See the cover for Ripples into the Wild by Abby Manzella

See the cover for Ripples into the Wild by Abby Manzella

In her debut short story collection, Ripples into the Wild, Abby Manzella explores man-made disasters, climate change, the pandemic, and imagined future catastrophes. Moving between realism and the speculative, the collection features everything from children telling ghost stories to characters confronting actual monsters while considering what might exist beyond loss and grief.

Manzella is a Pushcart Prize winner whose writing has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Literary Hub, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Her debut collection is set to be published by Cornerstone Press on February 23, 2027.

Debutiful is honored to reveal Ripples into the Wild’s cover, designed by Paige Biever and Ross Tangedal, along with a Q&A with Manzella about its creation.

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See the cover and read an exclusive excerpt of The Joplin Horror by Jason Kaleko

Debutiful is excited to reveal the cover of The Joplin Horror, the debut novel from award-winning screenwriter Jason Kaleko. This cinematic psychological horror follows a crew of graverobbers who descend into an ancient mausoleum expecting an easy score, only to find an impossible labyrinth, disappearing memories, and something hunting them from just beyond the light.

Perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski, Chuck Wendig, and Paul Tremblay, The Joplin Horror is a claustrophobic descent into buried trauma, fractured reality, and a place that seems determined to keep its visitors forever. It will be published by DAW on May 25, 2027. It is available for preorder now.

Debutiful is honored to reveal The Joplin Horror‘s cover, designed by Adam Auerbach, along with an exclusive excerpt from the novel.

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See the cover for All of Us Wildflowers by Tria Wen

See the cover for All of Us Wildflowers by Tria Wen

Tria Wen’s All of Us Wildflowers is an intergenerational memoir about grief, inheritance, and breaking the cycle of women living for others before themselves. Following her mother’s death, Wen begins dismantling the careful life she has built, including her seemingly perfect marriage. Searching for guidance in her mother’s journals and letters, she discovers versions of the woman she never knew: an immigrant who left part of herself behind, an artist constrained by the role of housewife, and a woman whose unrealized dreams continue to echo through her daughter’s life. Moving between generations and across time, All of Us Wildflowers asks where a mother’s story ends and a daughter’s begins.

Wen is a California-based writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Rumpus, and Narratively, among others. She is a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award and Chautauqua Janus Prize and a recipient of the California Arts Council Emerging Artist Fellowship. All of Us Wildflowers will be published by Counterpoint Press on March 9, 2027.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of All of Us Wildflowers, designed and art directed by Nicole Caputo. Below, Wen discusses the wildflowers and other visual motifs that inspired her, how her mother’s journals helped give the memoir its title, and how the final design captures a life that can be fragmented and messy while still remaining whole.

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See the cover for Sensual World by Lauren Friedlander

See the cover for Sensual World by Lauren Friedlander

Lauren Friedlander’s debut novel, Sensual World, is a surreal Midwestern campus gothic about ambition, obsession, and the terrifying lengths we’ll go in the name of art. Seventeen-year-old Bet Cowl escapes her remote Kansas hometown after discovering the manuscript of a supposedly cursed play and earning admission to the infamous acting conservatory founded by its playwright, Una Flood. There, Bet falls into an intense friendship with former child star Helen as the two endure increasingly extreme demands on their bodies, minds, and relationship. Queer, strange, and darkly funny, Sensual World asks what happens when artistic devotion begins to look a lot like self-destruction.

Friedlander is a writer and graphic designer from Kansas who now lives in New York. She is a recipient of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Sensual World will be published by Catapult on March 23, 2027.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Sensual World, designed by Victoria Maxfield and art-directed by Nicole Caputo. Below, Friedlander discusses the visual moodboard that accompanied her through eight years of writing, the artistic references that shaped the novel’s strange world, and the uncanny experience of finally seeing her book with a face of its own.

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See the cover for Talented and Gifted by Kelly Kearsley

See the cover for Talented and Gifted by Kelly Kearsley

Kelly Kearsley’s debut novel, Talented and Gifted, is a funny, sharp look at failure, reinvention, and the strange promises of startup culture. Molly Wells was once the queen of mom blogging—until an ill-advised post about her ex-husband’s affair tanked her career. Three years later, a ghostwriting gig at a buzzy Portland startup that makes apps and assessments for gifted kids offers Molly a shot at professional redemption. But as the company’s money troubles, questionable personalities, and hidden agendas pile up, Molly’s midlife reboot becomes increasingly complicated.

Kearsley began her career as a business journalist before becoming a ghostwriter for Fortune 500 tech and finance companies. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, Forbes, and elsewhere, and she writes the humor newsletter Does That Make Sense? Talented and Gifted will be published by Grand Central Publishing on April 27, 2027.

