authors whose work I had the pleasure of editing, and/or who I had the honor of supporting in-house at Soft Skull and Catapult.

High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez, published 1/11/22. This hilarious, beautiful memoir on fighting machismo and finding joy in queer spaces was reviewed in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Lambda Literary, and On the Seawall, with other press at Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, TODAY, NBC News, the Los Angeles Times, and Oprah Daily,. And it’s sweeping the end-of-the-year best-of lists at Goodreads, HipLatina, Buzzfeed, and elsewhere.

I got to talk about High-Risk Homosexual at Publishers Weekly on 1/28/22, celebrating Edgar and their book being selected as an American Bookseller’s Association “Indies Introduce” title.

Path of Totality by Niina Pollari, published 2/8/22. This poetry collection, on the sudden and devastating loss of a child, is incredible. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said “Pollari writes with straightforward, heartbreaking clarity. These poems are unflinching and powerful.” The New York Times selected Path of Totality as a best poetry book of the year.

MONARCH by Candice Wuehle, published 3/29/22. This novel, at the intersection of trauma psychology, Y2K aesthetic, and occult academia, received rave reviews at NPR (and was named an NPR best book of the year), ZYZZYVA, Chicago Review of Books, and the Wall Street Journal, with other press at NYLON, CrimeReads, Cleveland Review of Books, Luna Luna Mag, and Spin. MONARCH is also a contender in the 2023 Tournament of Books!

The Red Zone by Chloe Caldwell, published 4/19/22. This candid, funny, searingly honest memoir on PMDD was well received in reviews at the Washington Post, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and Full Stop, with other press at AutoStraddle, the Cut, Electric Literature, BBC, and Thinx, and more.

Two of my poems— “APPLICANT MUST HAVE” and “LOCAL BEAST, KIND OF A LITTLE BITCH, ACTUALLY” were published at HAD on 5/1/22.

I launched this newsletter, Curiosity & Ritual newsletter, on the summer solstice, 6/21/22 :)

Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk, published 7/19/22. This essay collection on plants, fiction, journalism, boundary-blurring, and the anthropocene was reviewed (and starred!) at Publishers Weekly, the New York Times, The Nation, and The Atlantic, with other press at The Paris Review, n+1, LitHub, CRAFT, The Creative Independent, and BOMB.

Normal Distance by Elisa Gabbert, published 9/13/22. This poetry collection on paradoxes and the tragicomedy of needing always to contend with time was reviewed at Publishers Weekly, Ploughshares, and Poetry Foundation, with other press at New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, LitHub, Chicago Review of Books, and The Slowdown with Ada Limón.

Best Debut Short Stories 2022: The PEN America Dau Prize, edited by Yuka Igarashi and me, with winning stories selected by judges Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens, and Deesha Philyaw, published 9/20/22. Catapult published a roundtable interview with the judges and PEN America interviewed all twelve winning writers. Other press at Debutiful, Book Riot, and LitHub. An excerpt of the book—Yuka’s & my co-written intro—ran at Hobart.

My poem, “I Could Signal Dominance in Email Correspondence as Trained But the Concept Is Offensive and I’m Baby” was published at Hobart on 9/27/22, with many thanks to guest editor Taylor Byas.

After I dispatched my 9/21 newsletter, my beautiful friend Jeff Hinshaw invited me to record myself reading it for their podcast, Cosmic Cousins. The episode aired on 9/25/22.

The Tiger and the Cage by Emma Bolden, published 10/18/22. This softly fierce memoir on endometriosis and the misogyny of modern medicine received great reviews at Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and LitHub, with other press at Shondaland, Motherly, Poets & Writers, BuzzFeed, Catapult, Electric Literature, Hazlitt, and Salon.

Annnd after ten years of freelance editing around whatever else I was doing, I officially launched my manuscript-consultation business as an LLC on 10/31/22, a nice Halloween birthday.

At the tail end of 2022, on 12/27, The Rumpus published my review of Elaine Hsieh Chou’s novel Disorientation, one of the best books I read all year.

See you all in 2023!

Out now: THE TIGER AND THE CAGE and BEST DEBUT SHORT STORIES 2022

Cover design by Nicole Caputo; animation by Elizabeth Yaffe

The Tiger and the Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis is poet Emma Bolden’s debut memoir. For readers of Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire and Porochista Khakpour’s Sick, this exquisitely wrought book recounts a lifelong struggle with chronic pain and endometriosis, while speaking more broadly to anyone who’s been told “it’s all in your head.”

With The Tiger and the Cage, Bolden uses her own experience as the starting point for a journey through the institutional misogyny of Western medicine—from a history of labeling women “hysterical” and parading them as curiosities to a lack of information on causes or cures for endometriosis, despite more than a century of documented cases. Recounting botched surgeries and dire side effects from pharmaceuticals affecting her and countless others, Bolden speaks to the ways people are often failed by the official narratives of institutions meant to protect them.

It’s a beautiful, harrowing read. Bolden’s poetic command of language ensures that, though we plunge into the depths with her, we never drown.

