New Life

A subversive glimpse into the dark wildness of preparing for motherhood. New Life is a meditation on the changing/changeling body, wrought in lyric decadence. Novak leads a seductive tour through plashy islands, Great Lakes hideouts, cursed apartments, and castaway nightmares, sighting the baroque and the barren, and celebrating the romance of isolation amidst an interior of plenty.

JoAnna Novak is the author of memoir Contradiction Days: An Artist on the Verge of Motherhood. Her short story collection Meaningful Work won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest and was published by FC2. She is the author of the novel I Must Have You and three books of poetry: New Life; Abeyance, North America; and Noirmania. Novak’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other publications. Her fourth book of poetry, DOMESTIREXIA, is forthcoming from Soft Skull Press in 2024.