New from Regal House Publishing, This Impossible Vertical World

RALEIGH, N.C. - May 11, 2026 - PRLog -- Regal House Publishing announces its new publication This Impossible Vertical World by Stephen Pett, author of Sirens and Pulpit of Bones. His short stories have appeared in Ecotone, Cimarron Review, Missouri Review, North American Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Sun, Witness. He co-founded the Iowa State University's MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment and founded the journal Flyway.

About This Impossible Vertical World
In the stories of This Impossible Vertical World, characters struggle to hold fast to other lives—human and animal—as the familiar deserts them. In threatened geographies, from New Mexico and Alaska to Utah and Minnesota, these hard-tested people discover a bestiary of relations: dogs, coyotes, rattlers, whales, swans, wolves, bears, loons, and turtles. This is an ark of stories, its passengers hoping events flooding their lives will recede on a more habitable vertical world.

Praise for This Impossible Vertical World
"…a charming, absorbing, impressively crafted collection of stories about love, friendship, and family. Nature dominates, and his misfit characters are often fonder of animals than humans, sometimes secluding themselves in open prairies and deep woods and foggy marshes, where they feel what to do more than they know what to say."
— Brendan Foley, bestselling author of Under the Wire

"Wild dogs. Wolves. Polar bears. Elk. Snakes, turtles, lizards. An injured trumpeter swan. Characters taken to the limits of their patience, passion, and understanding while their lives unfold in ways they never imagined. Ordinary people coping with heartbreaking and heart-stopping situations...Think: 'Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom' with master storyteller Steve Pett standing in for Marlin Perkins."
— Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots and Help Wanted: Female

"Stephen Pett writing these searching simmering stories of This Impossible Vertical World may very well be the John Ford of American short prose fiction. Yes, these stories cross off the axes of specific places and sweeping vistas, moving relentlessly from humid east to dry land west, from frigid north to arid south. Pett is adept at that Fordian combination—the intimate gesture foiled by the majestic backdrop—the loveseat glider on a porch overlooking the ancient erosions of Monument Valley..."
— Michael Martone author of Table Talk & Second Thoughts and Plain Air

Publication Details
Paperback: 162 pages
ISBN: 9781646036998
US $19.95 / CAN $27.95
Epub/Mobipocket
ISBN: 9781646037001
US $9.99 / CAN $13.99

Available at bookstores, online retailers, and direct at the publisher's storefront (https://regal-house-publishing.mybigcommerce.com/).

Distribution:
Independent Publishers Group
814 N. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610
P: (800) 888-4741
F: (312) 337-5985
distribution@ipgbook.com

For review copies contact or other inquiries:
Regal House Publishing
806 Oberlin Rd #12094
Raleigh, NC 27605, USA
rhpsales@regalhousepublishing.com
www.regalhousepublishing.com