They also sometimes publish interviews, and Issue 6 is composed of 10 interviews called “The Neo-Surrealist Interview Series.” Poets are asked questions like, “What movie do you watch in secret?” and “Can you hear anything in a seashell other than the roar of the ocean?” There are interviews with well-known poets such as Mary Jo Bang and Dorothy Chan, as well as with emerging voices.

Tyger Quarterly was founded in 2022, and since then they’ve published four issues each year. Each quarterly issue features writing from 10 contributors. You can get a sense of what they publish by reading the journal online.

Tyger Quarterly accepts submissions on a rolling basis. Poets may submit five to seven poems. They also accept longer poems and excerpts from longer works. There is no maximum length for an excerpt, but they suggest submitting at least five pages. Submissions should include a brief biography and a cover letter.

Tyger Quarterly only accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They only accept submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online, so please read these guidelines in full before submitting. Please note that you have to scroll down on the left hand side to see the most recent issue which was published in 2024.

If you would like to learn more or submit to Tyger Quarterly, please visit their website here. 

This list of publishers meet our guiding principles, but are only open to free submissions from historically underrepresented writers or focus on publishing content produced by historically underrepresented writers. Some of these publications are open to a wide range of writers including writers of color, gender non-conforming and LGBTQ+ writers, and those living with disabilities. Some have limited definitions and are only interested in work by Black authors.

We try to make it as clear as possible who the publisher is seeking work from. Sometimes the focus of the press is limited, even though there are no limitations on who can submit. A few of the opportunities are also limited by geography, again, we try to make this clear. There are always additional submission details at the site we link to, but we try to cover the basics as best we can as part of this list.

If you belong to a limited demographic that is not listed here, this list might be helpful to you.

As long as a press/opportunity/journal is open to submissions we will continue to list it, so some of the content on the list is new, some overlaps with previous issues. This article is an ongoing collaborative effort by Emily Harstone and S. Kalekar. Please send us an email at support@authorspublish.com if you have any feedback or an opportunity/journal/publisher, to recommend.

Literary Journals/Magazines

The Pine Cone Review
A literary journal that always centres brown voices, The Pine Cone Review is accepting submissions on “Brown lives and brown existence” for their June issue, through April 15th. Be sure to follow their submission guidelines for your work to be considered.

Midnight & Indigo
They only accept work by Black women writers – speculative fiction, character-driven fiction, and essays. They pay $0.07/word for general and speculative fiction, and $100 for essays. They have rolling submissions for speculative fiction, and have deadlines for general fiction and essays. Details here and here.

Pride Magazine: Infinite Horizons
Pride is a Vancouver-based magazine, and they invite article pitches and poetry submissions by 2SLGBTQAI+ writers locally, and from across Canada. “Pieces should address the theme for Canada Pride 2024 – Infinite Horizons. “Infinite Horizons” is more than just a phrase; it’s a beacon guiding us toward a future where inclusivity, acceptance, and celebration reign supreme. This theme encourages us to adopt a forward-looking perspective, celebrating the boundless possibilities that lie ahead for all members of our community. At its core, this theme challenges societal norms, urging us to embrace authenticity in a world where the identities of queer individuals are under siege daily. “At the heart of ‘Infinite Horizons’ is the recognition of the resilience and strength of our 2SLGBTQAI+ community. Our connection to this theme embodies Vancouver Pride’s steadfast commitment to fostering inclusivity, diversity, and empowerment within our community; and it’s about carving out spaces where everyone feels valued and celebrated. But the journey toward infinite horizons isn’t just about looking forward; it’s also about honouring the diverse experiences and identities within our community. That’s why this year’s theme also embraces the fluidity and diversity of gender identities, challenging traditional binaries, and celebrating authenticity”. Short articles are 300-600 words, and features are 900-1,300 words. Pay is CAD0.60/word. The pitch deadline is 3 May 2024. Details here (download guidelines).

