During the month of October, Tarpaulin Sky Press (www.tarpaulinsky.com) will be reading full-length manuscripts of poetry, fiction, and cross-genre work. There is no need to query first; simply mail the manuscript according to the directions below.

Manuscripts should be postmarked between October 1 and October 31, 2008. Writers who have not been published in our literary journal should include a $20 reading fee in the form of a check or a money order made payable to Tarpaulin Sky Press. Past contributors to Tarpaulin Sky Literary Journal may submit their manuscript with a $10 reading fee.

Manuscripts should be at least 48 pages in length. Send one copy of your manuscript along with two copies of the title page (note: the reading process is not “blind”–we ask for two title pages only so that we may keep one with the manuscript, and the other for reference/notes, etc). Be sure that your title pages include your name, address, telephone number, and email address. Cover letters are read with interest. We like to know who your are, what you’re up to, and where we can read more of your work. We do accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Individual pieces from the manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, anthologies, and short-run chapbooks, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished. Manuscripts will not be returned. Please do not send us your only copy.

Mail your submission to

Tarpaulin Sky Press
PO Box 189
Grafton, VT 05146

For notification of decisions, include a business-size SASE. If you would like to receive acknowledgment of the receipt of your manuscript, please include a stamped, self-addressed postcard. Notification of decisions will be made in February 2008. Publication of accepted manuscripts will be in 2009 & 2010.

Tarpaulin Sky Press publishes innovative poetry, prose, and hybrid forms, producing full-length books, chapbooks, trade paperbacks, and hand-bound books, as well as a literary journal that appears in online and paper editions. Their trade paperbacks are available though major retailers and independent booksellers alike, and are distributed by Small Press Distribution–where 60% of their full-length titles have appeared on the distributor’s “Best Sellers” lists, sometimes for several months. In addition to being included in “Ten Great Titles from Underground Presses” in Time Out New York, Tarpaulin Sky Press and its titles are featured and reviewed in places such as Poets & Writers, American Book Review, Rain Taxi, Bloomsbury Review, and Bookslut, among others.

For more information on the press and its submissions guidelines, please visit www.tarpaulinsky.com.