2025 IN REVIEW
. . . and a preview of 2026
Happy New Year, everyone!
This will be our first full year of book publishing under the retooled Monday Editions imprint. We’re excited about what we’ll be offering you in 2026.
But let’s take a look back at 2025.
Last year, starting in June, we published three books in limited editions. Two of our limited editions were also issued in second, open editions.
James Maynard
THE FOURTEEN THIEVES & BODY CAMS
This two-part collection of 28 innovative sonnets, with the first part consisting of a 14-sonnet crown, was published in a limited edition of 50 copies on June 16, James Maynard’s birthday (also the date of the single day chronicled by James Joyce in his novel Ulysses). James celebrated both his birthday and the book’s publication with a reading at Word Virus Books in Portland, Oregon.
James shared these thoughts with us:
What I like to say about Monday Editions, when people ask, is how much focus you put into the actual crafting of the book, which I think is how the publishing of a piece of poetry should feel. During the process, the manuscript underwent refinement. All my previous experience of publishing was not like this. That, to me, was the best part of the chapbook itself. When I pick it up, I like how handsome it is.
It was a pleasure to work with James Maynard, not least because his manuscript presented unique editorial and design challenges:
James wanted the 14 individual poems of the sonnet crown to be untitled.
For editorial reasons involving the sonnet sequence in the book’s second part, we wanted the crown’s poems to be unnumbered.
Those two decisions left us needing a way to visually differentiate 14 untitled, unnumbered poems from one another while maintaining their integrity as a crown.
To solve our dilemma, and in keeping with the narrative thread that runs through the sonnet crown, we bracketed each of the crown’s sonnets, top and bottom, with a single line, in red ink, of Baybayin script spelling out “the fourteen thieves.” For the book’s cover and part openers, we repeated that line 14 times.
A few copies of the book are still available here.
X. P. Callahan
MORTAL SUGAR: POEMS IN THE KEY OF LOTERÍA
Mortal Sugar, rooted in conceptual poetic practice, consists of 54 musical poems, each one limited to 54 syllables, each poem in conversation with one of the images on the 54 cards in the deck of the traditional Mexican lotería game (sometimes described as Mexican bingo).
The deluxe pocket-size limited edition, ultimately capped at 100 copies, went through three printings on 70-pound silk-coated paper and included 55 full-color images. The limited edition is sold out, but the second edition is available here as a 5 by 8 paperback, with all the original poems and images.
Rebecca Weil
SHADOW OF A BEAR: A POEM IN 23 PASSAGES
Rebecca Weil’s chapbook-length poem was our first runaway success. Not only were the limited edition’s 50 copies snapped up within two hours of the book’s launch, the second edition reached #3 on Amazon’s list of top 100 best sellers in US poetry.
Rebecca let us know early on that the Monday Editions publishing model had inspired her to donate all proceeds to the Kilham Bear Center for the care and release of orphaned, injured, and abandoned black bear cubs. To date, the center has received $1,000 and counting from sales of the book.
“This has been a gift economy in action, unfurling into the world,” Rebecca wrote to us. She also shared the following reflections on what she calls our “gem of a press”:
Being published by Monday Editions has been a great joy. I could not have imagined such a seamless and remarkable process. When the limited edition rapidly sold out, Monday Editions quickly responded to the wait list by producing a second edition. Yes, a micropress can be nimble—and has been! But, more than that, X. P. [Callahan, our founder] has been kind, insightful, and generous as an editor and publisher.
The second edition of Shadow of a Bear is available here. As with the limited edition, all proceeds benefit the Kilham Bear Center (you can make a donation at the link).
2026: A Look Ahead
Rachel Custer: Mercy (poems)
X. P. Callahan: Black Shirt Emblazoned (poems; second, revised edition);1 I Totally Stole and Burned This Book (poems)2
Sal Randolph, Josh Datko, and Alexandra Napier: work in progress
Heartfelt thanks to our paying subscribers and other patrons whose generosity has funded and continues to support our radically author-centered publishing model.
Waning Gibbous IV, executive editor at Monday Editions, attended the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and completed the Columbia (formerly Radcliffe) Publishing Course. His late grandfather, Waning Gibbous Jr., is remembered as the author of two well-received collections, The Vicar’s Boneyard (1947) and O Lenticular Cloud of Sorrow (1958).
The second edition of X. P. Callahan’s Black Shirt Emblazoned is being issued to address readers’ interest in the out-of-print first edition, and to encompass events since the Hamas-led pogrom of 7 October 2023 in southern Israel. As such, the book is offered outside the regular seasonal schedule and will not be a premium for paying subscribers to Monday Editions. DM us to preorder a signed copy of the second edition ($16, postage included within the continental US). All proceeds of both editions benefit ZAKA Search and Rescue.
X. P. Callahan’s I Totally Stole and Burned This Book will be a premium for paying subscribers.
Love your tagline: “MONDAY EDITIONS: Too small to fail” ✨✨✨
Can’t wait to see the upcoming books! Such a joy to be part of the Monday Editions family.