Submission Guidelines

Please note that Sarabande Books does not accept electronic submissions.

Sarabande Books holds two national contests: The Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry and the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, judged by well-established writers.

For 2010, the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry will be judged by Amy Gerstler and the Mary McCarthy Prize in Fiction will be judged by Francine Prose.

Announcing our 2009 Katherine A. Morton Prize in Poetry winner: Julia Story for her collection, Post Moxie. Julia Story's childhood in Indiana was full of pets, grass, books, and Presbyterians. She earned graduate degrees in creative writing from The University of New Hampshire and Indiana University and has worked as a high school teacher, short order cook, secretary, store clerk, waitress, and professor. Her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Octopus, Ploughshares, Sentence, The Iowa Review, and other magazines. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Four runners-up were chosen:
Carrie Fountain's Burn Lake
Gavin Adair's Fire in the Streets
Rick Bursky's Death Obscura
Tanya Larkin's Enemy Love Song

Finalists included Scott Bailey, David Keplinger, Barbara Louise Ungar, and Keith Ekiss

Announcing our 2009 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction winner: David Philip Mullins for his short story collection, True Love Versus the Cigar Store Indian. Mullins grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, New England Review, Cimarron Review, and North Dakota Quarterly and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has held the Dorothy and Granville Hicks Residency in Literature at Yaddo, has won third prize in the Playboy College Fiction Contest, and has been a finalist for the Indiana Review Fiction Prize. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife and daughter, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.

Finalists for the McCarthy Prize included Karl Harshbarger, Judith Emlyn Johnson, Chap Simpson, Bryn Chancellor, Joan Connor, Kelly Luce, and Joe Brainard.

For guidelines and a required entry form, please send a business sized, self-addressed, stamped envelope, or download from this site:

The Kathyrn A. Morton Prize in Poetry
The Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction
Required Entry Form

Open Submissions

Update to September Submission Guidelines

In the past, Sarabande has welcomed submissions of poetry and short fiction during the month of September without charging a handling fee. Unfortunately, the number of submissions has risen so dramatically over the years we've had to hire additional staff, and this during a period when we are trying to shrink our expenses. We considered closing the submission period permanently, as many other independent presses have done, but didn't think that was entirely fair.

So it is with much regret we must ask writers to include a handling fee of $10 along with their submissions. We do offer a second option: Buy one Sarabande book of your choice from our Website and we'll waive the fee. Just include the email confirmation of your purchase along with your submission.

Many thanks for your understanding. All other September requirements remain the same as explained below.

Please note: we do not return manuscripts, so do not send originals. Open submission season is during the month of September only (for writers of creative nonfiction, please skip to the next paragraph). We ask that writers query first with a sample of 10 poems, a single story, or a section of a novella or short novel postmarked in September. Response time is under three months. A self-addressed, stamped envelope for reply is required, as well as the $10 handling fee or copy of your book order confirmation email (see above). After this preliminary reading, we may invite writers to submit an entire manuscript.

For writers of creative nonfiction, our open submissions are year-round. All queries should contain a cover letter and writing sample (a single story, chapter or short section), along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Sarabande Books publishes complete manuscripts of poetry of 48 pages minimum. We also publish collections of short stories, novellas, short novels, literary nonficton or essay collections that fall between 150-250 pages. We do not consider longer novels, mysteries, westerns, children's books, adventure, historial fiction or nonfiction, or science fiction, nor do we publish single poems or stories. As we publish many finalists and semi-finalists from our literary contests, most of our new acquisitions come through our contests.