City Lights and University of New Mexico Press celebrate the publication of
something out there in the distance
by Grant Faulkner
Photographer Gail Butensky
Published by University of New Mexico Press
Two lovers go on one final road trip through the American desert, hoping that they can outrun life itself.
Flash-fiction master Grant Faulkner and photographer Gail Butensky have partnered to create this unique narrative made up of stories alongside edge-of-the-world photography. The book tells of two lovers taking a reckless, searching road trip through the American West. Dawn is a photographer who captures desert landscapes. Jonny drives just to drive, running away from the end of time or running toward the end of time, looking for a home even as his restlessness overtakes him. By turns funny, poignant, and heartbreaking, something out there in the distance is big in emotions while brief in words. An extraordinary collaboration between word and image, Dawn and Jonny’s journey transports us to a place, achingly familiar, populated by love, loss, and wonder.
Grant Faulkner is the cofounder of 100 Word Story, the cofounder of the Flash Fiction Institute, and the cohost of the podcast Memoir Nation. He is the author of several books, including The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story (UNM Press) and All the Comfort Sin Can Provide.
Gail Butensky is a renowned photographer whose work has been featured on numerous record covers as well as in books and magazines. She is the author of the photography book Every Bend.
Maw Shein Win’s most recent full-length poetry collection is Percussing the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn, 2024), and her previous collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn, 2020). She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA. the 2025 Berkeley Poetry Festival Lifetime Achievement Awardee, and a 2025 Recipient of the Nomadic/San Francisco Foundation Literary Award. Win teaches poetry in the MFA Program at the University of San Francisco and in the Low Residency MFA Program at Dominican University. Along with Dawn Angelicca Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse.To learn more about Maw’s work visit: mawsheinwin.com
What has been said about “something out there in the distance”
“With an alluring blend of Faulkner’s prose and poetic writing coupled with Butensky’s evocative photographs, this gem is a seductive mind journey for all.” ~John Busbee, The Culture Buzz
“Small enough to hold in one hand yet vast enough to travel straight into the hearts of book lovers and design-minded readers, it’s the sort of object you want to keep close… It’s the perfect gift for the person who has everything except time. For the friend who loves language that lingers, the partner who keeps art books stacked by the bed, the dreamer who sees the world in snapshots.” ~Yvonne Conza, Dirt
“‘You can’t take a bad photo of a highway’—my favorite quote from this beautiful little book about two lovers on the run from death. something out there in the distance reads like a song, and like a song it will echo inside you long after you’ve finished it.” ~Molly Giles, author of Life Span: Impressions of a Lifetime Spent Crossing and Recrossing the Golden Gate Bridge
“The shape of this book is small but powerful, uncommon but familiar because it is about the unimaginable gap between breathing and dreaming that is grief. Grief literature is trending for a reason, because we are in a state of great loss and transformation. This work aims a bleary eye on the land, the sky, palm trees, and chlorinated pools and then into a single pair of bodies, restless, regretful, earnest, gorgeous, ashamed, and in love—then it waves good-bye to what will never be again.” ~Venita Blackburn, author of Dead in Long Beach, California
This event is made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation