Submission Schedule 2025

January 1-April 18: New Southern Voices Poetry Prize
March 14-16:  Novels
July 11-13: Single-narrative nonfiction books
September 1-December 31: C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize
October 17-19: Debut and sophomore novels
 

For all our open calls, Hub City Press is eager to engage with work by writers from historically underrepresented communities, including—but not limited to—those who are Black; Indigenous; Latino, Asian, and Arab American; from immigrant backgrounds; disabled; neurodivergent; trans and LGBTQ+; debuting after 40; and without an MFA.

Please review our guidelines before submitting. We ask that writers provide their full manuscript and a brief query letter. Because of the small size of our staff and the volume of queries we receive, you might not hear back from us directly. Timeline for query response is usually within six months of the close of the submission period.

GO to submissions portal

October 17-19: Debut and Sophomore Novels

For this open submission call, we are seeking submissions of novels from Southern writers. We are always looking for debut novelists, but for this call we're also specifically looking for second novels from writers with one published novel already. Second books can be hard to place, and sophomore efforts often are overlooked. We want to see what you've got on your second time around.

We are hoping to see novels outside the box of "Southern literature." There's so much more to our region than sweet tea and magnolias. We invite submissions from weird to wild, soft to screaming. We'd be more excited to see a slim novel about a niche subject than a 400 page Civil War epic.

Recently in our catalog, we've published: a multi-POV tale set on Georgia island near a sunken atomic bomb, populated by a tiger; a coming-of-age novel written entirely in second person; a sweeping family story about AIDS in rural Kentucky, featuring chapters written as video diaries; a novel in stories about a fallen space shuttle scattered over East Texas; a swampy family drama featuring a mythical crocodile; a time-straddling look at forced adoption; a finely-wrought historical novel centered on the construction of a TVA dam; an anti-Western epic following a gay protagonist's journey to gold rush country with the literal devil.

We'd love to find: out-of-the-box historical novels, queer Appalachian folk retellings, weirdo Florida tales, experimental forms, literary speculative climate change fiction, voice-driven character pieces, auto-fiction. We'd like to learn something new about the South.

Unagented Submissions

Writers without agent representation may send to our open submission calls via Submittable. Please refer to the schedule above. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with our catalog before submitting. We cannot accept unagented queries via email, calls, or snail mail. Please do not call regarding submissions or submission status. Voicemails will not be returned.

In general, Hub City Press considers work from and about the following Southern States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. 

Submissions from Literary Agents

Hub City Press accepts agented submissions year-round. Contact Kate McMullen with questions about acquisitions. 

Cold Mountain Fund Series

Literary agents may submit directly to Meg Reid or Kate McMullen for the Cold Mountain Fund Series year-round. This series is a partnership between Hub City Press and National Book Award Winner Charles Frazier, spotlighting extraordinary fiction and nonfiction writers from the American South through the publication of one prose title annually. Hub City Press chooses these titles internally. Unagented submissions may be considered.