Solarpunk Magazine: Colorful Roots
This is a magazine of solarpunk fiction. During the April submission window (deadline 14^th April 2024), they will accept work for ‘Colorful Roots’, an all-BIPOC issue. The magazine “publishes hopeful short stories and poetry that strive for a utopian ideal, that are set in futures where communities are optimistically struggling to solve or adapt to climate change, to create or maintain a world in which humanity, technology, and nature coexist in harmony rather than in conflict. We also publish solarpunk art as well as nonfiction that explores real world, contemporary topics and their intersection with the solarpunk movement for a better future.” Also, “Any genre of science fiction, interstitial fiction, magic realism, or fantasy has potential as a solarpunk forum—we welcome robots and elves with equal excitement.” The kind of work they want is described on their Moksha submission page, as well as the guidelines page. Also, “In 2024, we are particularly looking for stories between 1,500 and 3,000 words. While our word limit remains 7,500, stories that fall between 1,500 and 3,000 will have a better chance of being selected for at least the first few submission periods in 2024.” Nonfiction is open on an ongoing basis. All the 2024 fiction submission periods are listed on their website. Pay is $0.08/word for fiction; $40/poem; $75/essay or article. Details here (guidelines) and here (Moksha submission portal).

The Other Side of Hope: Journeys in Refugee and Immigrant Literature
They publish fiction, poetry, and art from refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants only; these are unthemed. They also consider poems from refugee/asylum seeker writing groups. Non-fiction (1,000-5,000 words) and book reviews are open to all, and the theme for those is migration. Also, A.M. Heath Literary Agency will offer 1-2-1s to 6 of their contributors​​. They pay £100 per published writer, and £300 for art; asylum seekers get gift cards. The submission deadline is 30 April 2024.

Scarlet
A bi-monthly run by Jaded Ibis Press, Scarlet focuses on the presses larger mission to “uplift marginalized voices.” They are open to original works of poetry or prose that amounts to 1,500 words, or less. They pay $80.

The Missing Slate
Based in Pakistan, The Missing Slate focuses on providing space for marginalized authors to submit their work. They are currently open for submissions for the theme “Homebound.” They will close to submissions on April 15th.

African American Review
John Hopkins University Press publishes this “aggregation of insightful essays on African American literature, theatre, film, the visual arts, and culture; interviews; poetry; fiction; and book reviews,” on a quarterly basis. They close to submissions on 1st May 2024.

Kopi Break
They publish one poem a week by poets affiliated with Singapore and the Singaporean diaspora, and pay SGD10 per poems.

Split Lip Magazine
Split Lip Magazine is a voice-driven literary journal with a pop culture twist. They publish online monthly and in print annually – memoir, flash fiction, short stories, poetry, and art, as well as interviews and reviews (for interviews and reviews, query first via webform – see guidelines). Length guidelines are up to 3,000 words for fiction; up to 2,000 words for memoir; and one poem. Pay is $75 for web contributions, $5/page for print, $50 for interviews/reviews, and $25 for mini-reviews for their web issues. Fee-free submissions for all writers are open during certain months, these can close earlier by category, if their Submittable cap is reached. Fee-free submissions for Black writers are open till mid-June 2024. Details here and here.

Decolonial Passage
According to their website they “publish writing from writers of all backgrounds regardless of race, origin, or gender while simultaneously centering African, African American, and Black Diaspora writing.” Their mission statement goes into more details about this. They are open on a rolling basis to essays, creative nonfiction, short stories, and flash fiction. They are open to poetry only during the months of January, March, May, July, September or November.

Wishbone Words
An online creative writing magazine for chronically ill and disabled writers and artists, they publish a wide range of creative work. All contributors receive free copies. Their family and friends get a discount for that issue as well.

Bookish Brews
They describe themselves as a “book blog and a celebration of diverse books and authors (with a side of your favorite brew)”. They prioritize BIPOC writers but are open to submissions from other historically underrepresented groups also. They publish nonfiction, craft, and lifestyle essays as well as book reviews.

Mayday: Black
For Mayday: Black submissions, they want nonfiction pitches and drafts from Black writers – their website says, they are “committed to delivering a new experience for Black writers, including those seeking first-time publication. We welcome nonfiction work in opinions and analyses; personal, braided, and reported essays in contemporary and historical contexts.
Bring your authentic, curious, courageous, well-rounded stories on life, living, love, loss, representation, race, racism, death, dying, Black plight and civil rights, neighborhood blight, gentrification, white flight, and more. (In no way is this an exhaustive list!)” They pay $50 for Mayday: Black essays of 800-3,000 words. Details here and here.
(This magazine also occasionally accepts fiction, nonfiction, culture pieces, poetry, reviews, interviews, and translations from all writers, and pays $10-20 for these.)

Moko Magazine
A journal of Caribbean arts and literature, Moko publishes short stories, poems, interviews, essays, reviews of books, art, photography, and other types of visual media about the Caribbean and its diaspora. They are not interested in academic pieces.

