Coming Soon: Living Space

Coming Soon: Living Space

James Duncan
News & Updates, Poetry

I’ve been working on a new collection of poetry with Kevin Ridgeway and Gabriel Ricard called LIVING SPACE, and it’s getting really close to be ready for the world. LIVING SPACE is about the spaces where we live, the cloistered rooms and claptrap apartments, the homes past, present, and future—there are stories in each that live on, existing beyond the spectrum of time. The poems in LIVING SPACE open those doors and invite you inside to hear the walls speak of love, comfort, anguish, and the driving need to move on to find a space that might one day truly feel like home.

Two New Poems in ARCH

Two New Poems in ARCH

James Duncan
News & Updates, Poetry

ARCH is the poetry journal of SUNY Albany, the state university in my hometown in New York. They accepted two of my poems, and by chance one of them is titled “Clouds Over New York,” while the other is named after a small town just outside of San Antonio, TX, my other hometown. That one is “Killing Time in Bulverde” and it’s a sadder poem, about my grandmother’s passing. You can read both now in the Spring 2026 Issue of ARCH (yeah, I’m a little behind in promoting these).

You can also go directly to each here:

CLOUDS OVER NEW YORK

KILLING TIME IN BULVERDE

My thanks to the editors and readers over at ARCH and to all of you for taking a look at these poems.

Being On Submission: In the Backrooms of an Almost Debut Novel

Being On Submission: In the Backrooms of an Almost Debut Novel

James Duncan
News & Updates, Novels

Understand that even before I landed an agent this last spring, I’d heard how stressful it is to be “on submission” with a novel. Especially a debut. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years, sometimes never, sometimes right after you give up when a random publisher decides to double-back and jump in with an offer. There are thousands of ways it can go down, and most of them involve an excruciating amount of waiting.

Officially Signed with Falkin Literary

Officially Signed with Falkin Literary

James Duncan
News & Updates, Novels

This weekend I signed a representation deal with Mark Falkin of Falkin Literary after a great chat we had last week about a book I wrote, currently titled IT WON'T LEAVE. It's a horror novel set in Texas, about a cancer patient named JJ who moves back to San Antonio, into his father's new house. As his chemo treatments begin, he realizes a malignant presence is hiding within the bones of that house. Something that wants him out. Something that sees HIM as a cancer in need of eradication. 

"Variations of Blue" Now Appears in Trampoline

"Variations of Blue" Now Appears in Trampoline

James Duncan
News & Updates, Poetry

My poem “Variations of Blue” now appears online in a three-poet issue (#31.6) of Trampoline, alongside the works of Naa Asheley Ashitey and Sally Huggins Toner. The poem is from a small collection I wrote in (and about) the rugged and beautiful island nation of Iceland that I’m putting together, so you may hear more about that soon. But this is a great representation of what that collection is aiming for, so I hope you enjoy. My thanks to editor Justin Lacour for including this piece in his excellent online journal.

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