I have published seven books, from poetry and essay collections, a memoir, and two books on the greatest rock band of all time. Oh, and sestina anthology.
I’ve been lucky to work with some great independent publishers, starting with the mighty Soft Skull Press for my first three books to most recently with Brooklyn’s Indolent Press.
My seven books are listed below.
And, by the way, I can sell many of these directly to you through my aptly named Daniel Nester store.
Harsh Realm: My 1990s, my most recent book \from Brooklyn-based Indolent Books, collects poems that center on the decade of fax machines and grunge through the lens of a speaker (that’s me) coming to terms with young adulthood and trying to make their way as a writer in New York City.
A memoir-in-essays, Shader is a semi-comic coming-of-age story of a music-obsessed Catholic boy who searches for a new identity outside of Maple Shade, N.J., a blue-collar town straight out of a Bruce Springsteen song and where Martin Luther King, Jr. was once thrown out of a bar at gunpoint. The town’s rough-and-tumble inhabitants, Shaders, don’t suffer record nerds like the narrator gladly, and eventually punk rock and poetry saves his life.
For The Incredible Sestina Anthology, I brought together the first anthology of sestinas, more than 100 of them, from classics by John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, Anthony Hecht, Donald Justice, and Marilyn Hacker on up to modern masterpieces from David Lehman, Patricia Smith, James Cummins, Quincy Troupe, and Anne Waldman.
If you see one, buy one.
How to Be Inappropriate collects humorous nonfiction pieces that range from the sophomoric to highbrow. I write about leaving New York City’s poetry scene and doing IVF with my wife to have our first child. That’s the highbrow stuff.
Want an essay on mooning? I’ve got you covered. A deep dive into mentions of farts in modern poetry? Same. Or how about a meditation on the talk box guitar effect? Again, this book’s got it covered.
Oh, and that’s not my finger.
The History of My World Tonight includes anthologized poems and experimental pieces. It’s from Buffalo, NY-based BlazeVOX books.
The first God Save My Queen ends with the last Elektra label release from Queen, Hot Space.
In God Save My Queen II: The Show Must Go On, I write about the next half of Queen’s output, plus selected solo work. If you’re thinking, wow, that sounds nerdy, obsessive, and a bit sad, you would be correct.
I didn’t think my first book would be a hybrid experimental collection dedicated to my favorite rock band of all time, Queen. But that’s the way it turned out.
In God Save My Queen: A Tribute, I write a short piece centered around every song recorded by the band, up to an including its 1982 release, Hot Space.
Daniel Nester 
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