Earth and Earth-like Planets by Devaki D. Devi is the eigth (and final) chapbook in Abode's 2024-2025 lineup and is officially available for pre-order! All orders will be shipped by early October. There are only 100 copies of this chapbook available, so make sure to get your copy while you can!
 
Book Description: Earth & Earth-like Planets by Devaki D. Devi is a collection of imaginative short stories following Indian American children, teens, and young adults as they come of age in a country that often alienates them. This genre-bending chapbook hums with the steady pulse of Indian culture as diasporic youth create new worlds amid the weight of family expectations, shifting social norms, gender roles, and economic pressure. Rooted in heritage, Devi's speculative prose transports readers to new planets, ones that remind us dreaming isn't just survival, but rather, a radical act of envisioning the futures we all deserve.
 
About the Author: Devaki D. Devi is a queer Indian American author and journalist currently surviving severe myalgic encephalomyelitis. Their writing often showcases the emotional landscape of childhood; observations sharpened by their years of experience teaching. Devaki is a Tin House writer's workshop participant with a BA in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley. They are a Pushcart prize nominee, and more of their work can be found in The Dawn Review, Barren Magazine, and The Roadrunner Review.
 
Praise for Earth & Earth-like Planets by Devaki D. Devi:
 
"Earth & Earth-like Planets is a tour de force of contradictions and symphonies—an ode to the lost and lonely souls who belong to this universe precisely because they feel like they don’t. In these fourteen breathtaking stories, Devaki D. Devi centers the marginalized, shines light upon the neglected, and uplifts the voices of those who would never presume to speak up for themselves. Devi’s prose deftly weaves the physical with the metaphysical, transforming abstract forces into concrete entities with body and weight. The rich inner worlds of Devi’s protagonists become gateways into grand external worlds—worlds that are far more loving, inclusive, and compassionate than the ones we might find familiar. Devi’s writing is magic in the purest sense of the word. Every image defies cliché and categorization, and every sentence drips with ancient, cosmic wisdom. To read Devi’s words is to be continually amazed and mystified, and yet to find within this mystery the most vivid and palpable sense of ‘home’ one has ever known. Earth & Earth-like Planets is many things—a careful study of disability, a nuanced examination of Indian-American cultural identity, and a heartfelt exploration of loss—but above all else, it is a reminder that this universe contains enough worlds to hold all of us. May this beautiful, touching reminder reach all of the ones who need to hear it."
— Valmic Mukund
 
"Just as Devaki writes that beetles are 'full of worlds,' indeed, each sentence they write is 'full of worlds,' too. And those sentences, together, make for a stunning universe of stories in Earth & Earth-like Planets."
— Ian Tseng,Assistant Editor at Chronicle Books
 
ISBN: 979-8-9900598-7-0
Publication Date: 10/1/2025
Copies will officially be distributed in early October.