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...and we got trade ARCs for the new Joe Peterson book today! Never a dull moment in the indie biz.

FIVE @storystudiochicago.bsky.social Novel in a Year classes are open for applications right now, but move quickly—those apps are due 11/14! Here are your options🧵

So thrilled we have a cover for @saralippmann.bsky.social and HIDDEN RIVER! It's an incredible Philadelphia novel about Cass, whose best friend invites her to her wedding--even though her father had groomed Cass from a young age. Writers including DAVID GATES are singing its praises...check it out!

Now we would never ever ever wish anyone a Happy Marine Corps Birthday...buuuut we will happily announce that we signed an agreement today to publish @nkweidman.bsky.social and his awesome Marine Corps recruiting memoir, THIRTY-SIX FIGHTING HOLES, and it's scheduled to come out one year from today!

Book delivery!! ❤️❤️❤️ @tortoisebooks.bsky.social @boondock60mm.bsky.social #litfic

37,000 books total...woohoo! (Actually 37,043, but who's counting? Oh yeah, we're counting.) #indie #publishing

RESCUED ME/ME RESCATƠ by Nestor "The Boss" Gomez is nearing launch! We got our signed preorder copies Tuesday, got them signed Wednesday, and are packing them up to ship tomorrow...never a slow day in indie publishing. (Super grateful to Andrés Colmenares for the lovely cover work!)

"...a story of substance and style, power and passion" by "one of the city’s most interesting and increasingly powerful writers." Super grateful to Rick Kogan for this writeup of Bill Hillmann and his new book WHITE FLIGHT! www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/21/b...

Super useful, tbh. (And no, that wasn't sarcasm, Average Reader!)

"The book business may be centred in New York, but the logic is pure Las Vegas." An excellent piece by @tajjaisen.bsky.social that perfectly captures the ethos we're trying to avoid.

Your occasional reminder that Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick were in the same year in the same high school, liked each other’s writing, but never met in person.

I know people are pretending it’s not or like it makes you weak or something, but kindness is punk as fuck.

"On the last episode of his show before he was killed," Kirk told "his audience, falsely, that “one in 22 Black men will be a murderer in their lifetime” and that “by age of 23, half of all Black males have been arrested and not enough of them have been arrested.”

fifteen years in and I’m still mad at anyone who described Inception as mindbending. “wow this flour is so spicy!” that’s how you sounded

Absolutely awesome email we received from an Oklahoma bookseller about ALL TRAP NO BAIT. We are conquering the country, one state at a time! (Starting in the middle.)

Absolutely awesome email we received from an Oklahoma bookseller about ALL TRAP NO BAIT. We are conquering the country, one state at a time! (Starting in the middle.)

The people cry out with a voice that is often still confused but is becoming ever louder and clearer: death to the tyranny of the release date

Still catching our breath after the feeding frenzy of Printers Row Lit Fest! It's awesome when you have to throw out a huge amount of packing material because so many of the books--almost 200!--that were in boxes in your basement are now on bookshelves all over Chicagoland. #indiepublisher

Just wondering how many folks in the Pentagon are cool with the fact that the enemy is no longer Russia or China but non-Trumpy Americans.

if I were one of Rodney Dangerfield's rivals, I simply would have shown him the appropriate amount of respect, thereby undermining his entire act

An awesome novel you blurbed for @tortoisebooks.bsky.social = a good mail day

Super big thanks to everyone who came out to Printers Row...this was not only our largest sales day ever, we almost caught up to our largest Lit Fest weekend total! And if you missed it...we'll be back tomorrow! (The Small Press Tent, Tent GG, on Dearborn just a few slots north of Polk.)

Look, AA is cool and all, but have you ever tried...GG?

"My grad students typically leave these meetings having processed the message that whatever you’re working on is wrong...I tell them to make the thing they believe in." Wonderful @tmcallister.bsky.social piece about @rosemetalpress.bsky.social

Author Joe Worthen is barreling through Kentucky to sell copies of his new book ALL TRAP NO BAIT to you, Chicagoland! In this "delightfully morbid and sardonically humorous debut," he looks at the travails of one terminally online and perpetually underearning and Xanax-fogged substitute teacher.

Another new book for Printers Row...PLAY, REWIND by @johnvurrowriter.bsky.social! This book will warm and break your heart as it chronicles the struggles of a video store clerk whose mom suffers from Alzheimer's. (Plus, let's be honest, you need a good hit of video store nostalgia right about now.)

