Aqueduct Press was founded in 2004. Their motto is “Bringing Challenging Feminist Science Fiction to the Demanding Reader.” They go into more details in their mission statement that you can read here.
You can get a feel for what they publish by going to their home page here. Their focus is very much on promoting the work they publish, not recruiting authors. Both their website and the covers of the work they publish, are basic, but well formatted and easy to interact with. They pair each cover image with a blurb endorsing the book, and most of these blurbs are well chosen.
They are open to novels of any length, as long as they are feminist science fiction, as well as original novellas poetry and prose work for their Conversation Pieces series. This work must be between 20,000 and 35,000 words in length.
Obviously this is a specialized press, and so if your work does not fit their stated needs, please don’t submit it, or even reach out to them. They are open, on a case by case basis, to nonfiction and short fiction collections, but you must query first. Please note they have different email addresses for querying and submissions.
They ask that you submit electronically either as .doc or as rtf if you do not have Word. They ask for a cover letter that introduces you and your work to date, including links to your website or other locations online that focus on your work. They also ask for a synopsis that is not more than 2 pages single spaced.
They have strict formatting guidelines for the document itself that they outline here.
Aqueduct Press does not appear to have distribution in bookstores and most of their titles don’t have many listed reviews on Amazon.
To learn more and potentially submit, go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
