#indie press

[thewhumpyprintingpress]

Skin Deep Cover Reveal!

We're ecstatic to reveal the cover for Skin Deep by Asidian Morris @asidian, the first WPP novelette for 2026. The cover art is by the amazingly talented @kaciart!

Taurean just started his new job as a guard for Lord Cyril, one of the most influential nobles in Sanryn. It's supposed to be a cushy, easy job. But when the manor is attacked, Taurean finds himself embroiled in a tangled web of truths and lies. What kind of person is his employer? And more importantly, why does the Mangler of the East City want Lord Cyril dead? 

With the dangers of the fey-wood closing in, Taurean doesn't have long to find the answers that could save all of their lives.

Skin Deep will be released in ebook on January 20, 2026. You can preorder the ebook here!

Skin Deep will also be published in an omnibus paperback with all the other 2026 whumpy novelettes in December 2026.

[bryszket]

TRANS RIGHTS READATHON tRAUM PICKS

Hey, hey, for anyone trying to curate a trans readathon reading list, I am listing books from tRaum written by our trans authors, highlighting the sheer variety possible from these titles! From these authors, we've got older and younger trans characters & voices, covering such wide range of genres as:

Hybrid poetry || high-seas fantasy body horror || Southern lit horror absurdist modern || trans-noir gambling thriller || philosophical autofic || flash fiction grab-bag || genderfluid Dracula || transmasc picaresque || doorstopper transfemme fantasy

Our books are currently reduced price on both Itch and Payhip, but if price is what is keeping you from grabbing a book, we include a link for each to a free ARC copy. <3 Alternatively, just ask in our DMs for an ecopy. We want our books to be accessible to everyone. HAPPY READING!!

BLACK HOLE SCIENCE IS FILLED WITH APOLOGIES by Never Angeline North @whatmountains

transfemme || hybrid poetry || older trans ["Older" sounds so ???; so to clarify, I am using it to convey that it is not about trans youth.]

This is our latest release, and an excellent choice if you are looking to put some trans poetry on your readathon list. Never's writing is absurd, enchanting, sometimes challenging, but always relatable.

Buy a copy HERE. Get a free ARC in exchange for an honest review HERE.

DEMON ENGINE by Marten Norr @martennorr

transmasc & transfemme || t4t || mental illness || older trans || aspec rep || high sea adventure || Indie Ink Finalist for multiple awards

A gifted and troubled demon summoner must work together with the Navy that once ruined his life for the proverbial One Last Job. A wildly imaginative trans sea adventure fantasy with body horror elements.

Buy a copy HERE. Free ARC in exchange for an honest review HERE.

CORRUPTED VESSELS by Briar Ripley Page @flameswallower

transmasc & nonbinary || trans youth || mental illness || literary horror novella

A short, powerful novella about a tiny trans cult that tries to induct a new member into their fold with disastrous results. Literary Southern gothic-ish horror with some lovely prose. (Includes a previously unreleased and unconnected novelette!) Buy a copy HERE. Get a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review HERE.

LOVE/AGGRESSION by June Martin transfemme || t4t || older trans || funny || Lambda finalist

Two trans women, once each other's life-support, find themselves on opposites sides of a rapidly escalating friendship-breakup war. Modern absurdist literary fiction. But a copy HERE. Free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review HERE.

WAKE UP! by R Merey

transmasc & transfemme || t4t || older trans || acespec rep

$$ so good, she tries to ignore his gambling problem. But when she's kidnapped to witness him play, she's forced to wake up. The trans-noir mahjong thriller you didn't know you were waiting for!

Buy a copy HERE. Free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review HERE.

MOST FAMOUS SHORT FILM OF ALL TIME by Tucker Lieberman

transmasc || older trans rep || experimental fiction

Lev Ockenshaw, a Jewish trans man with a complicated relationship to ghosts and goddesses, gets sucked into a possible office conspiracy. Confessional, meandering, bizarre, and maybe life-changing?!?

Buy a copy HERE. Free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review HERE.

Something Not Right by yves. @yvesdot

all kinds of trans and sexual rep || light horror, fantasy, spec fic elements

A charming collection that starts with flash and works up to longer tales, with a wide range of tone, horror and spec-fic tropes, and characterization.

Buy a copy HERE.

Darknesses by Lachelle Seville

genderfluid || Modern Dracula retelling || revenge fantasy

A young Black woman out from a dangerous cult falls in love with the enigmatic Laura, the latest manifestation of Dracula. A skillful combination of fast paced plot and literary nods to the classic gothic genre.

Buy a copy HERE. Free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review HERE.

