CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Sword & Kettle Press is seeking manuscript submissions for Cup & Dagger, our mini-chapbook series. Each chap will be 12 total pages, including covers, printed on three sheets of cardstock and bound together by hand.
We’re looking for feminist speculative chapbooks — that can mean poetry, prose, fantasy, sci-fi, fairy tales, folklore, fabulism, horror, slipstream, solarpunk, or anything else speculative! We would love to see OwnVoices speculative writing.
Please note that you do not need to be female or femme to submit a piece; writers of any gender identity and expression are welcome.
Submission are open from June 1-30, 2020.
SUBMISSION & PUBLICATION PROCESS
To submit your chapbook manuscript, please fill out this submission form. We’re looking for up to 2000 words for prose, and up to 8 poems for poetry. You’re welcome to include your own cover, artwork, photos, or collages if you like, or just send us your writing and we’ll lend a hand with the design. Please submit only one chapbook.
If your manuscript is accepted, we’ll notify you via email and send you a contract. After the contract has been digitally signed, we’ll send payment confirmation and get to work on your chap!
We offer an honorarium of $15 for each accepted chapbook, and will send 3 contributor copies. Copies of the chapbooks will be sold in our online shop and at local craft fairs and markets.
EDITORS
The Cup & Dagger series will be edited by Kay Allen, Naseem Jamnia, and Jessie Ulmer.
Kay wants to see pieces with hopeful visions of what life could be like, whether that’s through solarpunk, low fantasy, or speculative poetry. She’d also like to see new takes on traditional tales, including fairy tales, folklore, ancient mythology, and even the spooky parts of Shakespeare.
Though open to reading anything that follows the call, Naseem is particularly interested in secondary world fantasies that span the gamut of dark/horror to lighthearted and fun. They’d love to see OwnVoices stories from BIPOC, Q(T)POC, and queer/trans writers overall. Non-Western myth retellings/folklore is a great plus for them. If you resonate with the descriptor “queer” for your work, Naseem wants to see it, especially if queerness is part of the backdrop and not an issue.
Jessie is looking for magic. Stories that expand the known. Stories that explore the unknown. Twists on classic myths and tales. Eerie stories. Bewitching stories. Strange stories. And, of course, stories that elevate queer, POC, neurodivergent, and other marginalized voices. Send her your kind ghosts and your wicked women. She’d love to meet them.
GENERAL POLICIES
We accept simultaneous submissions. We only accept reprints from defunct blogs, magazines, and presses, or reprints of work authors have chosen to re-home for ethical reasons. Please do not send excerpts of longer work; your pieces should be stand-alone.
We will not accept anything that promotes racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or other oppressive and harmful viewpoints; anything that uses sexual violence for shock value; or anything that stigmatizes mental illness. We will not read anything submitted by abusers, and we reserve the right to remove any published piece from our site.
