Tucker Lieberman's poetry collection, Attis & Aleph: Poems of the Daimonic, reconstructs the life of an early 20th century New Yorker who had a burning question about gender. It's a full-length poetry book that tells a true story.

Why do some writers find it difficult to write a book? I've spent over a decade researching this man as an example.

The story is told backward in time. We are here today; he dies in 1940; he is born in 1901; something was dug up in the desert before he was born.

In this narrative, I'm not attempting to recreate the book someone else did not write. The lesson is not to do that.

Attis & Aleph is a guide for your shadow work. Hold the prism; turn it in the light. It is a warning and a welcome to you, Deep Thinker: Be the writer you wish to become.

Have you ever tried to write a book that required some research, then discovered you were in over your head? Ten sources became a hundred, then a thousand? You scribbled endless lists? You cared about your topic, but you couldn't clarify your message and you never persuaded anyone to care?

FRIEND! Have I got a story for you.

In suburban New York in the 1930s, Ned is researching a particular area of gender diversity. (This really happened.)

An Aleph in the basement is making him scribble in his notebooks, interminably. (This is speculative.)

Poor Ned can't complete his book. He has no thesis statement and too many sources. The Aleph has got him.

If you're having Big Feelings about your Deep Thoughts, but you have no guidance on how to write them out, you might be stuck. A malformed writing project can overtake your life until you can no longer see out of the box you've gotten yourself into. You want to ask better questions of life. You want to be seen.
 
In Attis & Aleph, I'll tell you something you need to know:

The story of how you are writing your book is a story that matters. It's the story of how you create a story. This is a major part of your intellectual investigation. It's the story of what you want to know. It's the story of you.

How you'll find your way out of your maze.
How you'll narrate the world as you understand it
How you'll express what you wish the world to become.

Attis & Aleph is historical nonfiction with elements of speculative fiction. It's told through poems.

A toolbox to open the locked door. A great insight. A true story. A ghost story.

After a hundred years, it's ready to move fast.

Here's an excerpt from one of the poems. ...that cake!

When the Book Bazaar launches on October 29, you can pledge to buy Attis & Aleph as an ebook or a paperback. A book is a toolbox of ideas. It'll provide a number of keys, one of which might be the one you need.

 
Give it a try.

Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Tucker Lieberman has lived in Bogotá, Colombia for nine years. That's a long time, but he's been working on Attis & Aleph for longer.

It's not his first poetry book. His first one was a bilingual collection, Enkidu Is Dead and Not Dead / Enkidu está muerto y no lo está. It was a finalist in the 2020 Grayson Books Poetry Contest and was nominated for the 2022 Elgin Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association.

He wrote four other books, none of which won any awards, but he's glad he wrote them.

If you recognize his name, it's probably because his essay on a horror film appeared in It Came From the Closet (Feminist Press, 2022) or because three other anthologies to which he contributed have been recognized by Lambda Literary. Non-famously, he reads nonfiction for Split/Lip Press and reviewed one hundred indie press books for Independent Book Review.

The cover of Attis & Aleph (with the Sphinx and the violets) was designed by Rachel A. Rosen.