Submissions
Not open yet. Here is exactly what is coming.
River Craft Press, Black Swamp Press, and Great Lakes Books are all announced, and none of them are reading unsolicited manuscripts today. This page is where the reading periods will be posted, and it is the honest version of where things stand.
Status: closed — opening in stages. We will not accept a manuscript we are not yet able to publish well. When a reading period opens it will be announced here and on the mailing list first.
River Craft Press
Nonfiction
Memoir, oral history, essays, regional history, craft. Expected to be the first imprint to open, once the editorial board is seated.
Closed · first reading period expected 2027
Black Swamp Press
Fiction & poetry
Literary fiction, novellas, short stories, poetry. Opens after the nonfiction list is underway and readers are in place.
Closed · reading period to be announced
Great Lakes Books
Young readers
Picture books, middle grade, young adult, illustrated nonfiction. Illustrator portfolios welcome ahead of the manuscript window.
Closed · reading period to be announced
What we will ask for when we open
So you can be ready, and so nobody wastes a month formatting the wrong thing.
- A one-page query. What the book is, who it is for, why it belongs in this watershed, and who you are.
- Nonfiction: a proposal — overview, chapter outline, comparable titles, audience, your platform — plus one or two sample chapters. No finished manuscript required.
- Fiction and poetry: the first thirty pages, or ten to fifteen poems, plus a synopsis. Completed manuscripts only.
- Young readers: full text for picture books; first thirty pages and a synopsis for middle grade and young adult.
- Illustrators: a portfolio link. No manuscript needed.
- Simultaneous submissions are fine. Tell us if the work is placed elsewhere and we will close the file with no hard feelings.
What will not change
- We never charge a reading fee.
- We never charge an author to be published. No printing costs, no marketing packages, no minimum copy purchase.
- Every submission gets an answer. Slowly, sometimes. But an answer.
- You keep a written contract with royalties on net receipts and a clear rights reversion.
- Insiders get no shortcut. Board, officers, and staff submit through the same process, are read by people who do not report to them, and recuse themselves from the vote.
Working on something now?
Do not sit on it waiting for a form to appear. Send us a paragraph about the project and we will keep it on file, tell you honestly whether it fits, and come back to you first when the relevant imprint opens.
Know a story that needs a writer?
Half of what these presses should publish will come from nominations, not submissions — a maker, a family, a business, a stretch of river that somebody ought to write down before it is too late.
Get involved
The reading period opens when we can pay for what we accept.
Editing, design, printing, and distribution for one short-run title runs about $4,500. Members are the reason there will be a first list at all.