New Books in Literature Now I'm Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself with Jill Rosenberg (Black Lawrence Press, 2026)
Now I'm Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself (Black Lawrence Press, 2026) is a collection of ten playfully strange and unsettling stories, some realistic and some surreal. The characters in these pages feel alienated: from their communities and relationships, on the streets of wealthy suburbs, at the doctor's office, in classrooms and swimming pools, in their own homes and their own skin. They wonder: is it better to be alone, imagining the life you want, as fantastic and strange as you wish, or is it better to be in the real world with real people, even if that means you might be hurt, embarrassed, and misunderstood? What if the intensity of it all feels equally threatening and glorious?
In these stories, an angry father wishes he could be loving and gentle; a seven-year-old girl wants to be better at school and thin like her sister; an uncoordinated, awkward teenager is training to be an Olympic athlete. What would happen, we are left to wonder, if these characters brought their wild sides out into the light? What if they stopped trying to be normal?
Jill Rosenberg is a graduate of Vassar College and the MFA Program at the University of Montana. Her fiction has been published by the Kenyon Review, Swamp Pink, Black Warrior Review, and other journals. She currently writes and teaches in Montclair, New Jersey, where she also works with rescued cats and practices practicing Buddhism.
Recommended Books:
- Paul Russell, Sea of Tranquility
- Margo Steines, Brutalities
Chris Holmes is Professor of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.
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