H: a trash novel by R Merey

femme transmasc || sex work || experimental(ish??) lit

A cheerful ne'er-do-well finds himself increasingly trapped in the playboy role he's painted himself into. A modern trans nod to "Life of an Amorous Woman," sex work (and fuck boy) lit.

Buy a copy HERE. (or ping me for a free PDF copy.)

Honorary mention: MAEJ by Dale Stromberg @dalestromberg

Full disclosure: MAEJ was not written by a trans author, but it is an outstanding doorstopper fantasy that depicts transfemme characters in a wonderfully satisfying and refreshing way.

Buy a copy HERE. Free ARC for an honest review HERE.

Happy Trans Rights Readathon to everyone, and a special thanks to the lovely people reading indie trans lit all year. <3333333

[unspeakablearchives]

I enjoy making light of extremely recent deaths through the use of staggeringly obscure literary references:

Deceased in the last two months:

James "IOU" Havoc (d. late May 2026)

Jim "America's Sweetheart" Goad (d. late July 2026)

In imminent danger:

Chip "Uses Roadkill as a Pocket Pussy" Smith

The Esteemed Dr. Philip Best, PhD esq.

Michael "Had His First Orgasm Watching the Tornado Scene in The Wizard of Oz" Salerno

Shade "Buggery of a Mutilated Body" Rupe

[zine-scene]

Act Your Age: Fandom at 35+ and Beyond: Volume 3 - Generations

For Act Your Age Volume 3, we’re diving into the theme of "Generations". We're looking for stories, art, and creative work that explore how fandom connects across age, time, and family lines.

Are you a second- or third-generation fan in your family?

Maybe your love of a band, show, book, or game was inherited from a parent or grandparent—or maybe you’re the one who passed it on to your child, your sibling, your nibling, or even your neighbor.

 Do you participate in fan activities that bring together people of different ages? 

Have you found meaning in how fandom acts as a bridge between generations, cultures, or communities?

We’re accepting essays, stories, visual art, comics, poetry, and other creative work that fits the theme. Both personal reflections and imaginative takes are welcome. 

Microsoft Word, Google Drive links and png artwork is accepted. If your work is selected for publication, you’ll receive two copies of the zine as a thank-you.

Deadline is October 24, 2025. 

Got questions? [email protected]

Check out the Wild Ramp Publishing Website for previous volumes of Act Your Age!

[duckprintspress]

Indie Press Web Ring: Interest Check

I don’t know how many of the folks reading this were as active in Ye Olden Days Of The Internet as I was, but circa 2000, discoverability for a webpage was a very different process than it is now. I ran a fan site back in the day, and then, the key was getting involved with similar web pages and building connections, especially trying to get listed on relevant link farms and joining web rings related to things my page was about. A web ring is a lot like a link farm, but instead of being “one page with a big ole list of web pages,” it’s instead an interlinking system. Every website in the ring bears a badge and links to the full list, the previous site, and the next site, and the idea is that if someone clicks “next site” enough times, they’ll circle through the entire list of sites in the web ring and end up back where they started. Rings were always very handy for driving traffic (from the web site owner point of view) and for finding a lot of like-minded web sites (from the user point of view).

See where I’m going with this?

With big corporations now dominating the internet and often drowning out softer voices or throttling traffic to smaller pages, with our SEO often buried by the clamor of useless ads unrelated to our work, I’m looking back to how I used to find people to request WinAmp skins from me and thinking it’s time to go back to The Old Ways.

All of which is to say: I’d like to make a web ring for indie publishers. Especially for indie publishers on the smaller end of the spectrum and those who work in speculative fiction, LGBTQIA+ creators and works, or both. As in: places like Duck Prints Press.

But a web ring can’t possibly be composed of only one web page, and that’s where this post comes in. Do you own an indie press or run the website for one? Would you be interested in having the site for your press be included in a web ring of indie presses? Then fill out my web ring interest check! I figure if I can get about a dozen folks interested, I’ll put something together.

I hope to get to know y’all!

Not an indie press? please signal boost to help spread the word!

Absolutely zero pressure ping to a few indie presses I know have Tumblr accounts. @inclusivefuture (I know you're closing down but... yeah. <3 ) @spacefruitpress @archiveoftheodd @thewhumpyprintingpress @echolitmag

@oficmag @midnightmeadowpublishing

[llyfrenfys]

hiiii what’s your poetry book

Shwmae @lilyliveredlittlerichboy !

