Welcome
Hi, there! Step right up to the table. Don’t be shy. Alternating Current is a woman-run indie press since 1993, 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, place, poetic literary fiction, diverse voices, and all that is electric in the literary world. Our interns are German Shepherds, our blood is bourbon, and no, we don’t sleep.Of course, we know what you’re really here for: so here’s how you can submit your own work, and here’s where you can find our upcoming anthology open calls, but also … please buy a book! All our authors get paid, and all our anthologies donate a percentage to nonprofits.
SWAG: We will be giving away daily digital swag for the Smol Fair and AWP, March 17-27, 2022, via the swag button above. Come back each day for a new digital item!
CHAT: You can normally chat with editor-in-chief Leah Angstman for the entirety of the Smol Fair and AWP via the chat button above, with typed chat options and in-person video chat options each day of the bookfair, but this year, we are on the road, so the chat button is disabled, sorry!
Booksale
Thanks for stopping by the table! We’ll be open for Smol Fair from March 19-26, and AWP from March 24-26, 2022. Our books range from $12.99 to $16.99, but during the bookfair, you can enter the coupon code SMOLFAIR at checkout, and you get 50% off your entire order if you buy 2 books or more (basically an unlimited BOGO!). That’s right, it’s BOGO time! No limit to the BOGO, and yes, we’ll SHIP FREE anywhere in the world*. This offer only runs through the weeks of the bookfair, from March 17-28, 2022, and the sale is only through the links on this page (through our Square online store).HOW THE TOTEBAG WORKS: Click Add it to your totebag! on a book below. This opens up our Square shop (so we can give you a discount through Square). Click Add to cart in the Square shop. Then, you can close the Square window/tab. You do not have to keep it open (unless you want to) because all of your items will show up in the TOTEBAG checkout shown on this page above right. Just click the totebag at any time to see your items, add a discount code, and check out when ready. [back to top]
THEMED ANTHOLOGIES [Submit to upcoming anthologies]
Parenting Stoies Gone Speculative
• A percentage of the sales of this anthology is donated to Family Equality
• 75 speculative flash about parenting by 76 authors
• Illustrated interior sections
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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REMAPPING WONDERLAND:
Classic Fairytales Retold by People of Color
• A percentage of the sales of this anthology is donated to Room to Read
• 30 rewritten classic fairytales by 27 BIPOC authors
• Fully illustrated by over 50 artists
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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UNDENIABLE:
Writers Respond to Climate Change
• A percentage of the sales of this anthology is donated to the Natural Resources Defense Council
• 65 pieces by 52 authors
• Nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, and poetry about personal impacts of climate change
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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SPECTRAL LINES:
Poems about Scientists
• A percentage of the sales of this anthology is donated to Black Girls Code
• 69 poems by 62 authors
• Each poem features a personal scientist biography by the author
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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[What is Footnote?]
FOOTNOTE: A LITERARY JOURNAL OF HISTORY [Submit to Footnote]
FOOTNOTE #1: [#1 description]
A Literary Journal of History
• 88 pieces by 47 authors
• Nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, poetry, translation, images, maps, and interactive QR codes
• 2015 Charter Oak Award winners and finalists
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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FOOTNOTE #2: [#2 description]
A Literary Journal of History
• 43 pieces by 30 authors
• Nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, poetry, images, maps, and interactive QR codes
• 2016 Charter Oak Award winners and finalists
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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FOOTNOTE #3: [#3 description]
A Literary Journal of History
• 45 pieces by 24 authors
• Nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, poetry, images, maps, and interactive QR codes
• 2017 Charter Oak Award winners and finalists
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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FOOTNOTE #4: [#4 description]
A Literary Journal of History
• 48 pieces by 33 authors
• Nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, poetry, images, maps, and interactive QR codes
• 2018 Charter Oak Award winners and finalists
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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FOOTNOTE #5: [#5 description]
A Literary Journal of History
• 39 pieces by 33 authors
• Nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, poetry, images, maps, and interactive QR codes
• 2019 Charter Oak Award winners and finalists
• Coming in May!
• PREORDER NOW and get the sale!
