() is on a mission to strengthen the American South’s reputation as a home for great literature and art. The press publishes books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, a print and online literary journal. Staff members evaluate book submissions in all genres year-round, charging a $5 reading fee. Representative titles include Chiatulah Ameke’s (2021), a flash-fiction collection with an “Afro-Futurist and surreal bent”; David van den Berg’s (2023), a poetry collection “that finds the music between the sodden grit of a Southern childhood”; and Ben Raterman’s , a novel about “digging into the South’s hidden past,” forthcoming in March. April Gloaming seeks to support Southern creative workers of all stripes, and the press partners with fifteen part-time staff members and other contracted editors, readers, and designers from the region to produce aesthetically pleasing books. “We curate the visual artist based on the manuscript’s mood,” Lear and Ümmenhofer say of their approach to book-cover design. The press’s poetry editor, Emma Cardiel, commemorates each new title by baking a treat inspired by its themes; videos of her culinary process and photos of her confections with the corresponding book are posted on social media. “Pushing perceived limitations in medium and genre is inherent to who we are as a press,” say Lear and Ümmenhofer.
