Sarabande Series in Kentucky Literature
SUBMIT JULY 1 - JULY 31
Sarabande is proud to be an independent publisher headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. Each year since 2005, thanks to the generosity of benefactors from our home state and beyond, we have published a new work of Kentucky literature.
ELIGIBILITY
This series is open to writers and projects with ties to Kentucky. Employees and board members of Sarabande are not eligible. We accept manuscripts of poetry, short fiction, and literary nonfiction. Eligible submissions should meet at least one of the following requirements:
The author is from Kentucky or lives/has lived in Kentucky.
The manuscript is set in Kentucky or about a Kentuckian.
Additionally the author must be willing and able to travel to or within Kentucky for readings and public events.
It is highly recommended that those who intend to submit a manuscript familiarize themselves with Sarabande’s catalog. You can find some of our recent titles by Kentucky-affiliated authors to the right.
SUBMISSION Requirements
Submissions to the Sarabande Series in Kentucky Literature should include:
A cover letter that specifies your fulfillment of the eligibility requirements
A complete, full-length manuscript of poetry, short fiction, or literary nonfiction (48 to 100 manuscript pages for poetry, 150 to 250 for prose). Manuscripts should be paginated with a table of contents and an acknowledgements page.
A $22 reading fee.
Submission of more than one manuscript is permissible with separate reading fees. Simultaneous submissions to other publishers are permitted. We ask that you notify us immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Previous titles from the Sarabande Series in Kentucky Literature
2022: Ricky & Other Love Stories, stories by Whitney Collins
2021: Mare’s Nest, poems by Holly Mitchell
2020: Dear Damage, essays by Ashley Marie Farmer
2019: Even Shorn, poems by Isabel Duarte-Gray
2018: New Bad News, stories by Ryan Ridge
2017: Make/Shift, stories by Joe Sacksteder
2016: Witch Wife, poems by Kiki Petrosino
2015: Everywhere Home, essays by Fenton Johnson
2014: The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat, poems by Amelia Martens
2013: Model of a City in Civil War, poems by Adam Day
2012: Elegy on Kinderklavier, stories by Arna Bontemps Hemenway
2011: Red Holler: Appalachian Literature, edited by John E. Branscum and Wayne Thomas
2010: Gin & Bleach, poems by Catherine Wing
2009: Small Fires, essays by Julie Marie Wade
2008: The Name of the Nearest River, stories by Alex Taylor
2007: Black Sabbatical, poems by Brett Eugene Ralph
2006: The Motel of the Stars, a novel by Karen McElmurray
2005: The Guyanese Wanderer, stories by Jan Carew