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NOVELS [Submit your fiction manuscript]
A ROOM IN DODGE CITY:
A Novel-in-Vignettes by David Leo Rice
• Bizarro fiction, literary body horror, noir film culture; illustrated by Christina Collins
• If you like: Brian Evenson, Neil Gaiman, David Lynch, Blake Butler, Jack Ketchum, Shirley Jackson
• 2016 Electric Book Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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A ROOM IN DODGE CITY #2: The Blut Branson Era:
A Novel-in-Vignettes by David Leo Rice
• Sequel to A Room in Dodge City; illustrated by Hosho McCreesh
• Bizarro fiction, literary body horror, noir film culture
• If you like: Brian Evenson, Neil Gaiman, David Lynch, Blake Butler, Jack Ketchum, Shirley Jackson
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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SILT:
A Novella by Chris Geier
• Literary hard-boiled detective novella
• Historical, set in Cincinatti, 1856
• If you like: Raymond Chandler, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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SHORT-STORY COLLECTIONS [Submit your short-story manuscript]
Stories by Ryan Ridge
• Short stories
• Literary fiction
• If you like: George Saunders, J. A. Tyler, clever wordplay
• Coming in May!
• PREORDER NOW and get the sale!
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TALL TALES FROM THE LADIES’ AUXILIARY:
Stories by Marvin Shackelford
• Short stories
• Literary fiction
• If you like: American South, Appalachian, Flannery O’Connor
• Coming in May!
• PREORDER NOW and get the sale!
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HOLLOWS:
Stories by Tommy Dean
• Short stories
• Literary fiction
• If you like: Flash fiction, dark family troubles, Kathy Fish
• See full cover jacket
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RIVER WEATHER:
Stories by Cameron MacKenzie
• Short stories
• Literary fiction
• If you like: Appalachia, David Joy, Ron Rash
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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LOVING MONSTERS:
Flash Stories by Laura Eppinger
• Short stories, flash, fabulism, speculative
• Literary fiction
• If you like: Speculative monster stories, Kate Bernheimer, Angela Carter
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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WHAT SHINES FROM IT:
Stories by Sara Rauch
• Short stories, literary, East Coast, LGBTQ+, motherhood, feminism, self, body; fully illustrated
• If you like: Pete Fromm, Anne Carson, New England
• 2017 Electric Book Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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SECOND ACTS IN AMERICAN LIVES:
Stories by Ryan Ridge & Mel Bosworth
• Flash shorts, short stories, literary, themes of politics, humor, puns, society
• Illustrated by Jacob Heustis
• If you like: Kathy Fish, Tara Lynn Masih, Best Small Fictions Series
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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THE GIRL WAKES:
Stories by Carmen Lau
• Dark, original, feminist fairytales; fully illustrated by Christina Collins
• If you like: Angela Carter, Kate Bernheimer, Allyse Near, Fairy Tale Review
• 2015 Electric Book Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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MOON UP, PAST FULL:
Novellas & Stories by Eric Shonkwiler
• Midwestern and Appalachian literary stories; fully illustrated by Christina Collins
• If you like: Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Breece D’J Pancake
• 2015 Luminaire Prose Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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THE POOR MAN’S GUIDE TO AN AFFORDABLE, PAINLESS SUICIDE:
Stories by Schuler Benson
• Deep South gritty southern noir stories; fully illustrated by Ryan Murray & Patrick Traylor
• If you like: Chuck Palahniuk, Barry Hannah, Wells Tower, Coen Brothers
• 2015 Luminaire Prose Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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NONFICTION [Submit your nonfiction manuscript]
THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE:
Essays by Joel Wachman
• Linked essays on conception, infertility, birth, and quantum mechanics
• 2017 Luminaire Prose Award Winner
• If you like: Science, Entanglement, Alan Lightman, Patrick Gabridge, Annie Dillard
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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EATS OF EDEN:
A Foodoir by Tabitha Blankenbiller
• Linked essays and recipes on food, self, body, writing
• Fully illustrated
• If you like: Cheryl Strayed, Baking Shows, Beyoncé
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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POETRY [Submit your poetry manuscript]
Poems by Tyler Friend
• Poetry, prose poetry
• If you like: Paige Lewis, R.E.M., poet H. D., Franny Choi
• LGBTQ+ experience, love poems, sexuality
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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OX:
Visual Micropoems by Ryan Ridge
• Micropoems, visual art text, minimalism, experimental
• If you like: Mike Topp, image poetry, concrete poetry, clever wordplay
• Little Pigeon Chapbook Series
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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A GOSPEL OF BONES:
Poems by Suzi Q. Smith
• Poetry, Black experience in America, motherhood, feminism, police violence
• If you like: Claudia Rankine, Danez Smith, Tiana Clark, Robin Coste Lewis, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton
• 2020 Electric Book Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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UNCITY, LEAN:
Poems by Michael Cooper
• Poetry, childhood, veterans, death, suicide, abuse, Inland Empire
• Illustrated
• If you like: William S. Burroughs, experimental
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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WYATT EARP:
Poetic Narrative of a Wild Life in the Wild West by Larry Beckett
• Longform poem, Beat, post-Beat, experimental, about Wyatt Earp’s time in Tombstone
• If you like: William S. Burroughs, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, William Faulkner
• 2019 Electric Book Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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20,
Erasure Poems by Jennifer Roche
• Erasure poems of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea
• Fully illustrated with quadtychs by Hosho McCreesh
• If you like: Jules Verne, Herman Melville
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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WE MEANT TO BRING IT HOME ALIVE:
Poems by Armin Tolentino
• Poetry about space, time, distance, loneliness, expanse; fully illustrated
• If you like: Samantha Edmonds, Sarah Gerard, Tracy K. Smith
• 2018 Electric Book Award Winner
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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PORTRAITS: [What is the Wardenclyffe Series?]
