Update: They have been closed to general submissions for a year now but plan to re-open to general submissions in the future.

Versify, a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers, is accepting submissions via email. Versify was started by the Newberry Award winning author Kwame Alexander, who you can learn more about here. The goal of Versify is to publish risky, unconventional books for children. They are looking for novels, non-fiction, picture books, and graphic novels. They also are probably the only imprint of Houghton Mifflin that has a Tumblr.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has no other imprints currently open to unsolicited submissions.

It is important to stress that they publish a very specific kind of writing. Kwame Alexander’s book The Crossover, a book of prose and poetry, which he struggled to get published, was the inspiration for the imprint. It is worth reading before submitting. Versify itself has yet to publish a book. It is the first publisher that we have reviewed that hasn’t had a publication history, but because it is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin, one of the big five, we do think it is well worth reviewing. Their first book will be published in 2019.

This is the official press release on Versify.

They do not respond to submissions unless they are interested in publishing your work. So if you have not heard from them in 12 weeks, it is safe to assume rejection.

To learn more, go to their submission guidelines here.

Bio: Emily Harstone is the pen name of an author whose work has been published internationally by a number of respected journals. She is a professional submissions adviser and spends much of her time researching manuscript publishers. You can follow her on Facebook here.