I am happy to announce that my poetry press, Terrapin Books, is currently open for submissions of full-length poetry manuscripts. This submission period opened on January 24 and will close on February 28, 2021.
Be sure to read our Guidelines before submitting. Please note that we request both a bio and a descriptive statement with your submission. Be sure to include both. Most questions are answered in our FAQs, so be sure to read that page also.
Our Guidelines ask for a manuscript of approximately 40-55 poems for a book of approximately 90-110 pages (page count includes poems, front and back matter, and section pages). Please note that your book will be longer than your manuscript. If you have 40-55 poems, go ahead and submit. Let us worry about book length.
Here's some general information about the press:
We publish only poetry books, primarily single-author collections but also an occasional craft book or anthology.
Terrapin Books is committed to publishing outstanding books of poetry by outstanding poets. We intend to fully support our poets. We will carefully edit your manuscript and work with you on revisions. We expect our poets to actively engage in promoting their books. We require our poets to maintain a dedicated website and to be a member of Facebook. We regard the publication of a book as a collaboration between publisher and poet.
Our books are 6 x 9, paperback, perfect bound, color cover, with printed spine (poet's name, title, press). Covers are either matte or glossy.
We pride ourselves on the beauty of our covers. Please visit our Bookstore to see examples.
We are committed to publishing accepted titles within six months of acceptance. We do not maintain a long list of books-in-waiting.
We offer a standard contract, a generous number of author copies, a substantial discount on additional copies purchased by the author, and an annual royalty payment.
We welcome submissions from poets at any stage in their career. Some of our poets have a long publication history with multiple books. A few of our poets have two books out. And we are very proud to be the publisher of several debut collections.
We look forward to reading your work.
It hardly seems possible that it was five years ago this month that I
started Terrapin Books! And yet our Open Reading period #10 ended on August 31. There's cause for celebration. Each year the number of submissions increases and the quality of those submissions goes up. I accepted four outstanding manuscripts during the August reading period. I
also accepted the first two titles for our new Redux Series for poets with a previous Terrapin
title.
I wish I could
take more manuscripts for publication, but I want to give careful attention to each poet and
each book. That means carefully editing each manuscript and going through multiple back and forths during revision and proofreading. There is also a good deal of time that goes into cover design. I look forward to working with the four new Terrapin poets and the two returning poets.
Since starting Terrapin Books, I've published 24 single author collections:
Neil Carpathios, Confessions of a Captured Angel
Lynne Knight, The Persistence of Longing
Jessica de Koninck, Cutting Room
Christine Stewart-Nunez, Bluewords Greening
Patricia Clark, The Canopy
Carolyn Miller, Route 66 and Its Sorrows
Susanna Lang, Travel Notes from the River Styx
Hayden Saunier, How to Wear This Body
Michelle Menting, Leaves Surface Like Skin
Karen Paul Holmes, No Such Thing as Distance
Geraldine Connolly, Aileron
Michael T. Young, The Infinite Doctrine of Water
Lisa Bellamy, The Northway
Paige Riehl, Suspension
Gary J. Whitehead, Strange What Rises
Ann Fisher-Wirth, The Bones of Winter Birds
Sarah Wetzel, The Davids Inside David
David Graham, The Honey of Earth
Kory Wells, Sugar Fix
Dion O’Reilly, Ghost Dogs
Ann Keniston, Somatic
Yvonne Zipter, Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound
Heather Swan, A Kinship with Ash
In addition, the first title in our Redux series has just been published. This will be followed by the second title in February:
Patricia Clark, Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars
Hayden Saunier, A Cartography of Home (forthcoming)
Terrapin expects to publish the four recently
accepted manuscripts in
2021. Look for new books by the following poets:
Robin Rosen Chang
Meghan Sterling
Jeff Ewing
Diane LeBlanc
While our main focus is on single-author collections, we’ve also published three anthologies:
The Doll Collection, ed. Diane Lockward
The Book of Donuts, eds. Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham
A Constellation of Kisses, ed. Diane Lockward
And we've published three craft books:
The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop
The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop
The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics
A fourth craft book is underway but still very embryonic.
Terrapin looks forward to continuing to publish poetry books.We pride ourselves on the quality of our books and the beauty of their covers. We also pride ourselves on the collaborative relationship we try to build with each poet.
We hold two open reading periods each year. Our next open reading period will be January 24 - February 28, 2021. Guidelines are posted at the website. Perhaps you’ll join our list of poets?