10 Independent and University Press Books To Get Excited About
As an independent and frankly feminist publication, Lilith is always thrilled to tip our hat to independent presses.
These new and forthcoming books, both memoir and fiction, have a Jewish feminist twist, and are all coming out, or already out, from indie presses in 2025. Throw some in your totebag for summer reading!
Sarah Yahm. Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation. (Dzanc Books)
Sarah Yahm’s intergenerational narrative shifts perspective as it dives into the topic of grief and the manic side of motherhood. Following an eccentric family over multiple decades starting in the 1970s, the book explores the emotional ripples that form after cellist Louise Rackoff is diagnosed with a terminal illness. The book finds the beauty that blooms from the struggles of adolescence, motherhood, grief, and illness.
Pat Lipsky. Brightening Glance. (University of Iowa)
In her portrait of the 1970s New York City art scene and beyond, visual artist Pat Lipsky delves into her experience as a female artist infiltrating highly influential, male-dominated spaces and describing life of creative ferment and motherhood. Lipsky describes the tribulations she experienced and witnessed while being mentored by critically acclaimed artists. Her memoir is leaving writers, from Louis Menand to Lili Anolik, among others, astounded; the narrative leaps from SoHo, to Paris, to Kansas City and beyond.
Paula Whyman. Bad Naturalist. (Timber Press)
In her eco-memoir, Paula Whyman describes her experiences tending the earth in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia—including misadventures with invasive species, snakes, ecologists, experts, and frog ponds. In Bad Naturalist, we learn along with Whyman about the practice of hope in caring for and experimenting with the earth.
Sara Lippmann & Seth Rogoff, Eds. Smashing the Tablets: Radical Retellings of the Hebrew Bible. (SUNY Press)
Featuring a wide breadth of bold, contemporary Jewish voices, Smashing the Tablets creates 21st century fiction with midrash-like flair, retelling Biblical stories. Ranging from a modern retelling of Lot’s daughters fighting for their integrity with their father, to Lilith herself telling her own story, this group of bent, Biblically inspired narratives is powerfully transgressive by nature.
Margot Singer. Secret Agent Man. (Barrow Street)
Acclaimed novelist Singer’s new essay collection Secret Agent Man explores her family’s memory and history. Threaded throughout is Singer’s riddle-like relationship with her father, who may or may not have been a spy. “I read this book slowly, because I kept rereading whole paragraphs for their pleasures: image, metaphor, music,” says Maggie Smith.
Sue William Silverman. Selected Misdemeanors. (University of Nebraska)
Selected Misdemeanors: Essays at the Mercy of the Reader celebrates life as a profound collec- tion of passing moments which quietly do the work of transformation and self-discovery. With flash essays, short and enigmatic, that add up to something deep and satisfying, master memoirist and teacher Silverman takes an inventory of her experience and uncovers new emo tions in her recollections and reckonings with her past.
Jessica Gross. Open Wide. (Abrams)
The protagonist of Gross’s sophomore novel, Olive, has always struggled with making a connection; so she does what anybody would do: records her conversations in secret. Open Wide is a novel that follows Olive and her desperation to get closer—a lot closer—to Theo, a doctor whose obsession with the human body is equal to that of Olive’s visceral desire for intimacy and understanding. Chaos ensues. We can’t wait.
Miriam Gershow. Closer. (Regal House)
It’s 2015 again. Obama is in office, and Trump is an emerging contender for the Presidential nomination. At the same time tensions are rising in Horace, Oregon, after white students target a black peer in the high school library. In the metastatic wave of racial discrimination another student dies suddenly; leaving the local community devastated and searching for ways to look within, and come closer together. Closer examines the rapidly changing social landscape of a small college town and how its residents respond to the challenges of this new era in American political conscience.
Nina B. Lichtenstein. Body: My Life in Parts. (Vine Leaves Press)
Lichtenstein’s memoir-in-essays has sixteen chapters, each named for a body part (‘Hands,’ ‘Belly,’ ‘Breasts,’ etc.), sixteen in all. Featuring the experiences of what she describes as a “Norwegian Lutheran turned American Viking Jewess,” stories from childhood, adolescence and into womanhood, include her conversion to Judaism, marriage, motherhood, and eventual divorce. Lichtenstein considers bodily self-discovery as a portal to self-awareness. The book incorporates guided prompts, encouraging readers to embark on their own journeys of discovery for memories and stories.
Martha Anne Toll. Duet for One. (Regal House)
Novelist, book critic, and classically trained vio list Martha Anne Toll threads musical expression into her new novel Duet for One. Her protagonist is emotionally attuned violinist Adam Pearl, who must confront his grief over the loss of his mother and a series of failed relationships. Toll’s sophomore novel (her first, Three Muses, was also musical) waltzes with big topics, using the spirit of musicians as its vehicle.
Samantha Mann. Dyke Delusions. (Read Furiously)
A favorite in the Lilith office. With a delightful, chatty cocktail of memoir, essay, and pop culture analysis, Mann takes on everything from friendship to anxiety about being the non-donor lesbian parent, to motherhood, body politics, and attitudes to sexuality. She’s frank, revealing and funny.
—Compiled by Interns Yael Bright and Tyuh Manning.
