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Alternating Current Press

is an indie press dedicated to publishing and promoting incredible literature that challenges readers and has an innate sense of self, timelessness, and atmosphere. We love science, history, homebound roots, rural landscapes, sense of place, poetic literary fiction, diverse voices, and all that is electric in the literary world.

Our latest release

black has every right to be angry:
Poems by Ashley Elizabeth

This collection tells stories for those who can’t. Those who are scared. Those who are silenced. Those who need an extra push. black has every right to be angry evinces the notion that Black people—and Black women, especially—are angry, and that this anger is more than justified. Skillfully weaving bloody history lessons, the Black body as scientific experiment, and the contemporary world of police violence, systemic racism, and feminism into the narrative of modern society, Ashley Elizabeth’s gut-punching poems allow space for thought, remembrance, and reflection on the lives taken too soon and what we can do to fight the power.

New Releases

Calls for submissions to upcoming anthologies

How to Hang the Hat:
Storytellers on Sondheim

We’ve lost a titan. So now we write. Submissions are open for a tribute in words to the late, great Stephen Sondheim. Tell us about your Sondheim heart.

Bottomland:
Essays on Being LGBTQ+ in the Deep South

We are seeking creative nonfiction and personal essays on the experience of being LGBTQ+ in the Deep South.

Preorder Now

Recent Posts & Publications

News & Updates

  • DEC 9, BEST SMALL FICTIONS: We’re thrilled to announce that Best Small Fictions 2023, the annual compilation of the best microfiction, flash fiction, haibun stories, and prose poetry from around the world, is now available for preorder. This year’s selections honor 109 pieces published in 2022, curated by guest editor Catherine McNamara, series editor Nathan Leslie, and Managing Editor Michelle Elvy.
  • NOV 7, NEW RELEASE: Happy Book Birthday to Ashley Elizabeth’s BLACK HAS EVERY RIGHT TO BE ANGRY, a collection of poems about the historical and current Black experience in the United States! The chapbook is now available. Join our email list to stay informed about this title.
  • OCT 17, NEW RELEASE: Happy Book Birthday to Barbara Sabol’s WATERMARK, a collection of poems about the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889. The full-length book is now available. Join our email list to stay informed about this title.
  • AUG 22, NEW RELEASE: Happy Book Birthday to Stephanie Staab’s LETTERLOCKING, a collection of poems about the power of letters and concealing intimate truths! The chapbook is now available. If you preordered this book, preorders are already on their way to your house!
  • AUG 8, NEW RELEASE: Happy Book Birthday to Dayton J. Shafer’s HOMESLICE, a collection of ethnographic monologues that investigates & deconstructs 90s/turn-of-the-millennium American identity! The book is now available. If you preordered this book, preorders are already on their way to your house!
  • JUL 25, NEW RELEASE: Happy Book Birthday to Brett Biebel’s WINTER DANCE PARTY! This linked flash collection about Buddy Holly’s Iowa plane crash site in 1959, is now available. If you preordered this book, preorders are already on their way to your house!
  • MAY 20, SUBMISSIONS OPEN: The Charter Oak Award for Best Historical and FOOTNOTE: A LITERARY JOURNAL OF HISTORY are open for submissions! We’re seeking individual pieces of historical writing in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or hybrid that give an author’s intimate or emotional take on historical places, people, events, or ideas. Join our email list to stay informed on this journal.
  • MAY 19, UPCOMING SUBMISSIONS: We’re pleased to announce that the Front Range Book Prize will be kicking off this inaugural year with an opening date on September 1, 2023. This prize is Alternating Current Press’ annual book award to recognize an unpublished manuscript of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, play script, or hybrid work that is written by a Colorado author or on the theme of Colorado. Join our email list to stay informed on this book prize.
  • MAY 13, ACQUISITION: We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Ashley Marie Farmer’s THE FARMACIST, a reprint of the fantastic out-of-print flash story collection of the same name. We couldn’t be happier to be bringing this long-lost gem back into the world in January 2024! Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 12, ACQUISITION: We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Jen Karetnick’s WHAT FORGES US STEEL: THE JUDGE JUDY POEMS, a thematic collection of poetry that looks at pop-culture icon Judge Judy through a variety of lenses. This fantastic chapbook will be joining our Little Pigeon series in May 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 11, ACQUISITION: We are delighted to (re)welcome Ryan Ridge back to our lineup with the acquisition of HUNTERS & GAMBLERS, a reprint of the out-of-print short-story collection of the same name that will also include fantastic new material. This deluxe edition will be joining our full-length titles in January 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 11, ACQUISITION: We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Michelle Acker’s DEAD ROBINS SOCIETY, a collection of poems inspired by and responding to superhero comic books, grappling with what it means to love an artistic genre that, in myriad historical and cultural ways, is invested in not loving you back. This chapbook will be joining our Little Pigeon series in June 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 11, ACQUISITION: We’re thrilled to announce Sudha Balagopal’s TINY UNTRUTHS, a collection of flash stories linked by an exploration of the human condition to reveal universal truths that straddle continents and countries and blend thoughts, ideas, and customs from the east and west. This book will be joining our full-length titles in April 