Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

What happened to me was—not me, but what happened—I'm from New York originally and I moved to Los Angeles to write about movies." Out of My Skin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 2009) by John Haskell. Third book, second novel. Agent: Derek Johns. Editor: Lorin Stein. Publicist: Sarita Varma.

"Not thaw brought to the river— / thought, long winter a surface that holds / no current or image." Sight Map (University of California Press, March 2009) by Brian Teare. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Rachel Berchten. Publicist: Heather Vaughan.

"Did you ever have a friend?" Singer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, March 2009) by Ira Sher. Second book, novel. Agent: Bill Clegg. Editor: Adrienne Brodeur. Publicist: Gregory Henry.

"Everyone who came to see the corpse / Of the holy man was struck by his or her own decay." Sunny Wednesday (Wave Books, April 2009) by Noelle Kocot. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Joshua Beckman. Publicist: Brandon Shimoda.

"People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour." The Book of Night Women (Riverhead Books, March 2009) by Marlon James. Second book, novel. Agent: Ellen Levine. Editor: Sean MacDonald. Publicist: Mih-Ho Cha.

"One day my father sat me down and said, ‘See, what happens is sometimes a girl will go with this one, and then she'll go with that one, and then she thinks what the hell, that one over there doesn't look so bad, why not go with that one, too.'" I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog (Einhorn Books, March 2009) by Diana Joseph. Second book, first memoir. Agent: Randi Murray. Editor: Amy Einhorn. Publicist: Yamil Anglada.

"All that is left of weather / is how it is written." The All-Purpose Magical Tent (Nightboat Books, March 2009) by Lytton Smith. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Christina Davis. Publicist: Stephen Motika.

"plain cloth cast upon the cool banks, the mere warbling frogs / an interrupted repast, uninterrupted pile of leavings / the parallax of bodies which are and are not ours / uncomfortable shift, uncomfortable shuffle" Chronic (Graywolf Press, February 2009) by D. A. Powell. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jeffrey Shotts. Publicist: Mary Matze.

"The last house I will live in with both my parents and my two brothers was one built on a sandy lot in Redondo, a development in a beach town near Los Angeles." A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century (Counterpoint, March 2009) by Jane Vendenburgh. Third book, first memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Laura Mazer. Publicist: Abbye Simkowitz.

"Light pressed to the tangle of birds / and branches and parked cars, // shop mannequins pinned / to the street (the street floating / like oil there in the glass—)" The Book of Props (Milkweed Editions, March 2009) by Wayne Miller. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jim Cihlar. Publicist: Jessica Deutsch.

"When you met Christie for the first time, it took only minutes to learn that she was from Greenwich, Connecticut, but months could go by before you got another solid fact out of her." Spoiled (Random House, March 2009) by Caitlin Macy. Second book, first story collection. Agent: David McCormick. Editor: Laura Ford. Publicist: Jynne Martin.

"Marissa could not be comforted, and wouldn't have it any other way." The Cradle (Little, Brown, March 2009) by Patrick Somerville. Second book, first novel. Agent: Brettne Bloom. Editor: Oliver Haslegrave. Publicist: Marlena Bittner.