Peril
An Asian-Australian journal focused on arts and culture, they pay $75-300 for pieces, but can only guarantee payments for Australian contributors (their submission guidelines have more details about this). The theme of their current issue is “You, where you’re at.” They are open to submissions in creative and new media interpretations of literature, including “those in video, audio and text format, graphic stories, sound or visual art, as long as it can be presented online and has a relationship to story. We accept prose, non-fiction, essays, creative non-fiction, opinion/blog posts, visual art, documentation of performance, videos, audio.” They ask for less than 1,000 words for text submissions and three poems for poetry submissions.

Zindabad Zine
This print and electronic publication is based in the UK. They are open to submissions on a rolling basis. Currently they are closed to submissions for the print issue but open to electronic ones. They only accept work from people “in a diaspora”.  They publish personal essays, articles, poetry, fiction, visual art and photography.

The T4T Project
A zine by and for trans writers and artists of color. They have rolling deadline and feature 20 creators per issue.

The Kalahari Review
A weekly African literary magazine interested in material exploring modern Africa and Africans in unique and avant-garde ways. They publish their work on Medium.

NonBinary Review
They are open to submissions from everyone on the theme of ‘Heredity’ (deadline May 1st or until filled) – they pay $10-30 for poetry and prose. They also offer advice on submitting to journals in general through their Dear Horace Greeley column, and also accept submissions for Visual Verse. You can learn  more about all of these on their Submittable page. They also offer  free Feedback for Poets of Color, which is just what it sounds like. Writers of color may submit one poem, up to 50 lines, for consideration. Two poets per month will be accepted, and the poetry editors will work with those two poets to edit, improve, and strengthen their work. Acceptances are done on the first of the month, although submissions are open year-round.

Gay Flash Fiction
They welcome submissions on any theme and in any genre, as long as there is a is a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex connection. Please only submit one story at a time. They are also open to poems under 500 words in length, as well as related artwork.

Transition
Born in Africa and bred in the diaspora, Transition  is a publication of the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, published three times annually. Transition publishes writing by and about Africa and the African diaspora, with an eye towards a global perspective. They accept submissions year-round on a rolling basis, and generally respond to submissions within four months. They are currently looking for submissions on the ‘Solidarities’ theme (see guidelines), as well as unthemed work.

Lavender Review
An international, biannual e-zine published in June and December, they are open to submissions of poetry and art by, about, and for lesbians (including whatever LGBTQ might appeal to a lesbian readership). Submissions are open year round.

Ricepaper
This publication offers Asian Canadian context to ongoing arts and cultural issues, new perspectives on emerging and established Asian Canadian artists, and challenges mainstream media perspectives, little-known facts of interest, or critical stories that haven’t been told elsewhere. They are open to submissions from Asian writers around the globe as long as the editors can see a link between the content and some aspect of the Asian Canadian experience.

Raising Mothers
Raising Mothers celebrates and centers the experiences of  Black, Indigenous, and Brown parents. Some sections have reading periods; columns are open year-round.

Prismatica Magazine
An LGBTQ fantasy and science fiction magazine that publishes short stories, poetry, reviews, interviews, and articles. They have very specific submission guidelines so please read those carefully.

Aurelia
Aurelia publishes the nonfiction work of marginalized genders: women, non-binary people and trans men. “Aurelia is a publication dedicated to personal thoughts, feelings and experiences. The things you think and the way you feel must be at the centre of your piece. All article submissions must be written in the first-person (“I think, I feel, I want…”)” Please send them pitches only, not unsolicited submissions. They pay £50. Details on how to pitch are here.

African Writer
They are open to all genres of literature from Africa and the African Diaspora. They do not allow simultaneous submissions.

Djed Press
This journal is based in Australia and they “prioritise submissions from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, on whose land we live and work and whose sovereignty has never been ceded.” They only accept submissions from “Australian and/or Australia-based Bla(c)k and other POC creators.” They really stress that work is likely to be edited and that you shouldn’t submit if you are not comfortable with that. Pay is AUD50-150 for text.

Afritondo
According to their website, “Afritondo is a media and publishing platform that aims to connect with and tell the stories of Africans and black minority populations across the globe.” They accept a wide range of work, including manuscript-length work.

Brittle Paper
Brittle Paper is an online literary magazine for readers of African Literature. They accept the following: “fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, book reviews, essays, literary commentaries, fun listicles, and any writing with a literary bent”.

The Awakenings Review
The Awakenings Review is a project of The Awakenings Project. Established in cooperation with the University of Chicago Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation in 2000, this print journal accepts poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from writers that have a personal connection to mental illness.

