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.
Prayer of Scalpel & Ash is a rare creation of song and scar, of deep vulnerability and raw humanity, of emotional complexity and simple witness. In a world where empathy is under threat of erasure, Riddell’s structurally unique, heartfelt yet conceptual poetry delicately balances illness, family, broken landscapes, broken bodies, broken faith, and our constant reaching for something beautiful we cannot name but know must be there, just beyond our fingertips. There’s such sharpness to Riddell’s metaphors, such richness to the painfully stirring world she builds for us, both defining and pushing against the edges of our shared human experience. These poems choose to both celebrate and mourn everything they touch. Even their own ghosts. Even that greater truth that always remains just slightly out of reach, that she refuses to stop reaching toward.
John Sibley Williams, author of As One Fire Consumes Another
prayer of scalpel & ash
prayer of scalpel & ash
Recent titles
Without a Prayer by Scott McConnaha
Confirm Humanity by El Bentivegna
Prayer of Scalpel & Ash by Amy Riddell
Prayers Are the Kites We Fly by Toni Ortner
Spotting the Rise by Richard Jordan
advance directives by Dani Gabriel
Biloxi Back Bay by Rob Greene
Talking by Stephanie Staab
Someone Is Looking for You by Cary B. Ziter
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.
