Books published by Burrow Press

"In Ariel Francisco's Miami, invasive lionfish are sympathetic spirit animals, the beach succumbs to sea-level rise, and "305 till I die" is a cry for help. The speakers in these hilarious and melachonly poems depict a rich and varied emotional landscape that mirrors that of the state they long to leave, dead or alive. They imagine themselves standing on ocean garbage patches, contemplate the crabgrass on traffic medians, and envision the new beauty of a submerged Miami Beach: "Famed art deco replaced by fire coral / and colorful parrot fish, neon lights / restored by pulsating swarms of moon / jellyfish, lit up like a Saturday night." In one moment the strange becomes familiar, only to become strange again in the next stanza. Taking inspiration from Campbell McGrath and Richard Blanco, among others, Ariel Francisco's second book of poems deals with climate change and the absurdities and difficulties of being a millenial Latinx in the Sunshine State."--

At age 18 Alysia Sawchyn was diagnosed with bipolar I. Seven years later she learned she had been misdiagnosed. A Fish Growing Lungs takes the form of linked essays that reflect on Sawchyn's diagnosis and its unraveling, the process of withdrawal and recovery, and the search for identity as she emerges from a difficult past into a cautiously hopeful present. Sawchyn captures the precariousness of life under the watchful eye of doctors, friends, and family, in which saying or doing the wrong thing could lead to involuntary confinement. This scrutiny is compounded by the stigmas of mental illness and the societal expectations placed on the bodies of women and women of color. And yet, amid juggling medications, doubting her diagnosis, and struggling with addiction and cutting, there is also joy, friendship, love, and Slayer concerts. Funny, intelligent, and unflinchingly honest, Sawchyn explores how we can come to know ourselves when our bodies betray us. Drawing from life experience, literature, music, medical journals, films, and recovery communities, each essay illuminates the richness of self-knowledge that comes from the act of writing itself.

From the neon strip of Little Vietnam to a desolate Albertsons parking lot, 15 Views of Orlando takes the reader on a secret tour of the City Beautiful. Told by 15 authors in a series of loosely linked fiction, this collaborative anthology is a literary portrait of an often misunderstood city.

Bookended by a choose-your-own-adventure story and a final exam, Bright Lights, Medium-sized City is a formally inventive city novel in the tradition of The Bonfire of the Vanities.

From the screenwriter of The Zero Theorem comes the book that inspired the film. Roberts is not interested in food, sex, or any of life's pleasures.

Framed as the drug-addled memoir of addict-turned-reality TV star Ronald Reagan Middleton (annotated and published by floundering doctoral candidate Harold Swanger), Clean Time is a darkly comic satire set in a near-future America ravaged by addiction.

Space Heart paints a picture of an era of endless optimism and television cowboys amid the looming Soviet threat. Combining prose poems, narrative memoir, and history, Buckmaster juxtaposes the natural world of Space Coast Florida in the 1950s and 60s with the cutting-edge technology of the early days of the space race.

In a voice both lyrical and conversational, Orlando Poet Laureate Susan Lilley interprets various stages of womanhood while parsing the beauty and decay of her beloved homestate of Florida.

A mysterious condition sweeps the country, leaving its victims in a catatonic state. The power grid fails and the world goes dark. Somewhere in Florida, where the sprawling suburbs meet a dying citrus grove, a janitor at a small community radio station, an FCC field agent, and a DJ attempt to restore order and humanity.

A little desert town gets a sexual charge from a crash-landed alien. A dysfunctional family tries to summit Everest with "discount Sherpas" and yakloads of emotional baggage. A teen messiah emerges from a game of 3-on-3. The stories Songs for the Deaf put an intimate and modern spin on the American tall tale.

A single mother rents a fundamentalist preacher's carriage house. A pop star contemplates suicide in the hotel where Janis Joplin died. And in the title story, a train engineer, after running over a young girl on his tracks, grapples with the pervasive question-what propels a life toward such a disastrous end?