Awards
Red Hen Press is proud to confer five annual literary awards: the Quill Prose Award ($1,000 prize and book publication), the Ann Petry Award ($3,000 prize and book publication), the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award ($3,000 prize and book publication) and the Cai Emmons Fiction Award ($5,000 prize and book publication).
Through the Los Angeles Review, we confer four annual awards: the Short Fiction Award, the Flash Fiction Award, the Creative Nonfiction Award, and the Poetry Award. A prize of $1,000 and publication in the Los Angeles Review will be given to four authors each season for exceptional writing in each genre.
We Accept Unsolicited Submissions
Red Hen Press is an independent, nonprofit press that publishes about twenty-five books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry every year. We’re looking for novels, memoirs, creative nonfiction, hybrid works, essays, and poetry collections of exceptional literary merit that demonstrate a high level of mastery.
We’re proud to publish work by authors who collaborate with Red Hen to present their work to the world through readings, workshops, podcasts, or livestreams. We are interested in authors who want to partner with us in building community, who want to be literary citizens, to be part of the robust work of building a platform, getting events (whether they are live, on Zoom, or as podcast episodes), and engaging in media as it works for them.
There are writers who write as therapy, who write in journals, who write and self-publish. We applaud all forms of self-expression.
At Red Hen, our team of twelve hard-working staff must raise money for each book to be edited, designed, printed, marketed, and publicized, so we take on authors who want to engage in the entire process.
We are excited about stories, about making change happen. We are always on the brink, taking off, ready for the next challenge. If you have a great book and are ready to partner with us to promote it, please send it along for our review.
Red Hen publications are diverse in style and subject but tend to have in common a certain wildness. Please familiarize yourself with our catalog before submitting.
Some of our recent narratives include:
Cursebreakers by Madeleine Nakamura (fiction): a thought-provoking exploration of curses and blessings all within the framework of a captivating fantasy world, centering on a queer professor living with bipolar disorder.
Floppy: Tales of a Genetic Freak of Nature at the End of the World by Alyssa Graybeal (memoir): one of the first books to explore the emotional landscape of living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome from a patient’s perspective; a playful story of falling down, getting back up again, and realizing you should have gone to the hospital sooner.
The Good Deed by Helen Benedict (fiction): the stories of four women living in a Greek refugee camp and an American tourist who comes to Samos to escape her own dark secret.
Sonnets for a Missing Key by Percival Everett (poetry): sonnets that leap and turn through philosophical musings accrued across a life well lived, with inventive language, crystalline imagery, and striking turns of phrase.
Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu (fiction): a breathtaking historical fiction novel exploring cultural divides, family, motherhood, and sacrifice from an Andaman tribe in WWII; described as “the most memorable and original novel I’ve read in ages” by Pico Iyer.
With your submission, be sure to include:
- A cover letter that includes the author’s name, contact information, and a brief synopsis of the work. For award submissions, this should be the only information included in your Cover Letter. For General Submissions, please include the above information and describe the author’s background, list any publication credits if applicable, and explain why the work is a fit for Red Hen Press.
- The work itself. For General Submissions, writers may submit either the full manuscript or a sample of between 20 and 30 pages. All manuscripts should include page numbers on every page.
Given the high volume of submissions we receive, please expect a response time of three to six months. We appreciate your patience.
Agented Submissions
Agented submissions should be sent directly to acquisitions@redhen.org.