Submission Guidelines

 

Porkbelly Press’ chapbooks are produced in small & open edition. Our books range in size from micro chapbooks (8-10 pages), chapbooks (12-26 pages), to zines, anthologies, & lit mags. We welcome works from writers all along the identity spectrum; we're queer friendly & feminist. BIPOC authors welcome.

Our catalog favors lit & poetry leaning heavily toward fabulism, folklore, & magic—often confessional or intimate poems or personal lyric essay. All work should be tightly linked. 

No hate speech.

We do not consider AI generated pieces.

SUBMISSION PERIODS

  • chapbooks : January 1 — 31

  • love me, love my belly zine : May 1 — 31

  • micro chapbooks : July 1 — 31

  • sugared water : October 1 — 31

  • anthologies : varies

  • broadsides : varies

 

CHAPBOOKS & MICRO CHAPBOOKS

– poetry or prose poems
– collections of flash or micro fiction
– creative nonfiction such as lyric essays & flash
– graphic narratives, sequential artwork (in black & white)
– combinations of the above (tightly linked by theme, image, voice, etc.)

Please submit 12 – 26 pages for chapbooks.
Please submit 8 – 10 pages for micro chapbooks.

  • Dedication/epigraph, title page, acknowledgements, & bio do not count against the pages. No table of contents is necessary (we don't usually use them).

  • Submit no more than 2 chapbooks in each genre per reading period.

  • No more than 3 manuscript submissions for a given reading period total.

  • Simultaneous submissions considered.

  • We are open to collaborative work.

  • Preferred typeface is Garamond. Times in a pinch. Never Courier.

  • Do not withdraw to edit typos or fix mistakes; please request an edit.

  • We do not consider manuscripts sent via postal mail or email.

THE DETAILS

POETRY & PROSE POEMS

Please submit poems all in one document (.doc, .docx, or .rtf), one poem per page (use insert > break > page break to be sure each poem has its own page, please). We enjoy both lyrical work and narrative, leaning heavily to a combination. We have an affection for confessional poetry.

It’s not often that we choose a collection with a raging case of alliteration or rhyme.

 

CREATIVE NONFICTION (SHORT, FLASH, & MICRO)

Essays! Yes, send these. We particularly enjoy multiple short essays, but will consider a one-essay chap if the essay is just that good. We lean toward braided forms (narratives with 3 or more threads tied together), and also consider things like character sketches, travel narratives, and collections of vignettes.

 

FICTION (SHORT, FLASH, & MICRO)

We gravitate toward micro & flash fictions. If you submit short stories, please be sure that no language is wasted. You must hook us in the first 20 words.

Standard manuscript format is a must. Times New Roman or Garamond 12 point font, please. No courier type. Seriously. It burns.

Hard sells: high school stories, college party stories, war stories, westerns, 1950s salesmen, disgruntled writers, second person narratives, time travel, sports, gratuitous violence, dream narratives, doomed affairs, dead narrators.

We do not accept: erotica, fan fiction, novels, novellas, or slashers.

 

RESPONSE TIME

We do our best to reply to submissions within 5-20 weeks, but the time does vary with a high submission volume. If your work has not been accepted or declined, it’s still under consideration. Every submission is considered thoroughly before response is made.

 

ACCEPTED WORKS

Compensation for chaps/micros is offered in the form of 10 handsewn copies and a discount (20-40% depending on production format & costs) on additional author copies. If we do a limited edition or sculptural book cover, we may provide fewer author/poet copies, but you’ll know before we go to print. Unless we specifically discuss a different agreement, your books will be printed in open edition. If we decide to offer digital chapbooks at a later date, we’ll obtain your permission before putting your book online.

Compensation for lit mags, zines, and anthologies is a handbound copy. (40% discount of cover price on additional copies.)

 

MISC

Sometimes we respond in a day, and sometimes it takes weeks. We give each submission sufficient** attention before reply. Response (particularly rejection) times have more to do with our reading habits than the quality of your work (rejection doesn't mean we dislike your work). We aim to publish 4 to 10 titles per year. This means competition is fierce; every year, we have to say no to manuscripts we adore, and it's difficult.

We occasionally give personal feedback if a writer or poet does something we don’t see enough of, but can’t quite accept at the time (maybe it’s not ready; maybe it’s just that we don’t have the pages this year; maybe only half of the poems feel tight enough for a micro or chap), or that we find particularly intriguing on a given day. If this sort of things offends you, we’re not the right press for you.

We ask for trigger/content warnings on your work. If your work requires a trigger warning, it doesn’t mean we won’t publish you. It means we like to give warnings so readers can prepare themselves before engaging in something that might trigger them (hence the name trigger warning). We mainly ask for TWs on things like assault, domestic violence, death, disordered eating, body horror, suicide, or various kinds of abuse. If this offends you, we’re not the right press for you.

**we choose things that grab us and don’t let go, and will not waste your time or our own if we know work doesn’t fit our press. If you send us abusive emails, we reserve the right to put itching powder in your sock drawer. We do not respond to abusive emails.

A NOTE ABOUT PRESS LONGEVITY

In recent years, many small presses have closed suddenly, shuttering without warning to their poets & writers. No press will last forever, of course, but know that if you have a book with us, we'll do our very best to notify you of changes to the press. If it happens that we close suddenly, books will be released from the catalog. We'll at least give you a tweet. (Barring Really Bad Things. Obviously if we cease all communications via email, twitter, FB, and IG for 6 months or more, please consider your writing released back to you.) 

Submissions

via Submittable.