Torch Literary Arts
Torch Literary Arts is a nonprofit organization. They publish and promote creative writing by Black women only; you can read more about them here. They publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers. “We are interested in work that challenges and disrupts preconceived notions of what Black women’s contemporary writing should be.” General submissions are accepted for Friday Features only, in which they publish fiction, hybrid works, poetry, and drama (including that accompanied by video or dramatic audio). Send up to 2,500 for fiction/hybrid works, up to 10 pages for drama, or up to 5 poems. Pay is $150. Submissions are accepted on an ongoing basis; you can submit here.

Tagg Magazine
Tagg is a US-based queer women’s publication. Their website has several themes they accept articles on, including personal essays, listicles, dating advice and fashion-related content. Articles are 350-1,000 words long and pay $75-175. They welcome pitches for article ideas. See the pitch guide for contributors here.

Bi Women Quarterly
BWQ features the voices of women “with bi+ sexualities (i.e., bi, pan, fluid, and other non-binary sexualities)” and they see “woman” as a broad category and welcome contributions those who identify as trans, non-binary, cis, etc. They publish articles, creative writing, musings, and more.

KOENING ZINE
They publish art, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction submissions  primarily by Asians, but they are open to submissions from non-Asians. Their uniting theme is Asian Folklore. Submitters must be over 18.

POETRY SANGO-OTA
We only usually include journals currently open to submissions, but this list is always published on the third Thursday of a given month, and this journal is only open to submissions through the 1st to the 10th of each month, so we are listing it and encouraging you to set a calendar alert for when it reopens on the 1st of the next month. “We are interested in poems with a keen connection to a sense of place, nature, or otherworldly geographies.” They only publish African poets, and pay N2,500 per poem.

Afternoon Visitor
This is an online quarterly publication of poetry, hybrid text, visual poetry, and visual art, and they’re particularly interested in giving space to trans + queer writers in each issue.

Reappropriate
Reappropriate is an Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) race advocacy and feminism blog, focusing on race, gender, identity, Asian American history, and current events. Pay is $75-150 for work of 800-2,500 words.

The Gay & Lesbian Review
The Gay & Lesbian Review is a bimonthly magazine of history, culture, and politics targeting an educated readership of LGBT people, and their allies that publishes themed features (2,000-4,000 words), reviews, interviews, and departments. They have announced a few themed calls, and they also invite suggestions for future themes.
— Believe It or Not: Queer episodes in LGBT history
— The Science of Homosexuality: What have we learned?
— The Travel Issue: The role of travel in LGBT culture
Writers can send proposals or complete pieces. They pay for features ($250) and full-length book reviews ($100).

The Acentos Review
The Acentos Review publishes writing, art, music and multigenre work by Latinx writers. They are open to submissions all year long. Details here.

Craft
This respected literary journal is open to creative work from authors of all backgrounds, but they offer free submissions + fast response times to BIPOC and other mis- and underrepresented writers, here. Craft pays $100 for flash and $200 for short fiction and creative nonfiction.

Aloka
They want work by non-native English speakers only – poetry, translations, fiction, and hybrid work. Send up to 5 poems, or up to 2 prose pieces, up to 2,500 words each.

The Lighthouse / Black Girl Projects
The tagline of The Lighthouse is, “Cultivating spaces of solidarity and safety for southern Black girls to shine through focused programming and research.” They have an extensive guide for pitching articles, including “We … are always looking for thought-provoking stories and other content from marginalized communities, Black girls, (in particular, but not exclusively) and gender non-conforming people. In addition to story and long-form story pitches and op-eds, they accept photography and original artwork for their online blogging platform, The Black Girl Times, and their monthly newsletter, The Black Girl Times Redux. Also, “Each month, we have an editorial theme board (kind of like the mood boards interior designers use) we post on our social media accounts (@luvblkgrls). The theme board is intended to be an inspiration and provocation of thoughts, ideas and feelings. Your response(s) can be literal or abstract and loose. And again, it might not have anything to do with anything we’ve seen.” Pay is $0.25-$1/word. Pay for art (graphic design, cartoons and photo essays) is $150-1,000.

Singapore Unbound: SUSPECT
Their website says, “SUSPECT grew out of SP Blog, the blog of the NYC-based literary non-profit Singapore Unbound.” They want poetry, literary fiction, essays, and any kind of writings that do not fall into these categories, written or translated into English by authors who identify as Asian. They also publish reviews of books by Asian authors and interviews with Asian writers and artists. Pay is $100, and there is no deadline listed.

