Submissions

“Art-making is learned by immersion.” – Jane Hirschfeld

Green Writers Press is a publishing house located in rural Vermont with a mission to help spread a message of hope and renewal through the words and images we publish, and to help foster a sustainable environment. We hope to share beautiful words and art with the world, and we’d love it if you would accompany us on this journey.

Green Writers Press, an independent, Vermont-based publishing company, is dedicated to spreading environmental awareness and social justice by publishing authors who promulgate messages of hope and renewal through place-based writing and environmental activism. In the past six years, Green Writers Press has expanded significantly, publishing such authors as Julia Alvarez, Chard deNiord, John Elder, Dr. M Jackson, former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin, and Clarence Major. Our mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal through the words and images we publish. Throughout we will adhere to our commitment to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. To that end, a percentage of our proceeds will be donated to environmental activist groups and social justice organizations.

We use Submittable now (with no charge except for the occasional contest). We will look at poetry, fiction, short story collections, environmental essay collections, middle-grade, and YA/teen fiction, artwork, and photography. We are very interested in hearing from readers, writers, and artists. Since we are a small organization and so swamped with inquiries, we don‘t want you to feel lost if we don’t get right back to you! We value everyone‘s contributions, big and small.

We are open for submissions from March 1, 2024, until June 1, 2024.

Here is the link to our page on Submittable
submit

OUR IMPRINTS

Our Juvenile imprint Green Sprouts is for our picture books for younger readers (like our award-winning Josie Goes Green series and Salamander Sky). Unfortunately, our small size and lack of capital make it especially hard for us to afford to publish children’s 4-color and hardcover picture books. (Note: check out our Green Place Books imprint below if you want to look at other children’s picture book options for your proposal. For example, our FOREST DAYS KINDERGARTEN book was printed with help from a grant from Antioch University).

We also have an imprint called Green Place Books that curates books that tell literary and compelling stories with a focus on writing about place—these books are more personal stories/memoir, spirituality, education, caring for our elders, and biographies. If you want to designate your book for GPB, mention that in your cover letter.

We now offer a hybrid publishing partnership program to help authors and foundations publish books we love. We have partnered with Antioch University, The Sundog Poetry Center, First Light Foundation (Maine), Saddler’s Woods Conservation Association, and individual writers. The way it works is that the author or organization pays for editorial work (editing, copyediting, and proofreading), cover and interior design, book pagination, and printing. We are selective in this process and the books are submissions we would acquire if we had a large budget and a full-time staff. Our publicity and marketing platform is included in this partnership and is very grassroots and effective: a frontlist catalog including a catalog page one-sheet, press release creation, web page on our site with purchase link, book launch support, and book festival participation. Helping writers and nonprofit foundations do great work is a shared goal and the collaboration is so rewarding. The books we publish through this partnership are of the highest quality, printed sustainably, and distributed nationally and internationally. Independent Publishers Group (IPG) in Chicago handles our global distribution for all our books and they are very good at what they do and keep impeccable records. The nice part is that bookstores and libraries order all of our books direct from IPG (usually with a 40–50% discount), or via Ingram or Follett/Baker & Taylor.
If you are interested in talking to us about a partnership, email dede@greenwriterspress.com.
Visit our Bookshop.org affiliate page to see some of our books!

A word about timing . . . Please allow 3-6 months for a response. The one thing writers and artists should know, is that we have been swamped—happily so!—with submissions. We are having a hard time keeping up, so thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.


CURRENT PRIZES/SUBMISSIONS OPEN:

Our Howard Frank Mosher Book Prize in Fiction is a publication prize for a novelist or short story writer from Vermont or one who writes about Vermont and/or the themes that resonate so well with Howard’s work: love, friendship, forgiveness, nature, Vermont, solitude, that are part of Howard’s literary legacy. Vermont residency is not required. Submissions are closed at this time until we have sufficient funding to run the prize.

Mosher_Howard_Frank_200Howard Frank Mosher was the author of ten novels and two travel memoirs. Born in the Catskill Mountains in 1942, Mosher lived in Vermont’s fabled Northeast Kingdom from 1964 onward, when he and his wife Phillis came to teach there. Howard was the recipient of many awards for his fiction, including Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, the American Civil Liberties Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Vermont Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the New England Book Award, and the 2011 New England Independent Booksellers Association’s President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. Three of his novels, DisappearancesA Stranger in the KingdomWhere the Rivers Flow North and Northern Borders were made into acclaimed feature movies by the Vermont independent filmmaker Jay Craven. Phillis Claycomb Mosher still lives in the Northeast Kingdom and is a dear friend of our press.

The 2019 winner was Cassie Fancher for her story collection entitled Street of Widows.

In 2014, we founded an environmental literary magazine called The Hopper. To find out more, you can go to this link for details about submitting poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork. Some of The Hopper authors publish books with us, too! We love the magazine and it is now independent of our small press.

Sundog Poetry Center
Sundog Poetry Center is pleased to continue publishing work by Vermont poets with an annual book award for a first or second poetry manuscript, in partnership with Green Writers Press, who will design, print, and distribute the book nationwide. The final judge for the inaugural Sundog Poetry Book Award was Vermont Poet Laureate, and award-winning poet, Mary Ruefle. Stay tuned for the final judge for 2021. This contest is open to all Vermont-based poets. Submissions of manuscripts of a first or second book by a Vermont poet. A cash prize of $500 will be awarded along with 50 copies. Sundog Poetry will provide assistance with promotion through a featured book launch and readings scheduled throughout the state. Manuscripts should be between 48 and 64 pages. All submissions must be authored by a poet who resides in Vermont; proof of residency will be requested along with a $20 application fee online via Submittable. More info can be found on the website: (Link)


Our themes revolve around the environment and doing something to save it from greed and destruction. We like dystopian novels, fantasy (Polly and the One and Only World by Don Bredes), literary fiction about intensely personal subjects (Hidden View by Brett Stanciu), humor (as exemplified by the work of retired environmental studies professor, Brian Adams, Love in the Time of Climate Change) and (The Full Vermonty), science (check out While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change), and, most of all, we like good writing.

You can read about our freelance editors on our website and we have the best interns on the planet. We march, we grow our own food, we care about social and migrant justice, we want to live with the smallest carbon footprint possible, we went to Standing Rock and stand with the Native American water protectors, we care deeply about the environment and the fate of Mother Earth. Oh, and we love to read and most of our editors are also working writers!

Please join us, as readers, writers, activists, artists . . .
We look forward to reading your work!
THE EDs.

Thank you and happy writing, along with your environmental and social justice activism!