open submissions: we’re Currently open for the following
Nonfiction books (January 5 through February 19, 2023): We're interested in full-length memoirs and essay collections that combine personal narrative with... something else. That could be reportage, criticism, history, etc. We're especially interested in projects where the external element has something to do with pop culture, and projects that do something unexpected and original with form and structure. Full submission guidelines are here.
Conversations and Connections: Practical Advice on Writing conference in Washington DC on April 15, 2023: Proposals for workshops or panel discussions for our conference in April in Washington, DC. (Note that we’re full for poetry, publishing, writing life; we need fiction and nonfiction proposals). Full submission guidelines are here.
Book reviews (open, ongoing): Barrelhouse loves to celebrate books just like you do, so let's do that thing together! We're interested in running reviews of books that fit Our Whole Thing. You read Barrelhouse, so you know what we're about. Let that be your guide. Full submission guidelines are here.
General guidelines
Thanks for thinking of us as a home for your work! Unsolicited submissions are the fossil fuel that keeps the Barrelhouse moped puttering along on the side of the literary highway.
Please read these instructions before you submit. We know we aren’t reinventing the wheel here, but it will make it easier on all of us if you have a general sense for what we’re looking for and how we’d like to get it.
We accept submissions through the Submittable online submissions manager. That’s the only way we accept submissions.
We pay $50 to each contributor to our print and online issues.
No previously published work.
We accept simultaneous submissions — you would have to be insane to be sending your stuff out to one place at a time, right? Seriously. We hope you’ll tell us as soon as possible if you place the work elsewhere, though.
There is no maximum length, although we tend to publish stuff shorter than 8,000 words
Please submit only one piece at a time. Except for poetry. You can submit up to five poems. Everybody else — just one!
It will probably take us ~six months to get back to you. We try to do that faster, but there are few of us and many of you.
About electronic files: Please only send us word or rich-text (.rtf) files. Seriously. If you send something in a file format that we can’t read, it greatly reduces your chances of publication. For poetry, please submit your poems as a single document.
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