2026 Festival

Uche Okonkwo’s A Kind of Madness is a series of short stories set in Nigeria. These stories explore family dynamics, stigma around mental illness, and the effect of westernism in Nigeria. Okonkwo’s stories ask what madness truly is, and do so in a fictional yet completely realistic method.

Samyak Shertok’s experiences as a child living through the Nepalese Civil War are the driving force for No Rhododendron. A collection of poems, No Rhododendron is an immensely powerful piece on exile, death of family, and loss of mother tongue. Shertok’s imagery and style alone make this collection an unmissable read.

The Oak and The Larch: A Forest History of Russia and its Empires by Sophie Pinkham tells a nonfictional story about the history of Russia’s forest and the politics surrounding them through a fictional lens with a large amount of historical research. Pinkham's use of intertextuality and vivid imagery allows for such a dense history to be easily digested.

Maria Zoccola’s debut poetry collection is set in Sparta, Tennessee, in which our narrator, Helen of Troy, lives disgruntled and subdued, wanting nothing more than to break free from her life of monotony and boredom in her marriage. Blending historical Greek mythology and 90s pop culture references, Helen of Troy, 1993 is a unique and powerful commentary on the idea of women in the United States.

noam keim’s The Land is Holy is an extremely personal collection of essays that deal with keim’s experiences as a queer Arab Jew to a settler family in Occupied Palestine. keim’s beautiful language and unique insight to the ongoing colonialism in Occupied Palestine while also detailing their heritage and family experience makes this collection absolutely enthralling.

Jon Hickey’s Big Chief is a political drama about Mitch Caddo, a man who struggles to maintain his hold over the Passage Rouge Nation. Big Chief explores themes of ancestry, colonization, family dynamics, and political discourse while creating a very enjoyable fiction reading experience.