Breath & Shadow
Breath & Shadow only publishes work from people with disabilities. This is how they define disability: “We use the term “disability” broadly to encompass anyone with a physical, mental, emotional, cognitive, or sensory impairment that significantly affects one or more major life functions.” They accept writing on any topic in terms of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and drama. Pieces do not have to be about disability. The academic or article type nonfiction, including profiles, interviews, and opinion pieces, do have to relate to disability in some way. They pay $20 for poetry and $30 for prose.

Screen Door Review
They only publish work by individuals who are Southern and queer. You can learn more about how they define Southern here. They publish flash fiction and poetry.

Emergent Literary
An exciting new literary journal that accepts a wide range of submissions from Black and Brown authors.

LatinX Lit Audio Mag
LatinX Lit Mag is a safe space for literary work written by authors who identify as Latinx or Hispanic.

Presses/Anthologies

Cat Eye Press: Cursed Cooking – A Horror Community Cookbook and Food Horror Anthology
This is a fiction and recipe anthology. They have an open submission call period for all writers (till 30^th April), and an extended submission window exclusively for writers of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups (1-10 May 2024). “Cursed Cooking is a horror community cookbook and food horror anthology, featuring both real-world recipes and food horror fiction. This hybrid publication aims to feed not only your body with frighteningly good food, but also your imagination with cleverly crafted horror stories. So, send us your tales of haunted hamburgers, killer chocolate chip cookies, monstrous manicotti, world-ending wontons, and everything in between. … But also, send us the recipes that you love, recipes that make your mouth water and have people screaming for seconds (and thirds and fourths). … (They want) horror stories and recipes for three categories of submissions: appetizers, entrées, and desserts. Appetizer recipes and drabbles (100-word stories) to introduce readers to Cursed Cooking in bite-sized portions.
Entrée recipes and short stories (1,501–4,000 words) will serve as the book’s main course
Dessert recipes and flash fiction (500–1,500 words) will round out the book—they’ll be short and oh so sweet. You can submit fiction, recipes, or both. Fiction should fall reasonably in the food horror subgenre. … As for the recipes, we want to make this publication special, so please, don’t send us recipes copied and pasted from the Food Network or conjured up by AI. Submit real recipes you would be proud to serve up to your friends and family. … Please note that recipes do not need to be connected to a work of fiction in order to be submitted, and there are no word limits for recipes.” They also accept reprint stories. Pay is $0.05/word for original fiction; $5 for recipes.

Book Slayer Press: Hemorrhaging Flowers: A Collection Of 100% Femme Rage
This is “a collection of speculative poetry showcasing the spectrum of femininity and the rage contained within.” It is open to anyone who “identifies (now or in the past) as femme in the most inclusive of definitions.” Poems can be up to 50 lines. Pay is $10. The deadline is 30 April 2024.
(Book Slayer Press is also open for Hentai Ectoplasm, a shared-world horror anthology; they want “cannabis positive stories written from the perspective of a residence stuck inside “The Danger Zone”.” – it is open to all writers, and they encourage submissions from underrepresented authors. Pay is $100, and the deadline is 30 April 2024. Details here – scroll down.)

Bikes in Space Anthology series – Queer Halloween
They’re looking for stories for their 13^th anthology in their Bikes in Space series. “Please submit your original queer Halloween short fiction (in written or comics form) about bicycling from a feminist perspective. We’re looking for stories that give us a shiver or make us leave the hallway light on at night. Raise our hair and make our spines tingle. We’ll also consider Halloween-themed stories that aren’t as frightful, but they should still be infused with all things spooky season. Stories should be written by authors who consider yourself queer (in whatever way you identify), and should feature Halloween and/or otherworldly elements, and queer characters/themes, as well as feminism. All four elements should be intrinsic to the narrative:
Halloween (or stories sufficiently scary or thematic enough to be read around Halloween)
Queer
Feminism (it is sufficient to simply not include sexist themes or tropes)
Bicycles
The genre can be anything fantastical—ghost stories, horror, hard sci-fi, comedic fantasy, slipstream, or anything in that constellation—despite the series title, stories need not be set in space.” They want works of 500-6,000 words. Payment is a minimum of $50 (see guidelines). The deadline is 15 April 2024.

Fourteen Poems
A small press that is sometimes open to solo chapbooks and also publishes a thrice yearly of LGBTQ+ poets. They have a rolling submissions window but the deadline for the next issue is May 15th 2024. You’ll hear back from them by mid-July. They pay £25 for each poem published.

