Updated March 12th 2021: In spite of not stating this on their website, Guernica makes it clear that they need additional funds to publish books by international authors, either through pre-agreed book purchases, and/or “external funding”. They say this is to make up for the money they would lose by not receiving funding by the Canadian government. They offer this explanation without reading the manuscript, which has particularly negative implications, that they are operating fully as a vanity press with these manuscripts, and pretending otherwise. This is not standard practice for a traditional publisher. I would not submit internationally to them. I feel like this reflects poorly on their reputation within Canada as well, because this is not how a traditional publisher should behaving. We are monitoring this situation.
Guernica is a leading Canadian publisher with good worldwide distribution, and excellent distribution in Canada. Established in 1978, they publish Canadian and international authors works of literary fiction and nonfiction. They are highly respected. You can get a good feel for what they publish by going here.
Guernica’s annual reading period runs from January 1 to April 30. It is open for the same time period every year. Submissions are only allowed during this window.
During this time they are also open to submissions for their MiroLand imprint. For this imprint they “accept queries in the areas of memoir, how-to, self-help, graphic novels, art books, cookbooks and children’s literature, as well as genre literature”. When querying to the MiroLand imprint, please indicate as much. Before querying get a feel for what MiroLand publishes by visiting their website here.
They accept queries via their submissions form (on the right of their web page), and manuscripts via email (with the manuscript attached).
Do not query or submit unless you feel like your work is a good fit.
To learn more, go to their website here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2020 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.