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“An intimate, eloquent personal history of survival and self-discovery . . . One of the most riveting and accessible accounts of the experience of pain you’ll read all year.” —Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon

“If pain is taboo, then the body becomes a very heavy thing. In The Tiger and the Cage, Bolden carries that weight in gorgeous, poetic prose infused with the kind of honesty that is difficult to turn away from . . . For any reader ever cast as the unreliable narrator of their own story, I suspect Bolden’s memoir will feel like a fierce, validating balm.” —Wynter K Miller, Electric Literature

“Bolden shines an unbearable, clinical light on how our desire to please, to be good, which serves us so well in school, can also lead to disaster . . . My sincerest hope is any woman—every woman—with medical problems no male doctor has yet bothered to really try and understand reads The Tiger and the Cage, a book that feels like the beginning of a new genre. There’s a guidebook, now. And a guide.” —Emily Van Duyne, Literary Hub

“Bolden’s memoir digs into the layers of sociocultural beliefs around menstruation, fertility, the expectations of women’s role to mate and procreate, and the indivisible links between sexuality, psychological security, desire, and self-awareness.” —Cat Woods, Shondaland

“[Bolden’s] lyrical descriptions and emotional honesty render this harrowing story hard to put down, and her critique of the medical establishment is both sharp and fair . . . A well-written, deeply researched, and searingly frank memoir about reproductive health.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Dark and riveting . . . [It] stings as much as it astounds.” —Publishers Weekly

“Emma Bolden’s The Tiger and the Cage is a memoir written as an investigation, a dive into what it means to be a woman caught in a medical establishment that doesn’t listen to women. I read this book in a fury. Bolden’s imagery is stark and vivid, and the prose moves in a spiral, encircling her pain, her confusion, and her strength. This book will make you laugh, cry, scream, and bleach your hair while you sing along loudly to Tori Amos. I am so grateful The Tiger and the Cage exists and so grateful for Emma Bolden’s generosity.” —Emme Lund, author of The Boy With a Bird in His Chest

“In The Tiger and the Cage, the call is coming from inside the house—or, rather, from inside the body. In the beautiful prose of a poet, Emma Bolden confronts the patriarchal foundation of the institutions that make our lives what they are: education, religion, medicine. If patriarchy—and frankly, misogyny—is part of medical ‘care,’ then via each surgeon’s scalpel and each prescribed medication, it is also inside us. The Tiger and the Cage opened my eyes, enraged me, and left me in awe of Bolden’s enormous talent as a writer, intelligence as a critic, and courage as a survivor.” —Maggie Smith, author of Goldenrod and Keep Moving

“A harrowing portrait of endurance and grief and resilience. With raw honesty and exacting detail, Bolden tells an intimate story while exploring the demands our oppressive culture places on women—our supposed hopes and dreams, our supposed desires and fears, and most poignantly of all the expectations on our bodies, what they should do and how they should behave. It is part damning critique of our male-dominated medical institutions and, quietly, a loving tribute to a mother-daughter bond.” —Julianna Baggott, author of The Seventh Book of Wonders

“Layer by shimmering layer, Emma Bolden transforms the story of her body into the story of a search for truth. The Tiger and the Cage elegantly interrogates narratives of gender, pain, sexuality, and family to reveal the freedom underneath.” —Angela Chen, author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

“In brief, lyrical, and powerful essays, Emma Bolden unleashes her story of endometriosis, and the misogyny she endured at the hands of the medical establishment, interwoven with stories of a supportive and loving Southern upbringing. The Tiger and the Cage is a torrent of feeling. It is a left-hook to the jaw to anyone learning for the first time about the neglectful ways women are often treated when their bodies need help. It is a soft, supportive whisper to those of us who know it too well. May it find its way into the hands of doctors and those in training, and their patients, too, who will find a voice in this book, one speaking with clarity and purpose, that affirms their own experiences.” —Chantel Acevedo, author of The Distant Marvels

“This philosophical, funny, and beautiful memoir is both a work of art and a deep conversation about the rift between mind and body, those two great friends, and rivals, handcuffed together forever. Well-armed with a genuine Greek chorus, a truly excellent and private sense of humor, and incredible gifts for metaphor, Emma Bolden opens the vault for the reader into the true experience of how it feels to both reckon daily with a ravaging illness and also to carry on and make the most of one’s life.

If literature is the great river that runs alongside life, interpreting it, then this book is that river—[it] is deep and vigorous and vital, flashing with transcendence, thinking so richly about the human body, wondering at its mortality and fragility with love and humor and patience and strength.” —Rebecca Lee, author of Bobcat and Other Stories

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Cover design by Nicole Caputo; Cover art by Sirin Thada

Now in its sixth year, the Best Debut Short Stories series is an annual anthology celebrating the winners of the PEN America Robert J. Dau Prize for Emerging Writers, which honors twelve short story writers on their first-ever published short fiction.

This was my second year co-editing with the wonderful Yuka Igarashi. This year’s judges were Deesha Philyaw, Sabrina Orah Mark, and Emily Nemens. The twelve honored writers, stories, and journals for 2022 are:

“A Wedding in Multan, 1978” (The Asian American Literary Review) Yasmin Adele Majeed
“All We Have Left is Ourselves” (Reckoning) Oyedotun Damilola Muees
“Beat by Beat” (Barrelhouse Magazine) Emma Shannon
“For Future Reference: Notes on the 7-10 Split” (The Cincinnati Review) Patch Kirschenbaum
“Man, Man, Et Cetera” (The Virginia Quarterly Review) Cal Shook
“Sacrilege” (BOMB Magazine) Edward Salem
“The Black Kite and the Wind” (Virginia Quarterly Review) Erin Connal
“The Cacophobe” (Ploughshares) Seth Wang
“The Chicken” (The White Review) RZ Baschir
“Them Bones” (Hobart) CK Kane
“Work Wives” (Typehouse Literary Magazine) Preeti Vangani
“Writing with Blood” (Flock) Catherine Bai

Best Debut Short Stories 2022: The PEN America Dau Prize is available here, and wherever books are sold. Catapult magazine’s Don’t Write Alone ran a roundtable interview with Deesha, Sabrina, and Emily; PEN interviewed each winning writer, with the whole series of interviews accessible here; and Hobart excerpted the intro that Yuka and I co-wrote. Other press at Lit Hub, BookRiot, and Debutiful.