Acre Books
This publisher is affiliated with the University of Cincinnati; you can read about them here. “During the month of April, the submissions form will remain open for writers identifying as Black, Indigenous, and people of color, in order to acknowledge and address historical and systemic inequities in book publishing.” Please do not submit at this time if you do not belong to these groups. They consider poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid/cross-genre works. They do not consider incomplete manuscripts, chapbooks, novellas, children’s books, or previously published books. Regarding collections (of stories, poems, flash, essays, or some combination of these), submit only manuscripts for which no more than 60% of the content is available online. As with all presses, please look at their catalog, as well as editor preferences, and only submit if you think your work is a good fit for them. Submit a query letter and up to 10 pages from your manuscript (they need not be the first ten pages). They will contact you if they want to see the full manuscript; assume rejection if you have not heard from them in three months. Their regular reading period (for all writers) will reopen in August.

Phoenix
Phoenix is a new speculative imprint launched by Nigerian publisher Ouida Books in collaboration with Nnedi Okorafor and Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn. Phoenix is dedicated to publishing African speculative fiction and fantasy (Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism). You can learn more about it here.

The Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series
This opportunity, from Black Lawrence Press, is for immigrants living in the US – for manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid writing. “Poets and authors, at any stage of their careers, who identify as immigrants are welcome to submit a book manuscript of poetry or prose or a hybrid text for consideration. Submissions are accepted year-round. However, selections are made in June and November for a total of two books per year. In addition to publication, marketing, and a standard royalties contract from Black Lawrence Press, authors chosen for the Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series will receive a travel stipend of $500, which can be used for book tours or in any manner chosen by the authors.”

North Dakota State University Press: Contemporary Voices of Indigenous Peoples Series
The goal of this series to feature the authentic stories, poetry, and scholarly works of Native Americans, First Nations, Maori, Aborigines, Indians, and more to give voice to contemporary Indigenous peoples. NDSU Press considers book-length manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for publication in this series.

Random House Canada
The Canadian arm of Random House changed their submission policy have opened their policy exclusively to LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC writers, as well as those from other traditionally underrepresented communities. They are particularly looking for “High quality commercial fiction in the following genres: literary, romance, speculative fiction, historical fiction, and mystery. Please note that we do not currently accept screenplays, stage plays, young adult fiction, children’s fiction, or picture book queries. All non-fiction submissions must be submitted via a literary agent.” They are open to submissions internationally, this is not limited to Canadians.

Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press
They publish a literary magazine as well as books, they are “dedicated to publishing raza authors to express the narratives and needs of our communities, which typically get overlooked by the mainstream presses. We intend to be the institution nobody else will build for us.”

Tundra Books, Puffin Canada, Penguin Teen Canada
These children and teen focused Canadian imprints are open to direct submissions by underrepresented authors and illustrators only. Authors need not be Canadian.

Arsenal Pulp Press
A Canadian independent press that publishes a wide variety of work,  prioritizes work by LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors. We have reviewed them here.

Blind Eye Books
Blind Eye Books publishes science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and romance novels featuring LGBTQ protagonists. They are a print publisher and their book covers are beautifully designed and really stand out. The books they have published have won and been nominated for a number of awards, including the Lambda. We have reviewed them here.

Lily
A small poetry press that publishes work of varying length. Submitting shorter work is free for everyone, but submitting poetry manuscripts is free only for poets who identify as Black. They are always open to these submissions.

Sourcebooks
We’ve reviewed Sourcebooks here, and their adult nonfiction imprint and their romance and horror imprints are always open to all submissions, but they also deserve to be on this list because their fiction imprint, their mystery imprint, their young adult imprint, and three of their children’s book imprints, all say “Our submissions are currently CLOSED to unagented projects, with the exception of works that directly promote diversity, equality and inclusion. For more information please email InclusiveFiction@Sourcebooks.com.” So if you have work that matches that description in those genres, please reach out to them.

Forever
The romance imprint of Hachette Book Group and Grand Central Publishing is open to direct submissions from BIPOC-identifying authors.

Angry Robot
A great science fiction publisher that only accepts direct submissions from Black authors.

Scholastic Canada
They are open to direct submissions from Canadian authors or focusing on Canadian content, who are from underrepresented communities, including Black writers, Indigenous writers, writers of colour, writers with disabilities, LGBTQIA2S+ writers and writers who identify with other marginalized groups.

Heartdrum
Heartdrum is an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, which is edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and is in partnership with We Need Diverse Books. Native and First Nations writers and writer-illustrators are welcome to query her directly via a form on her website. Native and First Nations illustrators are also invited to reach out.

