2024 Four Way Books June Open Reading Period

Submission Dates: June 1 – June 30, 2024

Open to all poets. Book-length poetry collections.

Submissions accepted online only.

Please read the following instructions carefully:

 

General Guidelines (for all submissions)

BE SURE YOUR NAME DOES NOT APPEAR ON YOUR MANUSCRIPT. Our online form via Submission Manager will capture your contact information.

Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript in English.

Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in chapbook, magazine, journal or anthology form, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished. You may include an acknowledgments page of previous publications if you would like to do so.

Page lengths: A single poetry collections, approximately 48-80 pages of text, no more than one poem per page, please. More than one section of a poem can appear on a page, of course. These are page length suggestions. We allow more or fewer pages.

Please use a legible 12 point font. Please use 1-1/2 or double spacing for fiction; for poetry, your preference. You may include a table of contents, acknowledgment page, etc. if you would like to do so.

Do not include art work.

Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.

You may submit multiple manuscripts, but each must be treated as an individual submission, submitted separately, and each requires an entry fee of $30.00 per submission. Each must have complete contact info, etc. If you have entered the Levis Prize you may still submit to the June Open Reading Period.

If you pay the entry fee but fail to submit your manuscript by the deadline, your fee will not be returned.

Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

In the event of a condition beyond our control (website down, internet down, power outage,  or other extreme circumstances), the deadline will be extended and notice will be given along with the reason for the extension.

Due to the cost of running an independent press and the capacity of our small-but-mighty staff, it is a necessity that we charge submission fees for our reading periods. However, we do not want to exclude writers who cannot afford a reading fee, whose work is equally valuable and necessary in the world. We offer a limited number of fee waivers each reading period—as many as we are able, on a first come first serve basis. Please contact us (editors@fourwaybooks.com) if you need one, and we will provide it if we have not yet reached our cap. Thank you for sharing your writing with us.

 

Online submissions:

Our Reading Policy

Our preliminary readers are selected by the director of the press and are published writers, experienced editors, and/or writers who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. We do not employ students to read manuscripts. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We rotate our readers seasonally so that those writers who wish to re-submit to Four Way Books can be assured that their manuscript(s) will receive fresh “reads.” Selections for publication are made by the publisher and director of Four Way Books.