To clarify a little, my poem "To that Drag Queen in Corfu on the Night of the Eclipse" is one of many in the debut anthology "I Zig and I Zag", published by Margin 2 Margin (M2M) Books (a local indie press set up in an Aberystwyth bar I frequented before it closed last year). The anthology is explicitly made up of contributions from marginalised poets as the publisher is strongly by and for marginalised writers and stories.

I may be slightly biased but it's a fantastic anthology imo! There were contributions from around the world, including from Kenyan poet Masaka Madeda , who wrote the eponymous epic poem "I Zig and I Zag" (found on pages 32 - 147. It's absolutely massive and I'm fortunate enough to have heard Madeda perform an excerpt of his poem via videolink (in the aforementioned bar Iries). The rest of the anthology has works by other incredible marginalised poets and I'm still in awe that my work gets to sit alongside them.

Some personal favourites are Mohammed Abdoel and Ciel Saludes' memoir poem "My Mother's Rose-Tinted Glasses" (page 10) , Rakyah Assam's postcolonial grief poem "You Will Witness This from Wherever You Stand" (page 20) and Brân Denning's poem about the nature of want and maternal figures, "Neglect is a Needle —" (page 18) themed on the cloth mother/wire mother experiment.

My own poem, "To that Drag Queen in Corfu on the Night of the Eclipse" (page 15) is about a real experience of mine while holidaying with my (now-estranged) parents in Corfu. It's about finding other queer people and longing for connection with them while still in the closet. It's also about parents, queerphobia and queer belonging in the natural world.

I so rarely advertise really on here but it would mean a lot if you'd consider picking up a copy of the I Zig and I Zag anthology or the debut novel of G.I. James, Love and Happiness, which features the story of Harriet, an adopted black woman - which is also published by M2M Books.

I Zig and I Zag – Poetry Anthology

Get the A4 Book Kindle Edition I Zig and I Zag is a beautifully produced A4 multi-community poetry anthology that revels in the shared human

[adamgnade]

Listen to me read an excerpt from this book while John Vogle plays synth accompaniment. Get copies of the book here.

[novella-november]

(Time sensitive book sale (?) - posted August 24th 2025)

Love Scifi? Love small presses? Love cheap ebooks?

(Optionally love the Doctor Who Expanded Universe?)

( -- but also, no Doctor Who experience needed!)

Arcbeetle Press for a limited time only (?) has their novel, "Cwej: Requiem" on sale for 99c, to celebrate their nomination for the Scribe Award!

This is the first book in the reading order for their series, and you can dive in for just under a dollar :D

Cwej: Requiem

A young Chris Cwej, fresh out of an experimental time travel surgery, has been transported with his alien co-worker Tyron to a planet with d

A young Chris Cwej, fresh out of an experimental time travel surgery, has been transported with his alien co-worker Tyron to a planet with deadly monsters and a single human woman. The robotic Captain of the INITEC vessel the Gold Reserve, along with his crew, are tracking the course of a massive Universe-wide disaster in the making. Gregori Glasst, famed spacefaring composer, is on tour for a musical celebration of Earth history, and has prepared his magnum opus to be played at a very specific venue...

Got the book and love it? Want to see more of Cwej?

They're currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of this character (first appeared in the DWEU 30 years ago but now has his own standalone series) and have a multi-media(?) short story you can read for free here, called Shutter Speed, with is another way to get introduced to the character and this scifi universe as an easy, free jumping-on point:

Cwej: Shutter Speed

Happy Easter from Cwej and Arcbeatle Press! If you've never read Cwej before, you can start here! It's a brand new fresh adventure, so welco

after that, they've released two zines so far, which you can also read for free on their website!

Part One:

Cwej30 Zine: Issue 1 - The Book of the Fair

The Cwej30 Zine is a publication celebrating 30 years of Chris Cwej. Each issue will have new stories for Chris, and are the perfect place t

Part Two:

Cwej30 Zine Issue 2: The Odyssey Begins!

Sang Mi has always wanted to be like Chris Cwej--he was her hero, her hope, at her lowest point. Now he needs her, and their Odyssey will ta

If you've been looking for a new scifi series from a lot of small creators with a lot of passion, Cwej is for you :D

small disclaimer: I've only interacted with Cwej in prose through a book I will be soon typing up a reading reccomendation post for in detail, I have not read his series from Arcbeetle but I now own most of them and am eager to jump in feet first with these zines and my new 99c ebook! :D

*pronounciation I am working on, as I mentally read the name Cwej as rhyming with "wedge" like "swedge" but I have heard at least one person say it is more correctly pronounced as "Shway" or "Shvey"?? Deep DWEU lore fans please give me an audio recording of how you pronounce this man's last name