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 10, ACQUISITION: We’re stoked to announce the acquisition of Brendan Walsh’s NOTJUSTYET NOTJUSTYET, a collection of poetry that asks the universe for one more day before destruction in regard to our constant exposure to death, imperialism, and climate catastrophes, specifically in the author’s home of South Florida and his past home of Southeast Asia. This book will be joining our full-length titles in October 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 10, ACQUISITION: We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Jeffrey Hantover’s 87½ MINUTES, a novella featuring a post-Covid love story at the possible end of the world, where two journalists at a tabloid notice an increasing number of weird events stemming from alien misinterpretations of the Golden Record launched into space on the 1977 Voyager I. This book will be joining our full-length titles in January 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • MAY 10, ACQUISITION: We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Benjamin Goluboff’s LIVES AND TIMES, a collection of speculative biographical poetry about groundbreaking and glass ceiling-shattering artists, generals, musicians,  photographers, and other movers and shakers of pop-cultural significance! The book will be joining our full-length titles in March 2024. Join our email list to stay informed on the release of this title.
  • APR 25, ACQUISITION: We are thrilled to announce the acquisition of Wendi White’s TURTLE ISLAND RISING, a collection of environmental poetry that interweaves the author’s relationship to the earth and affinity for nature with her ancestors’ history of colonizing and extracting wealth from the new world while exploiting its first inhabitants, joining our spring full-length lineup in March 2024. Join our email list to stay informed.
  • APR 23, ACQUISITION: We are thrilled to announce the acquisition of Bryanna Licciardi’s FISH LOVE, a collection of poetry about the beauty and tragedy of living life as a modern-day woman, joining our winter full-length lineup in December 2023. Join our email list to stay informed.
  • APR 22, ACQUISITION: We’re happy to announce the acquisition of Elliott Coates’ & PLEASE, a poetry collection of the correspondence from Charles Dickens’ troubled youngest sibling, Augustus, to his famous brother. This delicious chapbook will be joining our Little Pigeon series in January 2024. Join our email list to stay informed.
  • APR 22, ACQUISITION: We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Matthew Pitt’s THE BE-EVERYTHING! BROTHERS, a literary novella in which two brothers must forgive each other and their shared traumatic childhood in order to run a popular children’s show that tests their brotherly limits, for publication in November 2023. Join our email list to stay informed.
  • APR 21, ACQUISITION: We’re so excited to welcome Ben Tanzer—Emmy winner, podcast producer, author, and lit-citizen extraordinaire—to our fall lineup with the acquisition of BE COOL and LOST IN SPACE, reprints of an out-of-print memoir-in-vignettes and an essay collection on fatherhood, respectively, for dual-publication in November 2023. Join our email list to stay informed.
  • DEC 10, ACQUISITION: We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Bryce Emley’s TERMINATING PHYSICS: [a reference guide], a collection of prose poems using mathematical concepts as frameworks for questioning the validity of memory and examining the grief brought on by a car crash that killed the author’s best friend. The chapbook will be joining our Little Pigeon series at Alternating Current for a December 2023 release. Join our email list to stay informed.
  • DEC 2, ACQUISITION: We’re delighted to welcome Andrew Farkas to our Alternating Current family with the acquisition of ARE YOU NOW, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN?, a collection of short stories about identity that includes a reprint of Andy’s out-of-print collection Self-Titled Debut, plus added material, with a new introduction by the author. We’re thrilled to be bringing this fantastic story collection back into print, to share with a whole new audience.
  • DEC 1, BEST MICROFICTION: We’re thrilled to announce our press nominations for the Best Microfiction series: “Simon” by Naz Knudsen; “Each Droplet of Blood” by K. C. Mead-Brewer; “Crown Shyness” by Stephanie King; “step•moth•er (step-muth-er)” by Melanie Figg; “Insomnia” by Jo Saleska Lange; and “Knocking” by Tommy Dean. Congrats!
  • DEC 1, PUSHCART PRIZE: We’re thrilled to announce our press nominations for the Pushcart Prize: “Eden” by Jami Nakamura Lin; “Landfall” by Jiksun Cheung; “Davening” by Leonard Kress; “Lessons I Will Teach My Son” by Kendra Fortmeyer; “Naming the Darkness” by Tommy Dean; and “Poem for the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, Christmas Eve” by Tyler Friend. Congrats!
  • DEC 1, PUSHCART PRIZE: The Coil online magazine is thrilled to announce its nominations for the Pushcart Prize: “I Shot Tom Gardener?” by Jonah Marlow Bradenday; “When Alzheimer’s, Not Satisfied with Its Current Host, Went After My Memories, as Well” by Josh Denslow; “The Ballad of Nothing” by David Drury; “Dead Dad Letter Office” by Lee Anne Gallaway-Mitchell; “Brace for Impact” by Brian Kerg; and “Observations of Trans-Neptunian Objects” by Gabriel da Silva-Schicchi. Congrats!

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Masthead:
Leah Angstman, founder and executive editor
Elizabeth Copps, Copps Literary Services, film rights

Alternating Current Press
2525 Arapahoe Ave, Ste E4 #162
Boulder, Colorado 80302 USA
info @ altcurrentpress . com
+1 (307) 900-2529

We acknowledge that we are headquartered on what should be Arapaho land on a street that is instead named for a dead white male president who owned enslaved people and severed Native American Nations apart irrevocably. To honor the reparations that this entire country needs to make, Black writers and Native American Indigenous (United States and Canada) writers may submit material to our press for free during all open reading periods.