SUBMISSIONS
Acre Books is reading queries and submissions for prose manuscripts during the month of August.
We are not currently accepting poetry submissions, but our next open reading period will take place in September 2026. Please check back then!
To receive the latest news on Acre’s upcoming reading periods, as well as quarterly updates on our books, author partnerships, and events, subscribe to our blog, follow us on social media, or sign up for our email list!
We consider books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid forms from writers of any background, at any point in their literary careers, and we’re especially interested in the work of debut writers.
To submit a query letter and up to TEN PAGES from your manuscript (they need not be the first ten pages), use the button below to reach our Submittable page. PLEASE SUBMIT ONLY ONE BOOK AT A TIME. If we wish to see the full manuscript, we will contact you. It might take us three to six months to review your sample.
We do not consider incomplete manuscripts, chapbooks, novellas, or children’s books. We do not consider previously published books, which includes self-published books.
Regarding collections (of stories, flash, essays, or some combination of these), please submit only manuscripts for which no more than 60% of the content is available online.
Before you submit, please familiarize yourself with our catalog of recent and previous titles, as well as the words of our publishers, Lisa Ampleman and Sarah Haak, below to get a sense of the work we look for and love.
Acre Books does not consider or publish work generated using AI or LLMs unless the use of such is a dual creative-critical project, as in Lillian Yvonne-Bertram’s computational poetics in Travesty Generator (Noemi Press, 2019) or in Vauhini Vara’s essay “Ghosts.” Even so, using AI at any stage in the writing process has ethical issues, well-described by the Authors Guild, so our editors prefer to consider work that doesn’t use such techniques.
A warning that scammers have started impersonating editors, including us, as a way to target writers. Feel free to reach out to us here if you have a question about such a contact, but realize that it’s likely not us. We’re not currently directly soliciting writers or agents.
Thank you for your interest in Acre!
When we read poetry submissions, we want to know early on what’s at stake for the speaker—or for the book itself, if there’s no central “I”—and to see a clear progression of that central concern as the reader moves through the poems. We want to know that something matters for the poet and the manuscript. We also look for verse that has heat and tension. We publish traditional and experimental forms, as well as everything in between, but we recommend sending us polished work with rich diction that makes the subjects seem new—and with enough variety in style that the poems don’t all sound the same. Though we will collaborate with writers on edits, possibly including order, we especially love finding books thoughtfully arranged by their authors, with sections that highlight the poems’ best features and lead to that sense of progression, whether through narrative, themes, or tone. We love a book that teaches you how to read it and fulfills the expectations it sets up in the first few pages—or unmistakably and purposefully challenges them.
We typically publish four prose titles each year: two full-length books, such as novels or memoirs, and two collections of shorter work, such as essays, short stories, or flash. When we read prose submissions, we look for work that feels alive on the page and has strong attention to craft: distinctive voices, fully realized characters and worlds, and sentences that build with purpose and carry the narrative forward. We value sincerity, especially writers who approach their characters, subjects, and ideas with genuine care and curiosity. We also value originality and surprise: choices that feel unexpected but, once made, inevitable. Though our list has not yet included romance, graphic novels, fantasy, or young adult books, we would be open to literary takes on them. Our editors enjoy a wide range of forms and styles, and an important part of our mission is publishing debut authors and writers new to a form or building a career outside traditional (academic) paths.
Please note: If you submitted your work through our form on this page before August 7, your work will still be considered! No need to resubmit.