Dzanc Books is a respected independent publisher that also owns and operates a wide variety of imprints, and literary journals, including the highly respected electronic journal The Collagist.

Dzanc books is based out of New York and publishes works of literary non-fiction. They have published short stories and novels by the following authors: Roy Kesey, Yannick Murphy, Peter Markus, Hesh Kestin, Kyle Minor, Michael Czyzniejewski, Suzanne Burns, Peter Selgin, Laura van den Berg, Robert Lopez, Dawn Raffel, Jeff Parker, Terese Svoboda, and Henning Koch.

If you are considering submitting it is helpful to browse their book selection and focus on the books they have published in the last year or so. It might also be helpful to read an issue or two of The Collagist, as it reflects the tastes of the publisher.

They accept submissions from anyone through their Submittable account. They do not need writers to have an agent or any previous publication experience, although it helps if your work has been published by literary journals.

Because they receive so many submissions it takes them around 6 months to respond to most submissions. If you are submitting a collection of short stories an excerpt will suffice. If you are submitting a novel please submit the entire manuscript.

To learn more visit their website here. To submit you can visit their submission manager here.

The anthology was inspired by and is a reaction to an essay published by NPR. In September of this year Juan Vidal wrote an essay called “Where Have All the Poets Gone?” The essay examined the political state of contemporary poetics in the United States. Vidal suggests that contemporary poets have failed to address weighty issues.

This anthology, still unnamed, is a reaction to that essay. They are looking for submissions that deal with ideas of race, gender, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic status, educational background, etc, and how that informs how we interact with the world.

Submitting is easy. Just send 3-5 poems and a bio (less than 75 words) to their submission address. Work can be previously published, as long as the original publisher is noted.

The submission deadline for this project is December 31, 2014, at 12:00 midnight PST.

Having work published in anthologies is a great opportunity for exposure. Anthologies generally receive much better distribution then books written by one author. They are also more likely to be taught in a classroom setting.

To learn more or to submit visit their website here: http://www.sundresspublications.com/submissions.htm

Just take the Phrase “We stayed up all night” and make it the first sentence of your piece.

Now the nice thing about a phrase like this is that it jump starts your creativity but it is also very open ended. Different people think of different things when they hear a phrase like that.

I might think of an all night art walk and someone else might think of a romance. Another persons approach could be a sci-fi story where it is unusual to be awake during the day.

However you approach this, have fun writing this story.