Douglas Payne's debut chapbook is a work that navigates with unflinching grace the graveled and beautiful landscapes of memory marked by apostasy, pain, intoxication, lust, and loss.

Douglas Payne's poems and stories have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Muck and Muse, Shot Glass Journal, The Far East: Everything Just As It Is, A Year in Ink Vol. 5, and others. Payne is a San Diego native and an alumnus of Grossmont College's Creative Writing Program. Salted Rook was selected in 2016 as the Grand Prize Winner of the Grossmont College "First Book" competition.