Opportunities/Support/Contests

The Academy of American Poets: Literary Seminars
These new seminars from the Academy are taught by respected experts. Scholarships are available with varying deadlines, the first being April 12th, but most are further out. Click on the individual course offerings to learn more.

CINTAS Foundation: Fellowship in Creative Writing for Cuban Writers
This is a creative writing fellowship for writers having Cuban citizenship or direct lineage (having a Cuban parent or grandparent). Applications can be in English or Spanish; one of the submission requirements is a writing sample (see guidelines). Fellows who are not U.S. citizens and who are living abroad must provide a U.S. taxpayer identification number when they accept the fellowship to receive payment. The award is $25,000. The deadline is 1 May 2024. (The foundation also offers fellowships for other disciplines.)

International Women’s Media Foundation Grants
International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) has several cash grants/awards for women and non-binary journalists; some of them are open now, including the international Howard G. Buffet Fund for Women Journalists (rolling deadline); and US-based Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, Transgender People (rolling deadline); Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship (deadline 21 April 2024). Click on IWMF’s Opportunities and Awards tabs on this page for more.

Cherry Lake: Own Voices, Own Stories Award
The Own Voices, Own Stories Award is eligible to new authors who write children’s books and identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+. Applicants must be US residents. Only authors who have not had a previously traditionally published children’s book will be considered, authors must also be unagented at this time. Grand prize winners will receive a $2,000 cash prize, in addition to a publishing contract with advance and royalties standard for new Sleeping Bear Press authors. Honor award winners will receive a $500 cash prize as well as one consulting session with a Sleeping Bear Press editor. Full details are available at the site, and the deadline is April 30th. 

Pulitzer Center: Connected Coastlines Grants
This is an opportunity for US-based journalists. The Pulitzer Center is seeking applications from journalists who want to report stories as part of Connected Coastlines, a nationwide climate reporting initiative in U.S. coastal states. This initiative is building a consortium of newsrooms and independent journalists across the U.S. to report on the local effects of erratic weather patterns on coastal populations using the latest climate science. “This opportunity is open to all U.S.-based journalists with a plan to publish or broadcast their climate stories with a newsroom based in a U.S. coastal state or region. We strongly encourage proposals from journalists and newsrooms who represent a broad array of social, racial, ethnic, underrepresented groups, and economic backgrounds.” And, “We are eager to receive proposals from staff journalists and freelancers who wish to report on coastal stories, underpinned by recent climate science, data, or research, for publication or broadcast by small and regional news outlets in U.S. coastal states.” They prioritize proposals that can be completed, including publication, in 1-4 months. The ideal range for most awards will be $2,000 to $8,000. Grants are open now and approved on a rolling basis.

Society of Authors: Dursilla Harvey Access Fund
These are small grants for UK-based/British writers, giving authors support for travel, subsistence, childcare or access needs for events, residencies, and retreats. “Usual grants will be £150 or less, but fair consideration will be given to all proposals.” Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
(Society of Authors also has awards for works in progress as well as contingency funds – all their grants are here.)

The Writing Barn Scholarship
The Writing Barn has a small but budding scholarship program available for our programming. Scholarships are awarded on the following criteria: seriousness of purpose, talent and financial need. They also offer specific Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity scholarships for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Neurodiverse writers, and writers with disabilities.

Forward Funds: Creative Capital x Skoll Foundation Creator Fund
The crowdsourcing platform for creatives, Kickstarter, now has Forward Funds. Their website says, “Forward Funders are foundations, nonprofits, and organizations that back Kickstarter campaigns related to their visions and missions around a more creative and equitable world. Each Forward Funder makes a public commitment and then backs projects just like anyone else—through single pledges that bring the works one step closer to reality.” One such fund is the $500,000 Creative Capital x Skoll Foundation Fund. This backs projects by Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx creators in the US on the crowdfunding platform – “Effective immediately, funds will be awarded on an ongoing basis to creators with active projects across all of Kickstarter’s categories: Arts, Comics & Illustration, Design & Tech, Film, Food & Craft, Games, Music, and Publishing.” Projects launched on Kickstarter following their rules are eligible, and creators can nominate themselves for specific Forward Funds via a form. This is for both, creators and organizations.

