SUBMISSIONS

Announcement: Thank you for your incredible submissions. With our 2026 catalog solidified, we are taking a break from reading. Please check back in the future.

At Whittle Micro-Press, we are seeking contemporary, compact collections that are heavily themed. 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.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome.

Previously published poems are allowed. There is no limit on how many pieces have appeared in journals.

That being said, please do not include previous publication history upon submitting; this is not important to us in our consideration of your manuscript and in fact we find it distracting. We will ask for this information should we publish your collection.

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

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

Please be advised we publish as downloadable PDFs.

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 thus far:

  • 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);

  • Margaret of Anjou (The Margaret, Miranda Dennis);

  • 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), motherhood (Good Enough, Nicole Steinberg, forthcoming);

  • maligned queens (Unclaimed, LJ Ireton, forthcoming)

  • reverence for everyday phenomena (april, buttersoft, Nat Raum, forthcoming);

  • uninhibited sex and queerness (Sex Party at the Opera House, Allegra Wilson, forthcoming);

  • technology and transness (VOIDGAZING, mk zariel, forthcoming);

  • Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi: Re:, Kelly Samuels, forthcoming);

  • physical infirmity (Falldown Lane, Dagne Forrest, forthcoming);

  • and sonnets of abstraction (Sonnets, Andrew Brenza, forthcoming).

Download one or more of our published 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 authors may also choose to release their book at no cost for further reach.

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.

 
 
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