Coffee House Press is pleased to introduce the NVLA series, debuting in Spring 2023. Conceptualized as an artistic playground for authors, the series will consist of novellas that challenge and broaden the outer edges of storytelling, from longtime Coffee House authors, debut writers, and others whose novellas may not fit in at their usual publishing homes. Each novella we publish will illuminate the capacious and often overlooked space of possibility between short stories and novels.
The NVLA series will launch in our Spring 2023 season with The Plotinus by Rikki Ducornet and We’re Safe When We’re Alone by Nghiem Tran, to be followed by Sound Museum by Poupeh Missaghi.
Author of Trafik and Brightfellow Rikki Ducornet’s The Plotinus is a novella about a young man who, upon grabbing his knobby stick and stepping out into the morning, is brutally arrested by a robot named the Plotinus and abandoned in a dark cell, where singular memories and fantastical encounters illuminate the hours.
Nghiem Tran’s We’re Safe When We’re Alone is a debut novella in which Son, who has spent his entire life in isolation with Father, is forced to confront for the first time the ghostly world outside their mansion and face his rapidly disintegrating foundational beliefs.
Author of trans(re)lating house one Poupeh Missaghi’s Sound Museum is a hybrid novella in which an Iranian ex-interrogator gives a tour of a museum of her design, incorporating fiction, research, and critical theory to examine the global history of torture.
NVLA books will have a unique series design developed by artist Sarah Evenson, and will be published biannually. They will be promoted as stand-alone titles for a general trade audience, with sales and distribution in North America by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution. We’ll be holding an open reading period for the series this fall, so please prepare your most unusual little creatures for us. More novellas to be announced soon!