Tracy K. Smith has published five well-received poetry collections to date and served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017-2019. Her sophomore release, Duende, received the coveted James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Smith cemented her growing reputation with Life on Mars, which “blends pop culture, history, elegy, anecdote, and sociopolitical commentary to illustrate the weirdness of contemporary living” (Publishers Weekly). It won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Smith branched into memoir in 2015 with National Book Award finalist Ordinary Light. Her latest project is To Free The Captives: A Plea for the American Soul. Based on scholarship and the author’s own experience and earnest soul-searching, Smith’s latest “etches a portrait of where we find ourselves as a society four hundred years into the American experiment” and offers a blueprint for “fulfilling our duties to each other and to the future” (Knopf Doubleday). It debuts November 7, 2023.

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Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American author and spoken word artist. She is best known for her 2018 young adult novel-in-verse The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Acevedo’s follow-ups, With the Fire on High (2019) and Clap When You Land (2020), solidified Acevedo’s standing as one of the foremost YA writers of her generation. She also holds distinction as the Young People’s Poet Laureate for 2022-2023, a National Poetry Slam champion, and a frequent TED Talk presenter. Family Lore, the author’s first novel for adults, hits shelves in August. Flor Marte has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. When she asks her family to schedule a wake – a wake without a death – Flor’s three sisters are left to wonder if the clairvoyant has seen her own death or is driven by other motives. Spanning the three days prior to this most unusual family gathering, Family Lore traces the lives (and uncovers the long-held secrets) of all four Marte sisters.

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Fiona Davis is a historical fiction mainstay beloved by readers for her “winning formula of showcasing the stories behind New York City landmarks” (USA Today). Her seven bestselling novels to date include Good Morning America Book Club pick The Lions of Fifth Avenue, a “delightful mystery delving into the history of New York Public Library” (Publishers Weekly). The Magnolia Palace spotlights Gilded Age mansions and the secrets held within their walls. The Masterpiece breathes new life into a defunct and now all-but-forgotten art school once housed improbably within Grand Central Terminal. In her latest novel, The Spectacular, Davis turns her attention to the equally iconic Radio City Music Hall. Nineteen-year-old ingénue Marion Brooks seeks a coveted position with world-famous precision dance troupe The Rockettes, unaware that her ambitions will pull her in the middle of a city-wide dragnet to capture an elusive terrorist. The Spectacular hit shelves in June.

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Curtis Chin is an award-winning filmmaker and activist. He also holds distinction as the co-founder and first executive director behind New York’s prestigious Asian American Writers’ Workshop. His anticipated debut memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, hits shelves this October. Chin’s family restaurant, Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, occupied a special niche in 1980s Detroit. During this tumultuous period Chung’s clientele reflected the growing diversity of the Motor City – all seeking a safe oasis and the simple pleasure of sitting down to a home-cooked meal. Chung’s also looms large in Chin’s own coming-of-age narrative. In a rave review, novelist Jamie Ford summarizes: “Coming out and coming of age are hard enough for the average teen, but when they’re in a Chinese American family, in a city in conflict with itself, it becomes an epic journey of self-discovery.”

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Nicole Chung grew up as a transracial adoptee – and one of the few people of color in her Oregon hometown. Her lifelong journey of self-discovery and poignant, candid writing on the subject have positioned Chung as a singular voice in memoir. In her 2018 debut, All You Can Ever Know, Chung shares her search for her biological family – a quest she undertook while starting a family of her own. Chung’s follow-up, A Living Remedy, focuses on the author’s relationships with her adoptive parents, her upbringing in their working-class family, and her attempts to care for her mother and father from afar while also parenting her own children. After her father died young from diabetes and kidney disease, followed by her mother from cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chung gained a new perspective on the wealth disparities and healthcare inequities entrenched in our society. Notes The Washington Post: “Chung explores this difficult emotional terrain while delivering a powerful social commentary posing vital questions around access to medical care and the meaning of home and family.”

