THE BOOKS WE HAVEN'T READ ARE THE ONES WE'RE AFTER.
Fifteen years into this publishing business, we've learned a few things. Good books don't always come with impressive credentials, literary connections, or a convenient marketing category. And they don't always come from the people the industry expects them to. Publishing still has a remarkable talent for overlooking writers whose work doesn't resemble whatever sold well last Tuesday. Despite our best efforts to read beyond the usual circles, some of the writers we'd most like to publish aren't showing up in our submissions inbox.
We'd like to change that. Unsolicited Press is calling on BIPOC writers, especially Indigenous writers, neurodivergent writers, LGBTQ+ writers, women, and writers from communities that are consistently overlooked to send us their manuscripts for our 2029 catalog. We've always welcomed and championed these writers, but we'd like to see a hell of a lot more of their work cross our desks. Consider this your invitation. A very enthusiastic one.
Our primary interests for 2029 are essay collections, poetry, and hybrid literature. We're also enthusiastic about anthologies, novellas, and short story collections, forms that deserve considerably more respect than big publishing tends to give them. We love an ambitious novella, an essayist with an appetite for ruthless vulnerability, poetry that doesn't sound like every other collection on the prize circuit, and books that leave a mark.
We're not looking for manuscripts that satisfy some predetermined idea of what a marginalized writer ought to produce. Nobody needs to write about their identity, explain their culture, recount their suffering, or make their experiences digestible for a hypothetical mainstream audience. Frankly, that expectation is part of the problem. Your literary interests belong to you, and we'd be delighted to encounter something we never thought to ask for.
What matters most is the writing. Always has been. Always will be. Our team wants precision, imagination, formal ambition (and the audacity to shatter those formalities), intellectual curiosity, and work that makes people reconsider what literature can offer. Give us a manuscript with substance, whether it announces itself with a fist on the table or a raised eyebrow. We appreciate restraint as much as irreverence, provided the writer knows what they're doing. Our publisher has always said she'd love to see a memoir written entirely in receipts. Maybe you've done it. Maybe you've done something even better.
And please, spare yourself the anxiety over credentials. We aren't impressed by the alphabet soup after someone's name, and we don't consider publication history a reliable measure of literary worth. A terrific manuscript from an unknown writer is still a terrific manuscript. That isn't to say that writers with awards, accolades, and established careers aren't welcome. Of course you are. We just don't think literary merit comes with a minimum résumé requirement.
We've spent fifteen years publishing books we believe in without the blessing of industry tastemakers. We're proud of the writers we've worked with, and we want to continue expanding our catalog to better represent the world we inhabit. That means reaching beyond familiar literary networks, encountering perspectives we haven't considered, and occasionally having our own assumptions handed back to us with the corrections marked in red. We could all use a little more of that.
So consider this an invitation to send us one of yours. We'd like to discover more writers, challenge our own reading habits, and put exceptional books into the hands of readers who might otherwise never encounter them.
Our 2029 catalog is already taking shape. We'll publish fewer than eighteen titles that year, and several are already under contract. We're a small press, and we intend to remain selective. Not because we enjoy keeping people out, but because every book we take on deserves our full editorial attention, our resources, and a genuine commitment to finding its readers.
Maybe yours is one of the books we've been waiting for.
