Silent Clamor Press

Manuscript submissions

Silent Clamor Press opens submissions only during announced reading periods, typically once or twice a year. Before submitting, read at least two recent titles from the catalog to understand the press's aesthetic range—work that is linguistically precise, emotionally resonant, and unafraid of silence or fragmentation. They accept full-length manuscripts, chapbook proposals, and hybrid text/image projects. Include a brief cover letter that articulates your project's formal concerns and its relationship to the book as an object, not just a text. Simultaneous submissions are permitted with immediate notification of acceptance elsewhere. Response times are long (often 4–6 months); do not query before that window. The press does not charge reading fees, and it prioritizes work from underrepresented voices without making that a tokenistic criterion.

We appreciate the time a submitter spends on preparing a synopsis and author bio, however we do not look at those before reading the manuscript. Our decision rests on the quality of the manuscript alone. As such, please don't feel compelled to be clever in your pitch, or erudite in your presentation. It's a superb manuscript we're after, before anything else, and we make no assumptions based on the trimmings which accompany a submission. Sparse and plainspoken submissions are treated the same as delicately crafted ones. Before everything, we're humans doing our part to honor the tremendous sacrifice writers have made in their endeavors—we will never take that for granted, and will always treat others with the dignity and respect they deserve.