BIPOC scholarship for Emily Harstone’s classes at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish
Each time Emily Harstone offers a solo class through the Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish, there is now an opportunity for one to two writers who identify as BIPOC to take it for free. If you registered last year, please note that the form re-set in January, and you are encouraged to fill it out again.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

I’ve been writing for about eight years now, during which I’ve gone through several phases of rejecting my writing before others could do so. Over time, I’ve learned to recognise these thoughts and developed ways to fight them. Here they are:

1. You think you are not ready

This thought is especially strong when we first begin writing (professionally or otherwise). We feel we first need to get an MFA or attend a workshop or read books on writing. While these things certainly help, you become a writer when you write.

One can never feel ready enough. Writing, unlike baking or algebra, doesn’t have a fixed, step-by-step formula you can follow, because each thing we write is new both for us and the world. And how can one be ready for what has never existed before (except by practicing)?

As long as you know a language and have a pen and paper, you are ready to write (and you can start even if you’re working in a second or third language, like me—writing improves language proficiency as well). You don’t need to learn more before you write—even when you’re writing something like historical fiction or medical thrillers. Just get started, then fill in the gaps as needed. Because if you keep waiting, you’ll never feel ready.

2.You think your work is not original

As a young writer, I discarded a lot of my stories (and sometimes even ideas that could have been stories) because I thought that what I wrote wasn’t original. Who needs yet another fantasy story about a knight rescuing a princess from a dragon? Who needs yet another essay on coming to terms with our mortality? Everything has been said before.

But as Jerry Saltz said in his guide for artists, “Originality did not conveniently die just in time for you and your generation to insist it no longer exists. You just have to find it. You can do this by looking for overlooked periods of art history, disliked and discredited styles, and forgotten ideas, images, and objects. Then work them into your own art 100 times or 1,000 times.”

Think of the last time you really enjoyed a book, thought “I want more of this,” and then immediately went online looking for similar books. As thrilling as it is to encounter something original, we often look for stories that we’re familiar with. One reason fans read so much fanfiction is because they want to experience the same tropes over and over. It’s also why retellings are so popular.

So tell your stories—there are, at the very least, several hundred thousand people who are looking for the kind of stories you want to write. Don’t worry about originality. Worry about never telling your stories in the first place.

3.You think your work is not good enough

Some writers have a Muse that lives inside them. In my head, there resides the Demon of Perfectionism. It’s constantly telling me that my ideas are terrible or that I can’t write a particular story/essay (see #2). When I do manage to fight it off by writing anyway, it attacks me by telling me my writing is not good enough. Often, that’s when the Demon wins, preventing me from sharing a blog post or submitting my writing to a magazine.

And this happens because “good enough” is undefined. It means something different for every writer—for some, it’s about the writing style, for others, it’s the plot. Every project has its own needs and guidelines, so should we set strict rules for each of them? A better approach, as Campbell Walker suggests, is to ask, “Can I make it to at least 70% of perfect?”

Here’s another way to think about it. Don’t ask if it’s good enough. Ask yourself, “Is it bad?” If you’ve been practicing your craft, most times, the answer will be “no,” in which case, put your work out into the world. You might be surprised with the responses you get—our familiarity with a piece of work can often make us overlook the parts of it that make it magical.

4.You think no one would read what you write.

Another common way writers reject themselves is by fearing obscurity. There are so many writers out there, so many books being published every single day. Who will read your stuff?

When I feel this way, I think of what Neil Gaiman once said:

 “You can’t control whether or not people read what you write. You can control what you write and whether you write.

If you do write the poems someone may read them and someone who needs a poem might encounter it and take what they needed from it. If you don’t write them, other people are guaranteed never to read them.”

No one is going to come knocking at your door, asking to read what you have written. You have to take the responsibility to share your writing on your own.

5. You think your writing is not important or needed

When I was 18, I spent several months in despair, unable to do much because of my climate anxiety. In the face of the crisis, writing felt pointless. Who needs stories and poems when there are floods to be prevented, treaties to be signed, climate refugees to be resettled? Shouldn’t I be trying to save lives instead?

But stories are part of how we save lives. Can they save the planet from extreme weather events? Probably not. But stories can make people do something about it. And what about the daily lives we lead meanwhile? That’s where art comes in, as Ethan Hawke describes: “Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry […] until their father dies, they go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart, they don’t love you anymore, and all of a sudden, you’re desperate for making sense out of this life, and ‘Has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?’ […] And that’s when art’s not a luxury, it’s actually sustenance. We need it.”

We need your writing and we need your art. Please share it with the world.

Bio: bio: Ratika Deshpande (she/her) is currently writing an online book on the art and craft of writing, one blog post at a time.