Press Kit — Hosho McCreesh

Hosho McCreesh HQ · DrunkSkull Books · Albuquerque, NM

Press Kit.

Hosho McCreesh | Writer. Artist. Drunk Poet.

Bios, hi-res photos, covers, awards, praise — everything media and event bookers need. Grab what you want, no questions asked.

Grab The Full Kit Skip To Contact

Now Showing

The Bios.

One-Liner · Listings & Captions

Hosho McCreesh is an award-nominated writer, painter, and drunk poet working in the gypsum & caliche badlands of the American Southwest.

Short · Podcast & Radio Intros (~60 Words)

Hosho McCreesh writes, paints, and makes stuff in the gypsum & caliche badlands of the American Southwest. He is the author of the novel Chinese Gucci, the epic drunk-poetry collection A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst, and Psalms From The Badlands, a 2025 New Mexico Book Awards Finalist in Poetry. His work has appeared widely in print, audio, and online.

Medium · Features & Programs (~170 Words)

Hosho McCreesh is a writer, painter, and self-described drunk poet based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over twenty-five-plus years he has built a body of work spanning poetry, fiction, essays, painting, collage, audio, and animation — much of it published through his own imprint, DrunkSkull Books, under the banner Keep Books Dangerous. Beyond typical reading copies, many of his books are also issued in collectable special editions featuring original paintings, collage, linocuts, and original typed manuscript broadsides — made by hand, though never (he is quick to note) without plenty of sage-like help.

His books include the debut novel Chinese Gucci; A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst, a sprawling epic of drunk poetry also produced as an unabridged audiobook performed by 37 voices from around the world; and Psalms From The Badlands, 150 haiku-inspired "breath poems" about the brutal and beautiful Southwest — 17 years in the making. His poem "Cicada," designed as a letterpress broadside, has traveled the world and become his most widely shared work.

Long · Profiles & Festival Programs (~330 Words)

Hosho McCreesh is a writer, painter, and drunk poet who has spent the last quarter-century writing, painting, and making stuff in the gypsum & caliche badlands of the American Southwest. A former bouncer, caretaker, and migrant picker of Swiss grapes, he has been publishing since 1999, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in both poetry and nonfiction, and for Best of the Web.

McCreesh's work runs between two poles. At one end is A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst, a mammoth collection of drunk poetry in the lineage of Bukowski and Fante — but where the barroom tradition usually dwells on ruin, McCreesh's poems land on joy, communion, and the people we drink beside. The collection became a one-of-a-kind unabridged audiobook: 146 poems, 37 voices, gathered over seven years from friends and fellow writers the world over. At the other end is Psalms From The Badlands — 150 spare, haiku-inspired breath poems about the desert Southwest, written over 17 years, named a 2025 New Mexico Book Awards Finalist in Poetry and a finalist for the 2025 Big Other Readers' Choice Award. Between them sits Chinese Gucci, his darkly comic debut novel about a stunted millennial hustling knockoff purses between Albuquerque and Juárez.

Nearly everything McCreesh makes is handmade or hand-finished — though never, he is quick to note, without plenty of sage-like help. Beyond typical reading copies, many of his books are issued in collectable special editions featuring original paintings, collage, linocuts, and original typed manuscript broadsides, alongside letterpress work and the animated poems he screens at breweries and events via his traveling DrunkSkull Sidewalk Cinema. It all runs through DrunkSkull Books, his independent imprint, whose motto — Keep Books Dangerous — doubles as an artistic ethos: clean, direct, workmanlike, and built to leave room for the reader.

"Hey, thanks for popping by and checking out all the varied things I get up to — I really appreciate the interest! If you need something you can't find here, feel free to reach out via email or socials." —Hosh

The Ticket Stub

Fast Facts.

Based In	Albuquerque, New Mexico
Imprint	DrunkSkull Books — Keep Books Dangerous
Best Known	"Cicada" — letterpress broadside & widely traveled poem
Forms	Poetry · Fiction · Essays/Non-Fiction · Painting · Collage · Letterpress · Audio · Animation
Available For	Interviews, readings, festivals, podcasts, classroom visits, gallery shows, and DrunkSkull Sidewalk Cinema screenings
Publishing Since	1999

Internationally known & locally respected

Awards & Recognition.

The Short Version, Ready To Paste

Hosho McCreesh's Psalms From The Badlands was named a Finalist in Poetry at the 2025 New Mexico Book Awards, and a Finalist for the 2025 Big Other Readers' Choice Award. His poetry and non-fiction have both been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, his work has been nominated for Best of the Web, and one of his Animated Drunk Poems took Third Place in the Santa Fe Reporter's 3-Minute Film Festival (2022). He is listed among notable New Mexico authors by the Public Library of Albuquerque & Bernalillo County.

In The Archives

For researchers and collectors: McCreesh's work is held in special collections including the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University (home to the complete Bottle of Smoke Press archives), the Getty (via the X-Ray Book Co. / Bagazine archives), the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo, the University of Delaware, and Florida Atlantic University (home of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts) — among dozens more, from the Huntington Library to the University of Cambridge.

Two Thumbs Up

Praise.

