Articles by Emily Harstone

Emily Harstone is the pen name of a published writer. Her work has been published in ten countries, four continents, by over fifty different journals. She is a professional submissions adviser and editor. If she owned a dog it would be named Wystan.

The Importance of Trope Awareness

Over the last decade, the word trope has come to be used to describe commonly recurring motifs, clichés, and rhetorical devices in a wide range of creative works. Once you become aware of tropes, and how they’re used (and misused), they can become a useful tool in your writer’s toolkit. Some writers will say they…

Wisdom Publications

Wisdom Publications is an established small press focused on publishing books about Buddhism, including works in translation, academic works, works focused on mindfulness, Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as children’s books. They are distributed by Simon and Schuster and their books are widely available in print in North America. They accept unsolicited submissions…

Ten Manuscript Publishers Open to Submissions in October 2024

This list focuses on ten publishers that we are excited about that are open to submissions this month. Some are only open for a short period of time, others will be open the whole month and beyond. At least four of these are presses we have not covered previously. We are still reviewing a minimum…

Blue Snake Books: Accepting Submissions

Updated February 2026: They are still an active imprint but North Atlantic Book Company used to call attention to them directly as an imprint on their submission guidelines and that is no longer the case. Blue Snake Books is an imprint of North Atlantic Book Company. You can see our review of North Atlantic Book…

Orison Books: Accepting Submissions in October

Orison Books says they hope to “publish spiritually-engaged poetry, fiction, and nonfiction of exceptional literary merit.” They clarify that spirtual writing, in their opinion, isn’t based on the subject matter but in the “transcendent aesthetic effect on the reader, and reading it can itself be a spiritual experience.” They go on to say “such work…

Entwined Publishing: Now Seeking Book Manuscripts

Updated May 27th, 2026, This thread on Reddit, includes details about the potentially problematic contract not being updated or corrected since 2022. One has to take it with a pinch of salt, because of the context it’s being shared in, but it does not seem good. It’s also important to note that there is misinformation…

23 Memoir Publishers that Accept Direct Submissions

Memoir publishers that don’t require an agent to submit are few and far between. However, there are still options out there. Some are old and respected, others are new and still figuring things out. Not all the publishers on this list are currently open to submissions, but most are. Arcade PublishingArcade Publishing is an imprint…

7 Literary Journals that Accept Humorous Writing

Literary Journals as a whole lean towards serious writing, which means that writers that lean towards comedy are often left out. All of these journals focus on, or have a strong history of, publishing writing that is humorous. Please read their submission guidelines carefully and consider fit before submitting. Lowestoft ChronicleLowestoft Chronicle is an online…

61 Specialized Publishers Open to Manuscript Submissions

All of the presses on this list meet all of our guiding principles, but most of them have such a specific focus that we cannot justify writing a full review and sending it to our full list of subscribers. But they are still good publishers. Instead, we have compiled this list of mini-reviews. I have also…

Why and Where You Should Start Submitting Your Writing This September

“I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged… I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.” — Erica Jong Starting to submit your work to literary journals is a hard task. Before…

9 Publishers Open to Submissions in September 2024

This list focuses on nine publishers we are excited about that are open to submissions this month. Some are only open for a short period of time, others will be open the whole month and beyond. Please note that if a publisher doesn’t have a specific submission window they can close at any time, and…

Finch Books: Accepting Manuscript Submissions

UPDATED October 2nd, 2025: The Totally Entwined Group reorganized and they no longer have a Finch imprint. They are still open to submissions in terms of other imprints. Finch Books is part of the Totally Entwined Group which you can read more about here. The Finch imprint was established long after the original review, which…

Paper Angel Press: Accepting Manuscript Submissions

Updated December 4th, 2025:  Their imprint Graveside Press is facing significant financial issues. The editor has addressed it themselves here, without going into much details. There are more details on Reddit here and even more on Threads if you search Graveside Press (I wish Threads allowed direct links). While social media is not always the…

Second Sky: Now Accepting Manuscript Submissions

Second Sky is a brand new Science Fiction and Fantasy Imprint of Bookouture, which is an established digital publisher of commercial fiction, and an imprint of Hachette UK. We don’t review publishers till they have been been actively publishing for a year, but we make exceptions for imprints, as there is already an established parent…

Ryland Peters & Small and CICO Books: Accepting Proposals

Ryland Peters & Small (RPS) and CICO Books is an independent, illustrated publisher that publishes books focused on interior design, food and drink, craft, mindfulness and spirituality, health, humour and pop culture. They also publish children’s books. It’s easy to get a feel for what they publish here. RPS was started in 1995 by David…

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