Coming in 2026
March 2026
"Like a Rod Serling for the 21st Century, M.C. Schmidt hooks us with his often comically outlandish premises only to draw us into tightly wrought fictions that are tantalizingly, if uncomfortably, relevant. Manna America packs a novel's worth of ideas into each story while keeping an unwavering aim on the beating human heart of any reader smart enough to pick it up."
- Luke Geddes, author of Heart of Junk
“Schmidt is one of the best short story writers out there. Combining a wry sense of humor, humanity, striking imagination and unique intelligence, this collection will be stimulating reading for one and all.”
- Karl Wenclas, Editor-in-Chief, New Pop Lit
“These short stories effortlessly pull you into a world where miracles happen in the midst of everyday madness. The tales are varied with a mix of settings and a gallery of quirky characters, combining sharp-edged observations with compassion and humour. Whether addressing political hypocrisy, school-yard bullying, castration or the emergence of a deity, M.C. Schmidt has a knack for knowing how to keep the reader guessing and hankering for more. Impressive stuff.”
- Mark Burrow, author of Coo
“Manna America, MC Schmidt's new collection of short stories, is an incisive, funny, unflinching dissection of modern-day humanity and its many contradictions. Thrown into hilariously absurd scenarios, the characters of Manna America fumble through, determined yet often misguided, and always with plenty of flair. Schmidt never gives up on them despite their foibles, and his understanding of the human condition is profound. Written with a precise authorial hand, the stories are buoyant with humor that counters the weight of individual folly and societal pressures. Manna America is a sharp, delightful collection from a master of short fiction.”
- Maura Yzmore, author of Dangling
Every event we host is designed with intention, from the atmosphere we create to the way each session flows.
June 30 2026
The world is ending. Gus is dying. So he does what he's always done: he writes songs.
When a satellite collision destroys global communications, Gus—a thirty-six-year-old singer-songwriter running a scrappy indie label in Yellow Springs, Ohio—is sitting in a doctor's office, awaiting a diagnosis that will change his life. Now the satellites are falling, the old world is gone for good, and his own body is betraying him in the most humiliating way possible.
Simple Songs for the End of the World is a story about mortality, community, and the stubborn joy of making art when everything is falling apart. It's about the people who carry us through—a foul-mouthed German mother who refuses to leave her son's side, bandmates who show up when it matters, an ex-girlfriend who still knows all the words.
Tender, funny, and defiantly hopeful, this is a story for every musician who kept playing when no one was listening. For anyone who ever leaned on their people to get through the unthinkable. And for anyone who's ever believed that the right song at the right moment can save your life.
November 17 2026
Tell Me Something Before I Show You is a collection of literary short stories about the private negotiations people make with memory, desire, and regret—often long after the moment has passed when anything could have been changed. Moving across lakeshores, marriages, childhood friendships, family gatherings, and the quiet interiors of aging bodies and minds, these stories trace the fragile line between what is shared and what is withheld.
Throughout the collection, intimacy is both refuge and risk. Characters confess too late, misread one another in crucial moments, or cling to private myths that help them endure what cannot be repaired. Loss appears not only through death, but through erosion: relationships thinning over time, bodies failing, certainty giving way to ambiguity. At times, the familiar world slips slightly out of alignment—images strain plausibility, perception falters, and moments of the uncanny surface not as spectacle, but as a reflection of the characters’ inner lives.
Written with restraint, emotional precision, and close attention to interior experience, Tell Me Something Before I Show You resists easy resolutions. Instead, it offers encounters—between people, between past and present, between longing and acceptance—that continue to unfold in the reader’s mind after the final page. This is a collection for readers drawn to quiet intensity, psychological depth, and the subtle distortions that emerge when ordinary lives are pushed to their breaking point.
“Tell Me Something Before I Show You is a triumph, a deeply compassionate, honest, and hopeful book, filled with humor and grace and characters that navigate life’s uncertainties with wit and tenderness.”
—Andrew Porter, author of The Imagined Life