Psalms From The Badlands

…a masterful demonstration of how to organize a poetry collection.
— Allyson Whipple

…how he folds his artistry into his special edition volumes is creative genius.
— KSFR, The Last Word

Like the Biblical psalms, McCreesh's own offer hope and resistance in times and places that seem hopeless. Instead of beseeching God to save us from such times, these psalms push us to search inside our own selves for strength…
— Peter J. Kahn, Dead Prince Books

Chinese Gucci

Hosho McCreesh is a serious talent and Chinese Gucci is a tremendous debut.
— Willy Vlautin, author of Don't Skip Out on Me

A Catcher in the Rye for the 21st century.
— Steph Post, author of Miraculum

…raw portrait of modern American desolation and loneliness.
— William Boyle, author of Gravesend

…prose as clean as the best dirty realists…
— Dave Newman, author of The Poem Factory

A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst

…poem after poem as exciting and irresistible as the first flush of new desire.
— Tony O'Neill, author of Black Neon

…a perfect elegy to the illusions and delusions of alcohol.
— Mark SaFranko, author of Hating Olivia

…the truth comes up when illusions of control come down.
— Lori Jakiela, author of Portrait of the Artist as a Bingo Worker

The Main Attractions

The Books.

Psalms From The Badlands

DrunkSkull Books · 2025 · Poetry · 2025 NM Book Awards Finalist

150 haiku-inspired, Japanese-style breath poems about the brutal and beautiful American Southwest — nature as the catalyst for meditations on life, love, grief, loss, and death. Seventeen years in the making.

Print Edition eBook Edition

Audiobook Edition

Watch The Broadsides

Collectors: also available in the hand-pulled Linocut Special Edition.

A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst

2013 · Audio 2020 · Poetry

A mammoth epic of drunk poetry in the Bukowski lineage — but about the joy, communion, and heartbreak of drinking, not just the wreckage. Also a landmark unabridged audiobook: 146 poems · 37 voices · 3.5 hours, gathered over seven years from readers around the world.

3-CD Box Set Print & eBook Watch The Drunk Poems

Chinese Gucci

DrunkSkull Books · 2018 · A Novel

The darkly comic debut. Fired from his fast-food job, stunted millennial Akira Nakimura hustles knockoff designer purses through his dead mother's eBay store, running between Albuquerque and Juárez — until his hyper-masculine façades crumble.

Print Edition

eBook Edition

Watch Chinese Gucci

More From The Backlist

Cicada · Poem, Broadside & Micro-Book

The beloved poem as letterpress broadside and companion micro-book — and, in 2026, as the namesake of Emma Beko's album Cicada, featuring McCreesh's voice. Free ebook available; print ships direct — the whole story is here.

For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed… · Poetry

The early full-length that made McCreesh's name in the small press — known to the faithful simply as WRETCHED. Raw, direct poems from the badlands, and the root system for everything that followed. Available via the store.

Sunlight At Midnight, Darkness At Noon · Letters, with Christopher Cunningham · Orange Alert Press, 2009

The McCreesh/Cunningham correspondence — two writers trading letters on writing, art, and the small-press life — collected and published by Orange Alert Press, Chicago, in 2009. The 26 lettered hardbacks each carried double-sided original typed manuscript broadsides, making the edition a collector's grail.

And Turns Still The Sun At Dusk Blood-Red · Companion Volume, with Christopher Cunningham · Bottle of Smoke Press

The companion to Sunlight At Midnight, Darkness At Noon: a Bottle of Smoke Press volume collecting all the double-sided manuscript broadsides from Sunlight's 26 lettered hardbacks — letterpress craft of the kind now held in the archives listed above.

Chapbooks, Broadsides & Rarities

Dozens of limited-run chapbooks, letterpress broadsides, and collaborations — from Marching Unabashed Into The Weeping, Searing Sun… (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2008) to the Like Astrophysics… broadside (2007) — many now housed in the special collections named above, and the rest scattered to the winds, as intended.

Also Playing

Beyond The Books.

"Cicada"

McCreesh's most beloved poem — from idea, to Sean Lynch's letterpress broadside, to traveling the world, to its latest life as Montreal artist Emma Beko's 2026 album Cicada, titled for the poem and featuring McCreesh's voice on the record. Great segment or feature topic — the whole story is here.

DrunkSkull Sidewalk Cinema

A traveling projection show — a screen, a projector, some popcorn, maybe a good beer — screening handmade animated poems at breweries, bookstores, and events. A 21st-century nickelodeon you can watch with a friend. Booking inquiries welcome.

Animated Drunk Poems

Short, handmade animations built from A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst — artists around the world each interpreting a drunk poem their own way. Co-produce one, or watch here.

Visual Art

Paintings, watercolors, oils, and collage — including one-of-a-kind collage covers on special editions. Available for shows and features.

DrunkSkull Books

McCreesh's independent imprint. Motto: Keep Books Dangerous. See also the essay-manifesto In Defense of the Small Press.

The Reviews Are In

Selected Press & Interviews.

Heavy Feather Review — interview & review 2026
Le Devoir — on Emma Beko's Cicada, the album titled for McCreesh's poem 2026
UNM Mirage — alumni magazine feature 2026
This Podcast Will Change Your Life — with Ben Tanzer 2025
KSFR Santa Fe, The Last Word — radio interview with Carly Newfeld 2025
Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast — on the craft of short poems, with James Morehead 2025
Allyson Whipple — review of Psalms From The Badlands 2025
Southwest Review — "Down the Hatch: Barstool Chats" 2020
Vol. 1 Brooklyn — "Six Ridiculous Questions" 2020
Maudlin House — review of Chinese Gucci 2020
BULL — The BULL Interview, with Benjamin Drevlow 2019
CLASH — review of Chinese Gucci 2019
Big Other — on For All These Wretched… 2010
Outlaw Poetry — "Answering the Goddamned Bell," with Scot Young 2009