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Jacqueline Holland is the pen behind the chart-topping novel The God of Endings. Publications as many and varied as Book Riot, B&N Reads, LitHub, Polygon, Library Journal and E! singled out this literary debut as one of the most anticipated fiction titles of 2023. The God of Endings follows Collette LeSange, headmistress of an elite fine arts school in upstate New York. She is talented, affable and – unbeknownst to her students and colleagues – immortal. Collette has kept her nature a secret (and a growing bloodlust at bay) for 150 years, until the arrival of a gifted student from a troubled home threatens to reveal all. NPR praises The God of Endings as a refreshing take on the vampire genre: “an atmospheric vampire tale that wrestles with existential questions of being and philosophy, rather than bloodlust and gore.” It became an instant favorite with fans of Anne Rice and V.E. Schwab.

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Book club phenom Sadeqa Johnson has authored five novels to date. Her early books, including Love in a Carry-on Bag and And Then There Was Me, won the Phyllis Wheatley Award and National Book Club honors, among other distinctions. Johnson branched out from contemporary fiction and reached a still wider audience with Yellow Wife, lauded by Publishers Weekly as “a powerful, unflinching account of determination in the face of oppression.” Born into slavery, light-skinned Pheby Delores Brown is forced to bear children to and manage a slave dealer’s household. This precarious position pits Pheby’s hunger for freedom against the maternal drive to stay with and protect her children. Johnson’s newest novel, The House of Eve, tells the interconnected stories of two ambitious Black women who struggle with the consequences of unplanned pregnancies in 1950s America. It was an instant bestseller and February 2023 selection for the Reese Witherspoon Book Club.

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Speculative fiction superstar Rebecca F. Kuang is the author behind the #1 New York Times bestselling The Poppy War trilogy. Described by Publishers Weekly as “an ambitious fantasy reimagining of Asian history populated by martial artists, philosopher-generals, and gods,” Kuang’s early masterwork spans three installments: The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, and The Burning God. Kuang’s first standalone, Babel, debuted to a warm reception in 2022. Set in an alternate universe version of Victorian England, Babel envisions a British Empire fueled by a unique form of alchemy. A specially trained corps of linguists harnesses the innate magic of language and translation to power everything from medicine to transportation. According to the Oxford Review of Books, “the true magic of Kuang’s novel lies in its ability to be both rigorously academic and consistently welcoming to the reader.” In addition to her skyrocketing fiction career, Kuang is an accomplished translator and scholar pursuing a Ph.D. from Yale University.

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Joshua Bennett, PhD, is a prize-winning poet and spoken word artist. He gained critical acclaim in 2016 with The Sobbing School, winner of the National Poetry Series and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. Bennett’s follow-ups, Owed (2020) and The Study of Human Life (2022), solidified his standing as one of his generation’s most resonant and needed poetic voices. In a starred review for Owed, Publisher’s Weekly raves “these powerful, crisp poems celebrate the complexity, joy, and heartbreak of the Black experience in America.” Bennett’s newest release is Spoken Word: A Cultural History. In it, he tracks the origins and broad impact of a resilient art form that has long centered voices and experiences outside the dominant cultural narrative. In addition to his writing, Bennett is a professor at Dartmouth College and founding editor of Minor Notes, a Penguin Classics book series dedicated to the rediscovery of underappreciated Black poets from the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Alka Joshi moved to the United States at age nine, but the author’s native Rajasthan, India looms large in her chart-topping historical fiction. Many readers know her best for The Henna Artist (2020), the first entry in The Jaipur Trilogy. It follows dye artisan and herbal healer Lakshmi Shastri, who flees an abusive marriage and attempts to earn a livelihood in the vibrant city of Jaipur. Set in the unsettled decade after the country’s independence, “The Henna Artist is a fabulous glimpse into Indian culture of the 1950s… rich in detail and bright with tastes and textures” (Bookpage). Reese Witherspoon selected Joshi’s debut for her Hello Sunshine Book Club, and the book will soon have a second life as a Netflix original series. The Perfumist of Paris, Joshi’s much-anticipated conclusion to The Jaipur Trilogy, hit shelves in March. In an early review, historical fiction mainstay Kate Quinn raves: “Evoking India and France with equal beauty, this is Alka Joshi’s best book yet!”

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