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Introducing Monday Night Press!

Monday Night the literary journal began as an annual print publication that ran from 2001-2014. Since that time, the journal has gone exclusively online. While we love the ease and accessibility of online publishing, we miss having something to put on our shelves. This is why we’re thrilled to announce the launch of our very own press featuring select poetry and fiction by past and present Monday Night authors.

Our first chapbook, THE CITY IS BURNING by Patrick Duggan will release in spring 2018. Please visit our MN Press page to see all our titles and to place an order.

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Spokes of an Uneven Wheel by Colin Dodds

Congratulations to Colin Dodds on his new book Spokes of an Uneven Wheel, to be released in July 2018 by The Main Street Rag Publishing Company. Sharon Mesmer, author of Greetings From My Girlie Leisure Place had this to say about his poems: “His work consistently delights with humor, inventiveness, a blessed dose of sarcasm and, yes, wisdom (despite his best intentions). We are all “born for that other thing,” and this is that other thing.” Colin is also the author of many screenplays and novels, most recently Watershed. Colin’s poems were featured in issue 16 of Monday Night.

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The Paper Tree by Caroline Goodwin

Monday Night contributor Caroline Goodwin has a new book of poetry out from Big Yes Press! Caroline is also the author of Peregrine (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Trapline (Jack Leg Press, 2013), and several chapbooks. Caroline lives in the Bay Area and teaches at California College of the Arts and the Stanford Writer’s Studio. From 2014-2016 she served as the first Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, CA. We were pleased to publish two of Caroline’s poems in issue 13.

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Souvenirs and Other Stories by Matt Tompkins

Congratulations to Matt Tompkins on his new book Souvenirs and Other Stories, published in 2016 by Conium Review. Matt Tompkins is one of our favorite contributors in recent issues. His work is both strange and familiar, light-heartened and darkly funny. Lena Bertone (author of Letters to the Devil) calls his stories “loops of life and metaphor, making the surreal become real.” Read Matt’s story “Please Please Please Please Please Keep Smiling” in issue 14 of Monday Night. He is also the author of Studies in Hybrid Morphology.

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Raegen Pietrucha wins Two of Cups Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 

Raegen Pietrucha’s An Animal I Can’t Name is a beautiful collection of articulate, courageous verse that shares some dark and devastating moments of the human experience, in particular of the family.


“There is no / other story. Best to never / be, but here you are, / and the swells are hissing. / This water was never hesitating, just building / and building – then, unzipping, snickering / at you, the prey it ached to drown in its dark.”  


These poems enact the striving and struggling to name and communicate life’s trials: “I couldn’t speak what I feared most / believed speaking made real / summoned things into being again.” Lucky for her readers, Raegen’s poems persevere to revisit and respond to family and home. In the end, this work reflects not a full healing but a grappling through: “reinforcing a fortress with these pitchy songs.” It is a rare achievement to create poetry that is merciless without being gratuitous, that is honest about the damage done but without sentimentality. We’re pleased to congratulate Raegen on her chapbook and her award and look forward to seeing more from her. Order a copy of An Animal I Can’t Name through the Two of Cups Press website. (Other poems of Raegen’s were published in issue 14 of Monday Night.) 

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strays by jennifer caloyeras

Congratulations to Jennifer Caloyeras, whose latest novel Strays was published in May 2015 by Ashland Creek Press. Jennifer’s story “The Sound of An Infinite Gesture” was published in Monday Night Issue 11.

Midwest Book Review had this to say: “Strays tells what happens when two wandering creatures find one another, overcoming their fears to make friends and rise above their dark reputations…Young adults who want a story of more than an animal rescue or a sixteen-year-old’s angst will find Strays a compelling saga.” Download an excerpt here—or find out how to buy your very own copy.

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valerie witte’s a game of correspondence

Black Radish Books released Valerie Witte’s (Issue 11) poetry collection, a game of correspondence in April 2015. This is Witte’s first full-length collection of poems and the seventeenth release from the book publishing collective, Black Radish Books (BRB). Novelist Laura Moriarty says of the book: “With the intimacy and obsessive passion of Djuna Barnes and the precision of Jane Austen, Valerie Witte involves the reader in a deep game. The complexity of the first section, ‘her week of wonders: a translation,’ composed using text from a novel from the ’30s, will be fascinating to the mad indexer in every reader. The eponymous section that forms the book’s second half has the persuasive charm of a lyric novel. The presence of just plain good lines throughout makes the whole project a delight.” Read an excerpt here—or just buy a copy. Congrats, Valerie!

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the end of print

Monday Night held a special reading at the E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore on February 19, 2015 to celebrate issue #13 with contributors Lyndsey Ellis, Caroline Goodwin, and Alexandra Mattraw.


This year’s event was extra special, as we also bid a bittersweet farewell to our long-time print edition. Starting in 2015, Monday Night will be completely online!


Thanks everyone for attending—and thanks to E.M Wolfman Bookstore for hosting!

Lyndsey Ellis
Caroline Goodwin
Alexandra Mattraw
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uncle dust by rob pierce

now available from all due respect

Cheers to Monday Night co-founder and contributor Rob Pierce (Issue 10)! His noir novel Uncle Dust is now out from All Due Respect. Joe Loya, of the critically-acclaimed memoir, The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of A Bank Robber, said: “Only a few writers entertained me with killer dialogue. I even contacted Elmore Leonard when I was paroled, told him crime writer to crime writer that he understood criminal dialogue real swell. Here’s the thing: Had I read “Uncle Dust” while I was incarcerated I would’ve got out and contacted Rob Pierce before Elmore. The story and dialogue in “Uncle Dust” captured so much of that world and circumstance in all its squalid glory. Made me wish I’d done time with tough guy Dustin. I thoroughly enjoyed our criminal hero’s mind as he observed the world, and himself, through a cynical thief’s lens. And I think you will too.” ‘Nuff said!

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everything reused in the sea: The crow and benjamin letters

jessica wickens and della watson release everything reused in the sea: The crow and benjamin letters from mission cleaners press


Monday Night editor extraordinaire, Jessica Wickens, has teamed up with fellow poet Della Watson to create Everything Reused in the Sea: The Crow and Benjamin Letters, a collection of poetry just released from Mission Cleaners Press. Check out the book’s tweets and promos and feel free to talk to the book yourself. Then buy it. Kudos, Jessica and Della!