Listed below are our current open calls. We are open for our chapbook contests from March to May, our open reading period for full-length poetry manuscripts from June to August, our broadside contest from September to November, and our open reading period for prose manuscripts from December to February. Our residency applications are open year-round. Other calls will be published here as they open.
Sundress Academy for the Arts Open for Spring 2026 Residencies
Deadline: September 1, 2025
The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is now accepting applications for short-term writing residencies in all genres—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, screenwriting, journalism, academic writing, and more—for their spring residency period which runs from January 4th to May 9th, 2026. These residencies are designed to give artists time and space to complete their creative projects in a quiet and productive environment.
Each farmhouse residency costs $350/week, which includes a room of one’s own, as well as access to our communal kitchen, bathroom, office, and living space, plus wireless internet.
Residencies in the Writers Coop are $175/week and include your own private dry cabin as well as access to the farmhouse amenities. Because of the low cost, we are rarely able to offer scholarships for Writers Coop residents.
Residents will stay at the SAFTA farmhouse, located on a working farm on a 45-acre wooded plot in a Tennessee “holler” perfect for hiking, camping, and nature walks. The farmhouse is also just a half-hour from downtown Knoxville, an exciting and creative city that is home to a thriving artistic community. SAFTA is ideal for writers looking for a rural retreat with urban amenities.
SAFTA’s residencies, which also include free access to workshops, readings, and events, offer a unique and engaging experience. Residents can participate in local writing workshops, lead their own workshops, and even have the opportunity to learn life skills like gardening and animal care.
As part of our commitment to anti-racist work, we are now also using a reparations payment model for our farmhouse residencies which consists of the following:
- 3 reparations weeks of equally divided payments for Black and/or Indigenous identifying writers at $150/week
- 3 discounted weeks of equally divided payments for BIPOC writers at $250/week
- 6 equitable weeks of equally divided payments at $350/week
Black and/or Indigenous identifying writers are also invited to apply for a $350 support grant to help cover the costs of food, travel, childcare, and/or any other needs while they are at the residency. We are currently able to offer two of these grants per residency period (spring/summer/fall). If you would like to donate to expand this funding, you may do so here.
For the Spring 2026 residency period, SAFTA will be offering the following fellowships only:
- SmokeLong Quarterly Fellowship for Trans Writers: one 100% fellowship for a trans writer
- LGBTQIA+ Fellowship: one 100% and one 50% week-long fellowship for writers who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community
- Black & Indigenous Writers Fellowships: one full week-long fellowship for Black and/or Indigenous identifying writers
The application deadline for the spring residency period is September 1, 2025. Find out more about the application process at www.sundressacademyforthearts.com.
The application fee is waived for all BIPOC identifying writers. For all fellowship applications, the application fee will also be waived for those who demonstrate financial need; please state this in your application under the financial need section. All application fees are used to fund support grants for Black and/or Indigenous writers.
Doubleback Books 2025 Open Reading Period for Previously Published Poetry & Prose Books
Deadline: September 30, 2025
Doubleback Books is open for submissions for previously published poetry and prose books. All eligible previously published authors are welcome to submit their manuscripts during our reading period from August 15-September 30, 2025.
If you are the author of a book that has gone out of print since 2000 because the press closed, we want to read it. Authors of works that have gone out of print due to the closure of the original press may submit full-length or short books, including novels, novellas, chapbooks, short story collections, poetry collections, essay collections, and memoirs. Editors may also submit out of print manuscripts their presses published before closing.
Submit your manuscript(s) in a .PDF or .DOC format to doublebackbooks2014@gmail.com and include the name of the manuscript’s original publisher, the name and contact information of the publisher’s former editor-in-chief (if available), and a brief cover letter in the body of the email telling us about your work and yourself, noting the genre of the manuscript.
Accepted manuscripts will be turned into downloadable e-books available for free. We do not republish translated work or previously self-published work. We occasionally open briefly at other times for reading periods; please follow Sundress for more information. Please view previously published titles at https://doublebackbooks.wordpress.com/titles.
Doubleback Books is an imprint of Sundress Publications. More information can be found here.
Sundress Publications Open for Broadside Contest
Deadline: November 30, 2025
Sundress Publications is pleased to announce that we are now open for submissions for our annual poetry broadside contest. The contest will be open for submission between September 1st to November 30th, 2025.
The winner’s poem will be letterpress-printed as an 8.5” x 11” broadside complete with custom art and made available for sale on our online store. The winner will receive $200 and 20 copies of their broadside.
To submit, send up to three poems, no longer than 28 lines each (line limit includes stanza breaks but not the title) in one Word or PDF document in each submission slot on the Google Form by November 30, 2025. Be sure to include a copy of your payment receipt or purchase order number (see below for payment of fees).
Please make sure that no identifying information is included in the submitted poems.
From September 1st through 14th, submissions to this contest are free for the first submission for any and all writers. If you submit more than one set of poems during the free period, only the first set will be accepted without payment.
Beginning September 15th, the reading fee is $10 per batch of three poems, though the fee will be waived for entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title. Entrants can place book orders or pay submission fees at our store.
Once the purchase is made, the store will send a receipt with a purchase code. This code should be included in the submission, or you may forward the email receipt at the same time as you send the submission. This fee is waived for all writers of color.
Previously published material is welcome so long as you maintain the rights to the work. Let us know in your cover letter if any of your submitted poems have been previously published. Poems translated from another language will not be accepted.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that authors notify us immediately if their work has been accepted elsewhere; poems accepted for publication are still qualified provided the author retains the rights to the work at the time of printing.
The judge this year is Stevie Edwards. Dr. Stevie Edwards is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University and Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review. Stevie’s poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of Quiet Armor (Northwestern University Press, 2023), Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). Her next book, The Weather Inside, is forthcoming from the University of Arkansas Press in Spring 2026 as part of the Miller Williams Poetry Series edited by Patricia Smith. She holds a PhD from the University of North Texas and an MFA from Cornell University. Originally a Michigander, she now lives in South Carolina with her spouse and a small herd of rescue pitbulls.
Any questions or concerns, as well as withdrawal notifications, can be sent to sundresscontest@gmail.com.
Sundress Reads Looking for Recently Published Books to Review
Deadline: Rolling
As part of Sundress’ Publications’ ongoing commitment to service and the importance of highlighting work from other small presses, we are now accepting submissions for consideration for inclusion in our review series, Sundress Reads. We’re looking to feature reviews for any books published or to be published in 2023 or 2024.
We at Sundress champion writers whose work highlights human resilience and challenges misconceptions. We will not consider reviewing any book that promotes actions or includes language that contribute to oppression. Books by authors from LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, neurodivergent, disabled, immigrant, incarcerated, and otherwise marginalized communities are encouraged to submit. Recent titles we’ve reviewed include Alicia Mountain’s Four in Hand (BOA Editions), Teow Lim Goh’s Faraway Places (Diode Editions), and Noreen Ocampo’s Not Flowers (Variant Literature).
Authors or publishers of books published within this date range are invited to submit books, chapbooks, or anthologies in any genre for consideration by our reviewers who are standing by. Books must be published by independent presses, university presses, or small presses; we do not accept submissions from “the Big 5” or self-published collections. Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis.