Exquisite prose. Sharp dialogue. Dark humor.

TESS KINCAID is an American writer, author of four collections of poetry, PATINA (2011), UNPRESSED (2013), and NO THIRD THING (2016), published by Finishing Line Press, and CLAVICLE and OTHER POEMS (2026). She has written four novels, PECHEWA: AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY (2024), LIMESTONE: LEGACY OF A CURSE (2024), VILE FIGS (2025), and MANCUNIAN BITTER (2026). She has been nominated for the prestigious Forward Prize for Poetry.

Stories steeped in shadow and wit

Tess Kincaid writes lyrical fiction and poetry where dark humor flickers at the edges of grief, love, and small-town myth. She crafts sentences like spells, inviting readers into landscapes both intimate and uncanny.

Amazon reviewers praise her as an erudite and gifted wordsmith, demonstrating a masterful command of the English language; they commend her exquisite prose and crisply written dialogue, her storylines woven with confidence and her characters freshly engaging.

Featured work and upcoming releases

Into Manchester’s gritty, yet dynamic modern culture comes Quincy Adams, an intuitive American writer, who pub-crawls her way through the city and into the path of a violent psychopath.

As Quincy’s extrasensory capacities lead her to suspect certain university academics, local students start to go missing, and she finds it hard to stand aside and watch. All clues point to the gothic city’s industrial past, and its series of abandoned underground tunnels.