Serif Press

Something to read.

  • The Letters of Alciphron

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    The underworld of ancient Greece comes to vivid and unforgettable life in the classical equivalent of flash fiction. Alciphron turns our image of the classical world upside-down, lifting up the marble statues of heroes, kings, and emperors to show us the parasites, courtesans, criminals, and working stiffs scurrying like mad under the dignified stones above them. These imaginary letters show us lower strata of Greek society filled with real people who have real thoughts, and we come away with the conviction that even a robber or a pirate is a human being just struggling to get through life.

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  • Gladfind and Other Monsters, by Doug Brown

    Gladfind and Other Monsters, by Doug Brown

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    Doug Brown returns with Gladfind and Other Monsters, a second collection that proves his debut was no accident.

    If My Bohemian Baptism announced an important new voice, this volume confirms it. Brown’s fiction ranges from whimsical to wistful, from absurd to unsettling. Brown nods to Greek tragedy, winks at Roman satire, and ventures—without apology—into the grotesque. The result is something critics have begun to call “New England Gothic”—fiction that reveals the strangeness lurking beneath the quaint ordinary.

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  • But More So, by Samuel Hazo

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    All the poems in this collection are written in a kind of blank verse unique to Mr. Hazo, with three accents to the line, catching the rhythm of his best conversation. The topics range from war and peace (and the lack of difference between them) to dropping a penny on the floor and watching it spin.

    All the poems sound like Samuel Hazo talking straight to you—like sitting down with a great conversationalist as he lights his pipe and begins to get deeply interested in the subject.

    And if you think you’d like to sit down for an hour with Samuel Hazo, here’s your opportunity. The poems in this collection are pure essence of Hazo—but more so. Find But More So at Amazon.

  • Peace and Mercy, by James K. Hanna

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    The first woman to graduate from Duquesne University, Sister M. Fides Shepperson became a lifelong advocate for world peace. In books, newspapers, and magazines, she constantly held out a hope that the world could progress, and that war could be relegated to history. “The world is on its way upward. Good women—high in heart and intellect—are mighty forces pulling the people on that upward way. They will endure and attain, and all the forces of good will ultimately join them. Then wars will cease. And on the height some glimmerings of the eternal Truth will fill the minds of men with understanding and with sympathy. The battle peaks will fade in the midst of evolutionary ages and be remembered no more in the Great Peace.”

    Find Peace and Mercy at Amazon.

  • Who Needs a Horse That Flies? by Samuel Hazo

    Who Needs a Horse That Flies? by Samuel Hazo

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    Samuel Hazo is known to the world of letters for his poetry and his fiction, but he’s also an incisive and observant essayist. In this collection we meet Hazo the critic, Hazo the observer, Hazo the traveler, Hazo the moralist, and above all Hazo the human being.

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  • My Bohemian Baptism and Then Some, by Doug Brown

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    Doug Brown’s stories are weird. He sees the world through some sort of custom microscope that reveals the weirdness of normal people and situations, and conveys that revelation in bracing, inventive language. This is his first collection; I can’t wait for his second.

    —Jane Greer, author, Love like a Conflagration
    and The World as We Know It Is Falling Away

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  • Becoming Done, by Samuel Hazo

    Becoming Done
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    In Becoming Done, Samuel Hazo sees grief from a vantage granted to few—and speaks it clearly. Here he is at the height of his powers, which have always been formidable. This book displays all the art that has gathered an audience and earned him many honors over his lifetime, including a National Book Award nomination and his role as the first Poet Laureate of Pennsylvania.

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  • Entries from the Interior, by Samuel Hazo

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    Here’s an unusual chance to see the inner workings of a poet’s mind. Passing images, unanswered questions, social ills, daily frustrations—nothing is too big or too small to be worth observing and considering.

    “He had the window seat. After take-off he said, ‘My line is socks; what’s yours?’ I said I was a writer. He smiled his least impressive smile and asked, ‘What do you write?’ I paused and said, ‘I hope they are poems.’ ‘Where are you headed now?’ he added. I told him I’d been invited to recite my poems at a university. ‘They pay you for that?’ ”

    Order Entries from the Interior at Amazon.

  • The Catiline Conspiracy: A New Translation

    The Catiline Conspiracy
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    The plan was simple: set fire to Rome, massacre the rich, loot their property, and take over the government. It was up to Cicero—a bookish orator—to save the republic. Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cato: they all have their parts to play, and the masterful pen of Gaston Boissier makes these outsized characters live once more.

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