SUBMISSIONS

Announcement: We are now accepting submissions of flash fiction and hybrid work.

At Whittle Micro-Press, we are seeking contemporary, compact collections that are heavily themed, and which are spare and haunting in style.

We are not a journal and do not accept individual poem submissions.

Collections should be 8-12 pages of poetry or flash/hybrid work. Please include a title page in addition to those 8-12 pages.

No more than one piece per page, though we are willing to consider long poems that span 8 - 12 pages.

Previously published poems are allowed. Simultaneous submissions are allowed.

Please do not include previous publication history upon submitting. We will ask for this information should we publish your collection.

Do not submit cover artwork; we have an in-house illustrator and font team.

Submit to whittlemicropress [at] gmail [dot] com as a docx or pdf file, with “Submission” as the subject line. Be sure to add our email address as an approved sender.

POLICIES

Please submit only one manuscript at a time; you may send another after receiving a response.

If your manuscript is accepted elsewhere before we have a chance to respond, congratulations! Let us know as soon as possible via your original email thread, and edit your subject line to include the word “Withdrawal.”

Refrain from submitting work that features anything that may be reasonably perceived as hate speech or violence for the sake of violence. We support diversity, equity, and inclusion and operate under feminist and humanist principles.

It is advisable to purchase one or more of our recent titles to assist you in understanding our style preferences, and if you would like to support our administrative costs, we welcome donations to the press. We do not charge submission fees and monetary support will not affect the outcome of your submission.

PREFERENCES

We like things spare, whittled, culled, sharp. Terse and haunting.

Theme is of the utmost importance. Successful themes have included giving advice to Alice in Wonderland (Talking to Alice, Kelly R. Samuels), lineage and heritage (My Grandmother’s Body, Cyril Wong), odes to location (Brief Histories, Abbie Kiefer), found poems from the letters of Sylvia Plath (Sivvy, Lauren Davis), concerns about raising Margaret of Anjou (The Margaret, Miranda Dennis), an analysis of the psyche of Dragon from the Shrek franchise (Fat & Fire, Roseanna Alice Boswell), the soundtrack to a breakup (Soundtrack, Alex Stolis, forthcoming), coming of age among dubious influences (valentine’s day travelog, Sylvester Kwakye, forthcoming), centos on grief (Give Sorrow, Elinor Ann Walker, forthcoming), and in vitro fertilization (Reciprocal, Nicole Steinberg, forthcoming). Download one or more of these titles for a clearer picture of what we find attractive.

Found poems are welcome (provided they give painstaking credit), as are collaborations between authors. Pop culture and fan culture surely have a place in publishing: show it to us. We also adore persona and ekphrastic work.

We are open to traditional form poems if the poems have not been forced into shape, but please be judicious re: end rhymes. We are unlikely to become attached to inspirational, religious, or comedic poetry.

PAYMENT AND RESPONSE

We try to keep prices low for accessibility, but if you are in a position to give more, we won’t stop you from ordering a handful of them. All book proceeds go directly to authors.

Response time will vary from a few days to six months. If you receive a swift rejection, please do not take it to mean your work was not considered carefully.

Should you be offered publication, we engage in a workshop/collaborative experience. Edits will be provided pre-contract so that you can decide if our editorial style faithfully represents your intentions.