Gearing up to attend the Printers Row lit fest in Chicago tomorrow. I'll be signing copies of THE SURGE at the @tortoisebooks.bsky.social booth in the small press tent from 1-3 pm. Stop by, it'd be fabulous to see you.

Making his Printers Row debut (in spirit) we have @davidlebrun.bsky.social and his extraordinary memoir, DELIRIUM VITAE! As a young writer, he went to Costa Rica to live cheaply while he wrote the book he was sure would bring him fame and fortune--only to run out of money far sooner than expected.

We are thrilled to announce that we will be selling THE SURGE by @adamkovac.bsky.social this weekend at Printers Row! It's a fantastic war novel that's earning comparisons to Hemingway and Mailer and O'Brien. Adam will be signing books from 1 to 3 on Saturday at the Small Press Tent...be there!

New to Printers Row...we have AFTERWARD by Bristol Vaudrin! It's an incredible debut, a darkly comedic novel about a woman coming to terms with an unspeakable tragedy. Bristol will be with us in spirit, signing books with her mind.

Super grateful I got to be a part of Newcity's wonderful oral history of Printers Row, along with luminaries and generally awesome people. (And I got to shout out a few @tortoisebooks.bsky.social authors as well!) lit.newcity.com/2025/09/01/a...

If you're looking for another reason to come to Printers Row, we have Nestor "The Boss" Gomez signing copies of YOUR DRIVER HAS ARRIVED and TU CONDUCTOR HA LLEGADO this Saturday and Sunday at 1:00 PM! Tent GG, (the Small Press Tent), on Dearborn just a few slots north of Polk. Be there!

We are pleased to announce that Brooke Randel will be signing copies of her amazing memoir ALSO HERE at noon this Saturday at Printers Row! It's a fascinating book, alternately harrowing and heartwarming, that chronicles her relationship with her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Tent GG!

Happy Pub Day to Bill Hillmann and WHITE FLIGHT! An unforgettable book about one young man's struggles with boxing, particle physics, and love. You can come to the official launch on September 21st at the Green Mill...OR if you can't wait that long, he'll be signing books at Printers Row Lit Fest!

The 10th anniversary edition of Darrin Doyle's The Dark Will End the Dark is forthcoming this October from @tortoisebooks.bsky.social. We spoke about the Midwestern Gothic, point of view as tool to drive suspense, and returning to the collection ten years on. www.patreon.com/posts/interv...

Super grateful to @ajc.com for this insightful review of the "delightfully morbid and sardonically humorous" ALL TRAP NO BAIT! Coming soon to a Printers Row Lit Fest near you... www.ajc.com/arts-enterta...

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the good place* doing the good thing**. *Foxtrot, which is good because it is on a corner and has floor-to-ceiling windows. **Editing an amazing new book by Becky Wills! (And drinking iced coffee and listening to the Brian Jonestown Massacre.)

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

Fantastic news!

Edited a Spring '26 @tortoisebooks.bsky.social title--Stun by Becky Wills--at @bigshoulders.bsky.social while listening to Belle & Sebastian. "All that I wanted was to sing the saddest song, and if you would sing along I will be happy now."

For the love of God, people...don't do this. You won't be harming Jeff Bezos. You will be harming us.

The news is out! We'll be selling books at Printers Row Lit Fest in the Small Press Tent, Tent GG, on Dearborn a few slots north of Polk. September 6th and 7th...be there, Chicago! (And inhabitants of surrounding regions.)

Was thinking about this paragraph from NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN where Cormac McCarthy progresses through three shades of narration, moving from the outside in: (blue) Moss’s POV, what he sees; (yellow) a summary of Moss’s thoughts; (red) directly reporting Moss’s thoughts.

Look, you COULD continue to pretend to work for the next hour or so, OR you could throw caution to the wind and read this amazing @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social Jeremy T Wilson interview with Joe Worthen, author of the amazing ALL TRAP NO BAIT.

Me: book edits are done, yay. Also me: are book edits really ever done?

@tortoisebooks.bsky.social gets the author a second bite of the apple for a story I neglected in 2014. The Old Neighborhood (New Chicago Classics Book 10) by Bill Hillmann: expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-...

The Big 5 publishers get a lot of attention...let's give small ones some well-deserved airtime. #20Indiebookchallenge Choose 20 small-press books you've either read or want to read, in no particular order. Just covers + publisher's name. Publisher: @tortoisebooks.bsky.social 12/20 #litfic

Lotta talk from the ol' publisher here on writing, publishing, recovery, etc. Might wanna give it a listen!