We are currently reading submissions for New Writing, Essays, Book Reviews, and Feature Projects. Please read the guidelines carefully before submitting. While we are not currently accepting open submissions for our Chapvelope series, if you have an idea that you think might interest us, please do share it with us via email.

We will be reading New Writing submissions from August 1 through October 31.

We have recently moved from email-submissions to a submissions manager, SubMishMash. If you experience problems submitting this way, please email your submissions to submissions@theoffendingadam.com. However, we do prefer that you use SubMishMash if at all possible.

New Writing

‘New Writing’ is currently open for submissions through October 31.

‘New Writing’ includes poetry, visual poetry, ekphrastic poetry, mixed genre work, or anything else you think might be of interest. While we are not currently looking for fiction, if your fiction is less fiction and more poetry (or some other beast) please submit. All submissions will be read blind. We respond within 1-3 months. If you have not heard back after 3 months pass, please contact us.

We do not have a specific aesthetic policy, preferring instead to seek out work that makes this journal memorable, filled with poets who create remarkable work. We encourage you to read through the work we have published before submitting.

Our editorial process is a bit different from other journals. Please send 3-5 previously unpublished works and a brief aesthetic statement of purpose. Why do we care about you beyond your submission? Each publication is accompanied by an editorial introduction. It is important that your editor has an understanding of your work and your purpose, which can then be communicated to our readers. We prefer for submissions to be in .pdf format to ensure that your formatting is preserved. You can convert your files to .pdf here.

Please submit 3-5 works, a brief aesthetic statement, and anything else you think we might find pertinent here.

Essays

We are looking for pertinent, engaging, and well-researched essays on poetry and related topics. Some specific ideas we are interested in beyond the run of the mill essay are ‘a brief introduction to…’ focusing on as-yet-unbiographied writers or literary movements, an extended reading of a single poem, or a retrospective of a lost/forgotten work.

We are looking for essays of 2000-4000 words, though length is secondary to quality. For interviews, please send a cover letter, a brief bio on the intended subject, and a query including the topics you wish to probe.

To submit, send a cover letter and abstract here.

Book Reviews

We are looking for reviewers who take a critical viewpoint, whose reviews go beyond mere positive/negative response or brief summary. Tell us why we should spend time with a given work and what we should get out of it.

Books over one year old should be either overlooked or undernoticed the first time around. We get especially excited about independent and university press books and chapbooks. We also consider books from 10+ years ago as a retrospective, though we would prefer that they be treated as a poetics essay.

We are looking for reviews of 1000-2000 words, though length is secondary to quality. To review a book, send a cover letter and query or completed review here.

View our list of available review copies here.

Publishers and authors who want their books available for review, please contact us at: editors@theoffendingadam.com

Feature Projects

We are always open to other projects that, while not fitting in the above categories, deserve to be presented to the public. This could include translations, an interview, visual art, photography, video pieces, audio recordings of poetry readings or obscure folk music festivals, or anything else you can dream up.

To submit a special project, please send an introduction with an abstract or query explaining the project here.