Submissions

All the info we have about our open submissions periods is on this page. WE ONLY ACCEPT UNSOLICITED WORK THROUGH OUR SUBMITTABLE PAGE, and we are not currently accepting any full manuscripts, so please don’t query about those yet. Subscribe to our newsletter, and we’ll let you know when we open for submissions of any sort.

Sticks & Bricks: Stories from the Wrong Side of the Tracks has a new title: The Wrong Side of the Tracks: Stories.
We have begun to notify everyone who submitted stories. You can read the Long list HERE. We plan to have it ready in time for AWP in Kansas City in February. (Luanne Smith will be there with many of the contributors.)

Gerry LaFemina’s Fantastic Imaginary Creatures Anthology is available to preorder NOW!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Motown Review is with the editors, who are loving what they are reading! When we know more about which contributions have been selected, you can learn about it right here! We hope to have the finished volume published in Spring 2024.

The 3rd Annual Arthur Smith Poetry Prize winners have been announced!

We’re reading and editing for the Robert Earl Keen Anthology. We’ll update you when we have some news…

We have one anthology project open for submissions right now:

Plain Folk: Notes on American Folk Music

The roots of American folk music defy time and place, elude genre and category, and are as diverse as both the immigrants and native inhabitants of this country. If traditional folk music consists of the songs, styles, and themes passed down through generations, contemporary folk music continues this American record of lives, loves, struggles, triumphs, and tragedies informing our collective human existence. From the sorrow songs to Delta blues, bluegrass, gospel, Appalachian mountain music, Native drum circles, Cajun, Hip Hop, and more, American Folk Music reflects back at us something deep and unshakeable about who we are, in ways few other art forms or even historical records can.We call for essays that carry forward this notion of American folk music–what it means to us as individuals, as Americans, and how it continues to give shape, expression, and meaning to our lives.

submit

Submitting Manuscript Queries

All manuscripts published by Madville Publishing undergo a rigorous vetting process before they are accepted for publication. We are turning away queries at present. We have more than we can read.

Formatting

Writers should ensure that their manuscript submitted for editing adheres to the following guidelines. 

Prose should be submitted in 12 pt., Times New Roman, double spaced, one inch margins and pages numbered. If it is not a contest submission, make sure your name and contact information is in the header and on the title page.

Poetry should be 12 pt., Times New Roman, single spaced, one inch margins, one poem per page, and pages numbered. Full manuscripts should include credits for previously published poems and a table of contents.

Style Manual: Madville Publishing generally follows the Chicago Manual of Style and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and defers to American spellings (e.g., gray, not grey). We use Oxford commas, em dashes with no space on either side, and ellipses with the three dots run together as in APA style (which assures that the ellipsis won’t break at the end of a line). Also, the standard is one space after end punctuation.  

Titles of books, films, albums, plays, art exhibits, television shows, podcast series, radio programs, periodicals, and newspapers should be italicized. Place quotation marks around the titles of short stories, poems, songs, and individual TV/radio/podcast episodes. 

Numbers can be tricky for poems, and we aim for readability and consistency. 

Regarding long lines and line breaks, in the first proof after layout the editor and the poet may decide whether to rewrite the line or break it differently. There should be no further changes in  line breaks after the first proof.