Submissions Open for Poetry Manuscripts Connected to Midwest Themes

Middle West Press LLC seeks poetry manuscripts by a single author, comprising 50 to 100 poems each, for potential publication in 2024-2025.

We are particularly seeking manuscripts that intersect in some way with the people, places, nature, and history of the American Middle West, especially those stemming from the lived experiences of women, poets of color, poets who identify as LGBTQ+, military veterans, and other marginalized voices.

We are motivated by any work that helps renew and revise the milieu of the Middle West as a growing, changing, modern, complicated place.

Our informal rule-of-thumb is that the modern U.S. states carved from the Louisiana Purchase, and/or states located west of the Ohio River and east of the Missouri River, safely define our intellectual playground. The Middle West is a moveable feast, however. We recognize that the Middle West includes themes, characters, and geographies that cannot be contained by mere borders. In fact, the Middle West may be most apparent in places where it is not.

This reading period ends March 4, 2024 or a maximum of 25 submissions, whichever comes first.

Submit via Submittable here at this link.

Submissions will be processed "First-In, First Out." All submissions will receive a reply not later than June 4, 2024.

Middle West Press is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest. Our award-winning book titles are available for sale in print and e-book editions via on-line retailers, and via select independent and museum bookstores.

We publish from 1 to 4 titles annually.

Examples of our past poetry collections include:

• Paying for Gas with Quarters by Aly Allen, Oklahoma
• Hugging This Rock by Eric "Shmo" Chandler, Minnesota
• The Time War Takes by Jessi M. Atherton, Minnesota & Michigan
• Blood / Not Blood Then the Gates by Ron Riekki, Michigan
• Welcome to FOB Haiku by Randy "Sherpa" Brown, Iowa

We also published, along with the editors of Chicago-based literary journal Line of Advance, the anthology Our Best War Stories: Prize-winning Poetry & Prose from the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards.

Whether you are from here or live here—or just adhere to a particularly Midwestern sensibility—we would love to read your work!

• Submit Microsoft Word (.DOC or .DOCX) files; Times New Roman, 12-point type.
• Each poem should be presented on its own page. (Use page or section breaks.)
• Include an "Acknowledgements" page listing those venues and dates at which individual poems have appeared in print or on-line.

If accepted for publication, after a written and signed contract is place, Middle West Press LLC pays poets a $100 advance, on print and e-book royalties. "We pay authors; authors do not pay us." Royalties are generally 10 percent or greater of retail "cover" price. At any time—not just at the time of publication—authors may also buy their own copies at significant discount. These may be sold via their own readings and local bookstore venues.