Submissions

SUBMISSIONS

There are four ways to submit your manuscript to Kore Press.

1. First Book Competition: Poetry

NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS!

For a poetry manuscript in English by a woman who has not yet published a full-length book. Claudia Rankine will judge. Deadline July 31, 2009. See full guidelines.

2. Chapbook Competition: Short Fiction

CLOSED-2010 deadline is October 31, 2010. See results here.

See full guidelines here.

3. Online Appreciations and Blog

Write a blog entry for Persephone Speaks or a profile of a remarkable writer and email it to lisa@korepress.org with the subject line "Blog" or "Profile." Please read the blog and online appreciations before submitting.

Blog entries on life as a woman writer are especially appreciated, however all topics having to do with women and literature will be considered. Appreciation profiles can be about any female author.

Articles should be between 500 to 1,000 words. Authors will not receive payment. Chosen pieces will be posted on the blog, on the Kore Press website and in our monthly email newsletter, which is sent to 3,000 readers.

4. Open Submissions Period

CLOSED--All manuscripts will be responded to by June 30, 2009.

The editors at Kore Press will accept submissions for full-length books during our open submission period each January. The open submissions period is not a contest; manuscripts are not reviewed anonymously. Please understand we are under no obligation to publish any manuscripts we receive during our open submissions period. We expect to publish four to six titles a year, including our poetry and short fiction contest winner.

Deadline

Manuscripts must be postmarked between January 1st and January 31st, 2010.

What we are looking for

We seek book-length manuscripts in poetry, memoir, short fiction and creative nonfiction, written by women,* that reflect the highest standards of literary quality. We are open to work that is genre-bending and/or experimental. In 2009 we will not be considering novel manuscripts. We do remain interested in short story collections.

Reading Fee

Kore Press is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. To offset the cost of staff time required to review and respond to manuscripts, we charge a reading fee of $30 for a poetry manuscript and $40 for a prose manuscript, payable to Kore Press. No editor receives extra compensation for reading manuscripts. You are welcome to submit as many manuscripts as you like, as long as you send a separate reading fee for each.

Editorial Review

In 2009, each submission will be read by our editors. Guest Poetry Editor Jane Miller and Fiction Editor Shannon Cain will respond personally with a
letter offering a short critique. Simultaneous submissions are welcome. If
you sent an entry to the poetry or fiction competitions, it is fine to
submit the same manuscript during the open submissions period; the review
system and the reviewers are different for each process.

What to Submit

For poetry, submit a manuscript via our online submissions system. Poetry submissions should be a minimum of 48 pages and a maximum of 80 pages. For a collection of short stories, send an excerpt: 2 or 3 stories, but no more than 50 pages. For a memoir or a work of creative nonfiction, send a one- or two-page synopsis plus the first 50 pages. If we're interested in reading more of your prose, we will ask you to send the rest.

What to include on your manuscript's title page:
• name
• address
• telephone number
• email address
• title of manuscript

• genre

Manuscripts must be:
• submitted online

• accompanied by the appropriate reading fee (Canadian residents add $3 for bank processing fee if submitting in Canadian dollars)

• doublespaced (prose only)
• paginated

• original poetry or prose written by the applicant (unless the work is a translation)

• unpublished at the time of submission (if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere during our deliberation process, please notify us immediately)

• accompanied by a page listing previously published stories or poems, if any.

Submit online here

Click here to read an interview with publisher Lisa Bowden and

fiction editor Shannon Cain, originally published in

Poetry Contest Insider in 2007.