Submissions
Raven Chronicles Press announces
a new annual BOOK CONTEST: Keepers of the Fire
Raven Chronicles announces our inaugural Keepers of the Fire prize for fiction and nonfiction manuscripts. Chosen authors will receive an advance of $1,000 and 50% of net revenues.
We seek manuscripts for publication in spring 2025 on the theme Habitat: Planet Earth.
Each year we will publish two books, one fiction (speculative, utopian, historical, etc.), and one nonfiction (creative nonfiction, memoir, scientific, historical, etc.). A new theme will be chosen each year.
2024 deadlines for 2025 publication: Submit work July 1-October 1, 2024, through the Submittable platform.
Judges:
Fiction: Paul Hunter
Nonfiction: Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor
Theme: Habitat: Planet Earth: We live in a complex ecosystem that is a natural unit consisting of plants, animals, and microorganisms that function together with all the abiotic (water, soil, sunlight) components of the environment. We seek work that encourages new and creative ways of thinking and acting upon seemingly intractable problems. Consider writing about personal factors that affect and influence your environment and your interactions with plants and animals. Your possibilities are limitless.
As Robin Wall Kimmerer states in her introduction to Braiding Sweetgrass:
“As a society we stand at the brink, we know we do. Through the hole that opens at our feet, we can look down and see a glittering blue and green planet . . . vibrating with birdsong and toads and tigers. We could close our eyes, keep breathing poison air, witness the extinction of our relatives and continue to measure our worth by how much we take. . . . Or perhaps we look down . . . and yearn to be part of a different story.”
Work should reflect indigenous and/or newcomer wisdom, and inform and enlarge our knowledge of, for example, art, science, culture, politics, media, religion, or information technology.
We can’t wait to hear your stories.
Submit work between July 1-October 1, through the Submittable platform;
There is a $10.00 fee for each submission;
Choose either fiction or nonfiction category: not both;
Manuscripts should be between 20,000–50,000 words;
Do not include any identifying information in the body of your document: these are blind submissions;
Please provide a brief cover letter that includes a short, third-person bio with your publication history;
Submission document should be in 12-point font, double-spaced, and PLEASE use a typical font such as Times Roman, Arial, or Calibri. No fancy fonts, or submission will be rejected;
Please submit unpublished manuscripts only; previously published single stories or essays are accepted if part of your unpublished manuscript;
Only one submission per writer per year;
Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but note that in your cover letter and please notify us immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere;
WE DO NOT ACCEPT AI-GENERATED WORK FOR THIS CONTEST
Notifications will be made by Late October or early Nov. 2024
Please verify your email address with Submittable before you submit your work;
IF you have questions, please email us editors@ravenchronicles.org (subject Keepers of the Fire Book Contest).
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Book reviews: We solicit (all year) book reviews of regional and national books of importance to our readers. Especially, reviews of books from small publishers that need a wider audience. We pay a small fee for reviews.
Paul Hunter’s poems have appeared in numerous journals—including Alaska Fisherman’s Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bloomsbury Review, Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Raven Chronicles, The Small Farmer’s Journal, The Southern Review and Spoon River Poetry Review—as well as in ten full-length books and three chapbooks He was a featured poet on The News Hour and has taught at the University of Washington, the Overlake School, the Skagit River Poetry Festival, and the Oregon Poetry Society. For over twenty years Hunter published fine letterpress poetry in Seattle under the imprint of Wood Works, including 26 books and over 60 broadsides.
His first collection of farming poems, Breaking Ground, 2004, from Silverfish Review Press, was reviewed in The New York Times, and received the 2004 Washington State Book Award. Three companion volumes followed, all from Silverfish Review Press: Ripening, 2007, Come the Harvest, 2008, and Stubble Field, 2012. He has a prose book on small-scale, sustainable farming, One Seed to Another: The New Small Farming, from Small Farmer’s Journal. Davila Art & Books, Sisters, Oregon, published his book of prose poetry, Clownery, In lieu of a life spent in harness, 2017, and both novels Sit a Tall Horse, 2020 (2020 Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Short Stories), and Mr. Brick & the Boys, 2022. Forthcoming is a book of farming poetry, Love on Starry Dark Farm (Silverfish Review Press); looking for a publisher are two contemporary Western Novels: “Untaming the Valley” and “Desert Crossing.”
Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor received her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University in 2012, her MA degree in English with honors from Western Washington University in 2003, and her BA in Humanities from Washington State University in 1998. Her non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction have appeared in print and online in several journals and anthologies, including Katipunan Literary Magazine, Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults, Kuwento: Small Things, and Beyond Lumpia, Pansit, and Seven Manangs Wild: An Anthology. Her poetry chapbook Pause Mid-Flight was published in 2010. She is the co-editor of True Stories: The Narrative Project Vols. I, II, III, and IV, and her poetry and essays have been collected in Dancing Between Bamboo Poles and This Uncommon Solitude: Pandemic Poetry from the Pacific Northwest. She has been performing as a storyteller since 2006, and specializes in stories based on Filipino folktales and Filipino-American history.
Works in Progress: “Maganda’s Comb” and “Women of the Banyan Tree: Journeys of Mothers in Wartime.”