River River Books - Open May 1 to Submissions
Where Poetry Moves. Two editors, publishing (at least) two exceptional poetry titles a year & the Plainwater Nonfiction Series. Poetry submissions open May and June. Posts by @amorak.bsky.social and @hanvanderhart.bsky.social www.riverriverbooks.org
- Editor and author side-by-side—we love to see it! 🙏💙📚☺️
- Postcards have arrived for our Massachusetts Poetry Festival trip, end of the month! We hope you stop by and say hello at the Small Press Fair on Saturday, May 31! festival.masspoetry.org
- Every time we see a mandatory $25 or $35 reading fee we are going to repost our summer reading period w/ fee optional 💙📚
- Psst…we’re reading full-length poetry manuscripts now. Yes, we read them all. Yes, all submitters hear back from us before we announce selections. No, there’s no mandatory reading fee. 📚💙🌊🌊 riverriverbooks.org/editors/subm...
- Say you want to read fewer manuscripts and gatekeep who can submit. Just say that. 🙃
- Editor has a MIGRAINE.
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- We can’t wait to SEE YOU! 🙏💙📚
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- 🙏💙💙 That is so good to hear—thanks for sharing with us. We knew it was a special book the moment we started reading it in manuscript; one of a kind! 🌾
- Make good art. Support your communities. Fight fascism. riverriverbooks.org
- I am home, ask me anything. We love transparency at @riverriverbooks.bsky.social. Also: we’re open to full-length poetry submissions May 1-June 30!
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- Big fan. (Milton, Dante background)
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- Probably really sus sexual expression directed towards student figures or women by male speakers 🥴
- I LOVE THIS QUESTION. Take a walk. Plant something. Bake something. Hold a baby. Play with an animal. Visit a garden. Paint. Go on a date with a friend. Start a new project. Lay in the sun. Invent a mocktail.
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- I personally am a huge first poem significance advocate, ha. Especially when reading manuscripts in queue—first poems open the gate, set the tone, invite the reader in, prepare the musical & narrative way…last poems, too. So, yes, I think so.
- Submission guidelines below, and model contract here: riverriverbooks.org/editors/cont... Submissions via Duotrope 🙏💙📚
- Thinking about presses we love this morning—give them a follow, send your manuscripts their way, buy and support their beautiful work. 📚 🔥at://did:plc:sczn3f6ljcfwpxryk6cmenbr/app.bsky.graph.starterpack/3lonuzbweps2f
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- Booo. Tell him to shove. It!!
- Editor Han is home and bound to their heating pad & couch so ASK THEM QUESTIONS if you’ve got them—about submissions, press, etc 📚💙
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View full threadWhen submitting manuscripts do you have a strategy? Do you look for presses that match your values or submit to as many as possible? Thanks!
- Yes—look for presses with a history of supporting their authors, and making beautiful books. That have a clean, usable website. Distribution is a plus. I personally like to see social media presence. You don’t want to agonize once you receive an acceptance/contract offer—do your future self a favor!
- Hope you feel better! When submitting multiple poems to journals, is it generally better to submit similar works in case they go with a theme or different styles so editors can see your range?
- 1) The important thing is that you are submitting ⭐️ That is the work. Who amongst us hasn’t looked at a past submission and thought “omg I submitted THOSE POEMS TOGETHER,” ha. 2) it is impossible to guess your readers’ minds. 3) Submit poems you love, whether a sequence or wholly different.
- One question we receive several times per reading period is: Q. Can I submit my manuscript again? Do you want to see it again? A. And YES, we do! Revisions or no revisions. (Maybe it was in our top five last year and we loved it and couldn’t make another contract offer; we also love revisions.)
- Last year we received such an incredible crowd of beautiful submissions, by the way, and we had fifteen manuscripts at least that we would have LOVED to publish. We doubled our two acceptances per period, and accepted four. Y’all this is DIFFICULT work, to choose. 📚💙
- Finally got to listen to this interview today, and all the heart emojis in the world for these amazing poets.
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- Psst…we’re reading full-length poetry manuscripts now. Yes, we read them all. Yes, all submitters hear back from us before we announce selections. No, there’s no mandatory reading fee. 📚💙🌊🌊 riverriverbooks.org/editors/subm...
- Psst…did you miss Corrie Williamson on @poetrydaily.bsky.social? We got you 🌊🌊📚
- Some tasks are small and easy graces—the way the lupine cups the rain in its sleeves all day, the way my sister taught my grandmother, before her mind went, two new ways of expressing herself: Fuck, and I love you. —Corrie Williamson, @poetrydaily.bsky.social
- We are getting excited for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival end of this month—would love to see you there, poetry readers and writers! 📚💙
- Making postcards this morning… 🌊🌊📚
- Also…we’ll have those stickers you love! Something that was a DELIGHT at AWP was the age-range of happy crowing over these stickers 🙏🍑
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- Looking forward to your next adventure, Lloyd! 🎉 🎉 🎉 (As we joke at RRB: next step, profit!!)
- Just listened and it’s SO! GOOD! Omg. Joe and Corrie reading each other’s poems is astonishing at the end 🥰🙏💙📚🌊🌊
- SO PROUD, AHHH.
- HAPPY FRIDAY! We’re so excited to listen to this special episode of Yellowstone Public Radio’s RESOUNDS: Arts and Culture on the High Plains with Joe Wilkins and Corrie Williamson! 🎙️📚💙
- Some tasks are small and easy graces—the way the lupine cups the rain in its sleeves all day, the way my sister taught my grandmother, before her mind went, two new ways of expressing herself: Fuck, and I love you. —Corrie Williamson, @poetrydaily.bsky.social
- We are so ABUNDANTLY excited with our Rivers: Essays on Form and Water submissions—so many thanks, writers!—and THIS editor is excited for their last day of work today, and to tuck into so much incredible river reading 🌊🌊 THANK YOU!
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- Aww takes one to know one, Jack 🙏💙💙 Appreciate you!
- Someone called us a “scrappy little press” at AWP and since then sometimes we look at each other and murmur these words with tender, mock sincerity.
- Amorak is going to holler @ me for posting this 😎
- It’s Taurus season, baby
- And our Summer 2025 Open Reading Period for full-length poetry manuscripts is HERE! May 1-June 30. You can submit via Duosuma, our preferred system: riverriverbooks.org/editors/subm... OR reach out if you need to submit another way: riverriverbooks.org/contact 🌊 🌊 📚 #poetry
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- Sigh—due to shipping fees which have only become more prohibitive!
- Here’s our calls on Duotrope—our River essay anthology call closes today (you’ve still got time!), and our poetry manuscript submissions are OPEN! 🌊 🌊 📚
- Dear poets & writers—tomorrow (!!!) May 1, we are opening and closing windows and doors, like god, or maybe just like a small press. Read more at our site: riverriverbooks.org
- We read everything you submit (as long as it’s LITERALLY NOT A NOVEL, e.g. the cover letter says “here is my novel!” in our poetry submission queue: have pity on us), and you can submit fee-free, no special request needed. Read our submission guidelines here: riverriverbooks.org/editors/subm...
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- So grateful for this tender & incisive review by Amanda Auchter! 🙏😍🎉
- “This collection strikes a web-thin balance between danger and the balms which keep them at bay.” Amanda Auchter reviews Corrie Williamson’s Your Mother’s Bear Gun in @rhinopoetry.bsky.social! 📚💙
- Beautiful poem from Jennifer A Sutherland’s forthcoming House of Myth and Necessity (@riverriverbooks.bsky.social, 2026) featured in @versedaily.bsky.social today 📚💙🎉🎉🎉
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- Happy birthday, Claire!!! We’ll throw in some birthday extras! 🥰🙏📚🎉🎉
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- Congrats, Elizabeth! 🎉🎉🎉
- The Eno River in North Carolina, if you need a river moment today 💙
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- We appreciate hearing this so much, Tara 🙏💙📚 Thank you.
- Hi poetry babes—hope April finds you revising that beautiful, full-length manuscript, and that you consider sending it our way when we open on May 1. Submission guidelines here: riverriverbooks.org/editors/subm... Model contract here: riverriverbooks.org/editors/cont...
