The Trouble with Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure

By Elizabeth Zaleski

February 24, 2026

Now available for pre-order!

Whether failing to restrain herself from trying to find greater meaning in roadkill, or to convince her dad that psychedelic mushrooms will not save his marriage, or to believably perform enthusiasm for her teammates, Elizabeth Zaleski is trying hard and failing spectacularly, and thankfully, she takes us along for the ride. 

Funny, intimate, and candid, The Trouble with Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure debuts an exciting new voice. From growing up in a quirky family in rural northeast Ohio and attending a Mennonite high school as a lapsed Catholic to struggling to get over a particularly well-endowed lover and suffering intestinal calamity while searching for closure, Zaleski’s stories are at once captivating in their singularity and recognizable in their truthfulness. Fans of Tim Kreider and Sloane Crosley will appreciate Zaleski’s levity and wit as she takes aim at such time-honored institutions as pet ownership and gives clear-eyed dispatches from the no man’s land that is an HPV diagnosis.

As Zaleski writes, “If you’ll bear with me, we’re going to get a bit technical. And then, I promise, it will all start to matter.” 

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Elizabeth Zaleski grew up in rural northeast Ohio. After living and traveling all over the country, she now lives in slightly less rural northeast Ohio, outside Akron. She works as an editor and is the curator of greatfartsofliterature.com. Her essays have appeared in journals such as Hippocampus, The Normal School, and The Missouri Review.

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Advance praise for The Trouble with Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure: 

"Funny and introspective . . . Wit and intelligence shine through the prose." —Julia Dillman, Foreword Reviews

". . . full of the intricacies and eccentricities of life—often funny, at times somber, and always moving" —Chicago Review of Books 

"Whether discussing linguistics or penis size, Zaleski is northeast Ohio’s answer to Samantha Irby, and her regional reflections on gender, family, and rural America have national importance. This is the collection of groundbreaking feminist humor called for by our times." —Allison Pitinii Davis, author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk

"This book blew my mind. Elizabeth Zaleski’s intellect is a wondrous thing—as is her deadpan wit. And the force of her interest in things (in virtually everything) [has] resulted in a book that is by turns intellectual and bawdy, dead serious and hilarious—and sometimes all of these at once—as well as far-ranging, rollicking, provocative, continually thought-provoking, and fun." —Michelle Herman, author of If You Say So and Stories We Tell Ourselves

ESSAYS | 5 x 7 | Paperback | ISBN: 9781540270146 | 208 pp.