Poems by B. Z. Niditch
• Poetry of artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, nature, Beat, post-Beat; illustrated
• If you like: Beat, post-Beat
• Wardenclyffe Series Book 1
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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SOLSTICE TO SOLSTICE TO SOLSTICE:
A Year of Sunrises in Poetry by Allison Boyd Justus
• Poems documenting a year of sunrises
• Themes of science, self, isolation, beauty, nature, peace, heartbreak
• If you like: Annie Dillard, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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GIRL FRIEND & OTHER MYSTERIES OF LOVE:
Poems by Charles P. Ries
• Love poems
• Themes of marriage, divorce, dating, relationships, heartbreak, happiness
• If you like: Pablo Neruda, Robert Burns, narrative poetry
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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[What is the Violet Ray Series?]
COLLECTIONS, JOURNALS, MIXED ANTHOLOGIES, & ARCHIVAL VOLUMES
THE SKY IS A FREE COUNTRY: [Submit poetry to the Luminaire Award]
The Luminaire Award Anthology, Volume 1 [Submit fiction to the Luminaire Award]
• 13 short stories and 15 poems by 23 authors
• Contains the winners of the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Luminaire Awards for Prose and Poetry
• Luminaire Award Anthology Series Book 1
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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; OR HOW WE STOPPED WARMING UP FOR 20 YEARS & LEARNED TO EXIT THE GREEN ROOM
Poetry Archives 1993-2013 [See details of included journals]
• 147 Poems by 34 Authors
• A collection of 8 now-out-of-print poetry journals + outtakes from 1993-2013
• Violet Ray Series Book 2
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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THE ART OF ARRANGING: [See details of included chapbooks]
A Collection of 5 Out-of-Print Chapbooks + Outtakes by 3 Authors
• 1 chap by Paul Weinman, 2 chaps by Joseph Verrilli, 2 chaps by Harry Calhoun
• Outtakes by Joseph Verrilli
• Violet Ray Series Book 3
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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OF SMALL THINGS: [See details of included chapbooks]
A Collection of 4 Out-of-Print Chapbooks + Outtakes by 22 Authors
• 1 chap by 22 authors, 2 chaps by Stephanie Hiteshew, 1 chap by Dave Church, 1 chap by B. Z. Niditch
• Outtakes by Stephanie Hiteshew and B. Z. Niditch
• Violet Ray Series Book 4
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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POIESIS REVIEW #1-5 [See details of included issues]
A Literary Journal Collected Archive
• 119 Poems by 73 authors, including 2008-2012 Luminaire Poetry Award winners
• A collection of 5 out-of-print single issues
• Violet Ray Series Book 1
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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POIESIS REVIEW #6
A Literary Journal
• Over 100 pieces by 40 authors
• Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid
• Includes 2013 Luminaire Award winners and finalists for Prose and Poetry
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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POIESIS REVIEW #7
A Literary Journal
• 68 pieces by 27 authors
• Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid
• Includes 2014 Luminaire Award winners and finalists for Prose and Poetry
• See full cover jacket
• Take a look inside
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Events
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Free Raffle Prizes!
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