We're not currently open for submissions, but please check back with us every now and again.  You can get a sense of what we're looking for by reading what's below (or even better, by buying our books!).

 

Last Leaf Press happily publishes poets without a long pedigree of previous credits in print or online journals; while we think having some individual poems published elsewhere is a nice indicator of commitment to your art, we won't be sorting your work into a pile according to the number of other editors you’ve impressed.  We’re especially interested in reading well-crafted work from older poets who are relatively new to the writing experience.

 

We do believe that the work a poet submits for publication should have been written because the poet had the intention of communicating something to somebody.  The something can be almost anything, though at Last Leaf Press we’re partial to narrative poems that paint a picture of where the poet is in life and how they got there.  The challenge, as Wordsworth said, is that “ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way.”  We’d like the somebody our poets write for to be a general audience of thoughtful readers who may or may not have much experience with poetry.  In the latter case, we want the work to be the kind that will entice them to read more.  That means it should be engaging and accessible, genuine to the author's experience, and show real attention to the craft of poetic expression.

 

As a point of reference for submissions, poetry collections usually contain from 50 to 80 poems, or more.  Your submission should be sent as a single Word attachment to an email addressed to lastleafpress@gmail.com.  And please do use the email to tell us a little bit about yourself.  There is no fee for making a submission, and we'll do our best to let you know what we think about your work within six weeks.