Kelsey Street Press

Kelsey Street Press is pleased to announce our 2025 open reading period. Submissions are open to woman-identified, trans and non-binary writers. Submissions will open on March 27, 2025 and close on December 27 at midnight PST.

From the beginning, Kelsey Street Press has linked its editorial policy to a poetics of allowance, encouraging women to write directly from their own creative imperatives, and to a poetics of inclusion that embraces racial and cultural diversity. With over 50 years of publishing, we remain true to our commitment to bring out a wide range of voices, including the work of trans and genderqueer authors. We seek manuscripts that engage critical, poetic landscapes through experiment and innovation.

AUTHOR ELIGIBILITY

Open to any woman-identified, trans, or non-binary author. Our definition of “woman” includes transsexual, transgender, and genderqueer individuals. 

MANUSCRIPT ELIGIBILITY

The manuscript, as a whole, must be unpublished. However, poems in your manuscript may have been previously published in periodicals or chapbooks. Since we are seeking full-length manuscripts, we expect that manuscripts will fall between 48 and 120 pages, but there is no length requirement or restriction. Cross-genre and hybrid works are encouraged. Collaborations are eligible.

SELECTION

 

Manuscripts will be read by Kelsey Street Press Managing Editors. This is not a contest. There is no guarantee that we will select a book from this open reading period, but we certainly hope to do so.

PUBLICATION

 

Books published by Kelsey Street Press are professionally designed and printed. Our titles are distributed to bookstores through Asterism and are available for purchase through online retailers, as well as through our own website. Our authors receive annual royalties per our standard contract. 

MANUSCRIPT GUIDELINES

-Title page with book title only.

-Cover letter: In addition to contact information (name, address, email, phone number), please include a brief biographical statement and a brief statement of context for your manuscript. 

-Please include an Acknowledgements page indicating which poems in the manuscript have been previously published in periodicals, anthologies, or chapbooks. 

-See “Manuscript Eligibility” above.

READING FEE

Like other non-profit presses, we charge a reading fee to offset administrative costs. You are welcome to submit as many manuscripts as you like, as long as you send a separate reading fee of $25.00 for each.

 

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through Submittable. You will be able to upload your manuscript on the submissions page. Manuscripts must be sent in one file (doc or pdf). If you have previously used Submittable, you may log in to your existing account using the same email address and password used to create your account.

Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to other publishers or contests are acceptable, but please notify us with an email to info@kelseystreetpress.org. if your manuscript has been accepted elsewhere.

If you have any questions, please send an email to info@ kelseystreetpress.org.

Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about future open reading periods.

We encourage authors who identify as QTBIPOC to also submit to the 2025 QTBIPOC Prize.

2025 QTBIPOC Prize

We would like to announce Kelsey Street Press’s 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize! This is a FREE book contest open to QTBIPOC-identified, feminist, innovative writers/poets. The winning manuscript will be chosen by Andrea Abi-Karam, author of Villainy (Night Boat Books 2021) and EXTRATRANSMISSION (Kelsey Street Press, 2019). The prize winner will receive publication along with a $1,000.00 cash award to help aid in book promotion, travel, event attendance, and a general contribution to the hopes of thriving as an artist. The contest is open for submissions from March 27-September 1 with the contest winner announced in November 2025.