Recommendations from the iDb Staff

At iDb, we believe that part of creating quality work as publishers is engaging with work by other artists.

Here are some our staff's top picks.

Eric DeVaughnn

Samuel Benjamin Rain

Micah Tasaka

Lately, I've been very invested in reading works from authors who are playing with the concept of hybridity. For example, maybe the text dances around on the page in a way that creates a hybrid between poetry and visual art or maybe the work is both a book of poems and a memoir. This is a concept that I have been playing with in my own art, so the texts I am reading lately definitely reflect that. My list also includes artists I admire, have collaborated with, or are someone I think you should be reading. Here are my recommendations:

Ghost of by Diana Khoi Nguyen

Some girls walk into the country they are from by Sawako Nakaysu

IRL by Tommy Pico

Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib

A Fortune For Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib

Monsters I Have Been by Kenji Liu

This Place Called Absence by Lydia Kwa

Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

Talking to High Monks in the Snow by Lydia Minatoya

When the Chant Comes by Kay Ulanday Barrett

A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon by CA Conrad

Anyone Will Tell You by Wendy Chin-Tanner

Maroon by Angela Penaredondo

After Projects the Resound by Kimberly Alidio

Blood Orange by Angela Narciso Torres

The Ashes I've Risen From by Jade Pheonix

Sirens in Her Belly by Romaine Washington

Abductions by Chiwan Choi