Debutiful is honored to reveal Talented and Gifted’s cover, designed by Sandra Chiu, along with a Q&A with Kearsley about its creation.

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See the cover for Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring by Jared Lemus

See the cover for Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring by Jared Lemus

Jared Lemus’s debut novel, Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring, is a suspenseful, mythic story about survival, devotion, greed, and the inescapable pull of the past. In the remote Guatemalan town of Huecotenango, outcasts and wanderers have built lives alongside residents with extraordinary abilities, including a woman who can shapeshift into a jaguar, a healer who absorbs the ailments of others, and a young woman indebted to the god of the underworld. When two brothers arrive after a crash on the outskirts of town, their illicit work threatens to disrupt the community and sets its residents on a dangerous collision course.

Lemus is the author of Guatemalan Rhapsody, which won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Story, and elsewhere. Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring will be published by Ecco on April 20, 2027.

Debutiful is honored to reveal Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring’s cover, designed by Vivian Rowe, along with a Q&A with Lemus about its creation.

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See the cover of The Vanishing Act by Eoin Connolly

See the cover of The Vanishing Act by Eoin Connolly

The Vanishing Act, the debut novel by Eoin Connolly, follows Colm, an anxious and isolated copywriter whose days are spent scrolling through his phone, worrying about climate catastrophe, and sharing takeout with his inexplicably talking cat, Gazdanov. After watching the foreign minister of Tuvalu deliver a press conference while standing knee-deep in rising ocean water, Colm becomes consumed by the idea of reducing his own burden on the planet and decides to disappear—first from the internet and then, increasingly, from the world itself. Both apocalyptic satire and tragicomedy, the novel explores climate anxiety, digital overload, loneliness, and the increasingly desperate ways we try to make sense of a world in crisis.

The Vanishing Act will be published on February 23, 2027, by Catapult and is available for preorder now.

Eoin Connolly is an Irish writer based in Lisbon and a recipient of a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. His short stories have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, BOMB, and elsewhere.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of The Vanishing Act, designed by Victoria Maxfield with art direction by Nicole Caputo, along with a Q&A with Connolly about its creation.

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See the cover for Untranslatable by Lara Vergnaud

See the cover for Untranslatable by Lara Vergnaud

Untranslatable, the debut memoir by Lara Vergnaud, traces the intersections of language, identity, and everyday life through the eyes of a literary translator. As Vergnaud brings novels across linguistic and cultural borders, she navigates her own experiences with illness, infertility, marriage, and the lingering sense of unbelonging shaped by a life between countries and languages. Weaving together personal reflection with the art of translation, the memoir explores what it means to remain invisible while giving voice to others, and how language can both reveal and obscure the self.

Untranslatable will be published on February 16, 2027, by Catapult and is available for preorder now.

Lara Vergnaud is a writer and literary translator specializing in North African literature. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and Words Without Borders, and she has translated more than a dozen novels, including The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, which was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Born in Tunisia, raised in the United States, she now lives in southern France.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Untranslatable, designed by Victoria Maxfield with art direction from Nicole Caputo, along with a Q&A with Vergnaud about its creation.

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See the cover for Notifications On by Emily Holland

See the cover for Notifications On by Emily Holland

In her debut poetry collection, Notifications On, Emily Holland explores queer longing, digital intimacy, and the complicated ways technology shapes modern relationships. Through poems that capture the exhilaration and ache of texting, dating, and yearning in an always-online world, Holland examines what it means to seek connection when our phones are never out of reach.

Holland is the Executive Editor of Poet Lore and a genderqueer lesbian poet whose work has appeared in numerous publications. Their debut collection, Notifications On, will be published by Washington Writers’ Publishing House on January 26, 2027. It is available for pre-order now.

Debutiful is honored to reveal Notifications On‘s cover, designed by Emily Fussner, along with a Q&A with Holland about its creation.

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See the cover for Villains by Samantha Neugebauer

See the cover for Villains by Samantha Neugebauer

Villains, the debut short story collection by Samantha Neugebauer, follows characters searching for purpose, enchantment, and connection across the United States and around the world. Spanning thirteen stories, the collection explores the tensions of self-mythology, social hypocrisy, and shame—often through mother-daughter relationships—as its characters struggle to distinguish what is lasting from what is fleeting, and what is truly meaningful from what has simply become familiar.

Villains will be published on January 26, 2027, by Washington Writers’ Publishing House and is available for preorder now.

Samantha Neugebauer is a lecturer at NYU Washington, DC, and a senior editor at Painted Bride Quarterly. She holds an MFA from Johns Hopkins, an M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from NYU. Originally from Philadelphia, she spent nearly a decade working abroad and now lives in Washington, DC.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Villains, designed by Dave Ring, along with a Q&A with Neugebauer about its creation.

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