innovative. daring. beautiful.
Rockwood Press makes right-sized poetry chapbooks for people who need poems.
We believe chapbooks are an art form as much as a literary form, perfectly suited for revolution, protest, political change, and social critique. They can be both haunting and hauntingly beautiful.
We believe in emerging and established poets and aim to make room for all kinds of mighty voices in teeny books that might not otherwise find their way into the world.
We believe that a work doesn’t have to be full-length to have a full life. That’s why almost all of our releases are open editions.
Playful, moving and inventive poems that describe an ever-evolving love story between mother and daughter. Gupta is an astoundingly talented new poetic voice. Wholehearted and multifaceted, this is a glorious collection that celebrates the multitude of ways mother-daughter love can be expressed.
—Sophie Howarth, author of Everyday Wonder and co-founder of The School of Life
In my mother is a mixed metaphor, Shivani Gupta refuses the tidy immigrant daughter narrative. Through turmeric-stained memories and long-distance voice notes, Gupta writes with startling specificity—moving between wit and wound—about loving her mother fiercely while choosing a life thousands of miles away. This is brown daughterhood as inquiry, a collection that insists we can be both like and unlike our mothers and still keep “reaching, reaching, reaching.”
—T. De Los Reyes, author of And Yet Held
This collection captures the essence of so many shared experiences between mothers and daughters, the roles we play and how women disappear in their roles. It is also about witnessing your mother being capable of an unbounded life. Most of all, this collection is exceptionally special to me because of who it’s about.
—Anuja Jaiswal, mother, sister, niece, and writer
my mother is a mixed metaphor
my mother is a mixed metaphor
Recent titles
Off to War, Daughter by Trapper Markelz, coming March 26!
Different With Him by mk zariel, coming March 13!
my mother is a mixed metaphor by Shivani Gupta
The Biology of Leaving by Candice M. Kelsey
Sky Over by Lana Hechtman Ayers
Lavender Stones by Kenneth Pobo
From the Bowels of Molluscs by Carlie Daley
Banana Pancakes by Annalisa Hansford
A Razor’s Edge by Matthew J. Andrews
In the Way of Things by Nicholas Skaldetvind
On Music: Collected Poems by Nancy Dillingham
Without a Prayer by Scott McConnaha
Confirm Humanity by El Bentivegna
View all our available chapbooks
submissions
We select manuscripts through an open submissions process that occurs year-round.
Manuscripts should be tightly linked collections of ten to thirty poems or up to forty pages, submitted in .rtf, .doc, or .docx formats only. All submissions should be made via email. We do not accept unsolicited paper submissions.
Eligibility: Poets writing in English are eligible. Previous book publication is not a consideration. Simultaneous submissions are permissible, but entrants are asked to notify Rockwood Press immediately if a manuscript becomes committed elsewhere.
There is no open submission fee.
We do our best to reply to submissions within one month, but the time can vary depending on submission volume. If your work has not been accepted or declined, it’s still under consideration. Every submission is considered thoroughly before a response is made.
All submissions are eligible for publication by Rockwood Press with a standard royalty contract.
submissions at Rockwood Press dot com
If we seem familiar
That’s because, Rockwood Press, a not-for-profit literary imprint, is a project of Fernwood Press and its parent company, Barclay Press. For years, we’ve made our books and full-length poetry collections available through POD services, but we wanted to produce more books in-house where we have control over color, texture, paper quality, and the overall shape each project takes.
We’ve also seen a ten-fold increase in poetry submissions over the last year and sensed from our conversations with writers that it’s getting harder and harder to find homes for good work.
The project of Rockwood Press is to bring more great poetry into the world in smaller, focused collections that can be produced locally, quickly, and beautifully.
