Heartsick Requiem, the first full-length poetry collection from Sunspot Lit’s Poetry Editor Morrow Dowdle, is coming out from Riot in Your Throat Press this November. The work is available for preorder on Riot’s website.

In pieces that address Dowdle’s relationship with a difficult mother, an abusive father, a dying sister and a marriage in its last moments, the collection shows that “joy is sweeter on the other side of sorrow.”

An interview with the author detailing the years it took to create the collection and an occasional break for sword fighting can be found here.

Yance Wyatt, writing professor at the University of Southern California and Editor of The Blue Mountain Review, has contributed to Sunspot Lit in the past. Now he has a novel out from Regal House Publishing.

In the work, “a bereaved moonshiner gives up whiskey to distill human ‘spirits.'” Described as “propulsive and lyrical” by Southern Book Prize winner Silas House, the novel is a great fit for readers of Sunspot Lit.

More information can be found on Wyatt’s website.