"I'm crying, and I've always been crying. It's the only way I know how to gather myself up into a self, to be." The author of the novels Faraway Places, The Man Who Fell In Love With the Moon, In The City Of Shy Hunters, and Now Is the Hour reads from his new book, I Loved You More, forthcoming from Hawthorne Books in April, in this haunting trailer featuring music by Cadens Johnson.

This trailer for Rachel Cantor's debut novel, A Highly Unlikely Scenario: Or, A Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World, published in January by Melville House, features illustrations and animation by Claire Kelley and Paul Bommer and music by Jerome Kitke's Mad Coyote Madly Sings (Peer International Corp). Listen to an excerpt of the book, read by the author, on our Poets & Writers podcast.

"Every so often, he woke up and found himself further down the path, though the terrain was nearly identical." Ohio author Eric Shonkwiler's debut novel, Above All Men, was published by Midwestern Gothic back in March. Read more about the indie press in a previous installment of Small Press Points.

"Life, in general, is both comic and tragic. In every moment of real sadness, you can almost find something hysterical to laugh at." Debut novelist Mira Jacob discusses The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing with tuxedo-clad five-year-old Zakir. Jacob was interviewed by Amanda Eyre Ward for the just-released July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

This trailer for Pity the Animal, a chapbook by Chelsea Hodson that was published in May by Portland, Oregon-based independent press Future Tense Books as part of its Scout Books series, features music by Oingo Boingo, performed by the author.

"I guess this book is about surviving and what we are born into." New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan explains his intentions for his illustrated memoir, I Was a Child, published by Blue Rider Press this month. 

Actor Neil Patrick Harris explains the unique, interactive concept behind his forthcoming memoir, Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography (Crown Archetype, 2014). Within the fun adventure of the book, Harris also discusses serious topics from his life.

"My father said they should have named me What Have You Done." The opening lines of Jim Shepard's novel The Book of Aron, published by Knopf, are featured in this animated video by Drew Roberts.

Heather Fowler's fourth collection of short stories, published by Queen's Ferry Press in 2014, introduces flawed characters and tales of pain and desperation. Queen's Ferry Press is featured in "Small Press Points" in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.