421 Atlanta Submission Guidelines
It’s 4:21 on 4/21 so, here, check out this post about 421 Atlanta.
Amy McDaniel isn’t just the head of Real Pants, she’s also the publisher behind 421 Atlanta, which started last year as a chapbook press and just put out its fifth book, Lucy K Shaw’s compact collection, The Motion. Doubtless you’ve heard about it. It marks 421’s move away from only doing chapbooks.
That’s relevant, because Amy just announced that submissions are open for new books, and she’s open to everything. But there’s a catch. You can’t submit your own work. Instead, you just nominate a person whose writing you like. Say the guidelines, “You may be the partner or dad or student or mentor or mom or acquaintance of whomever you nominate, or you may be a total stranger.”
Right after she announced on Facebook, I asked Amy for some more information.
ADAM: How’s it going so far?
AMY: Thank you! 3 submissions so far, all from strangers about strangers! Oh no, wait: 5.
So what kinds of manuscripts are you accepting, or, accepting nominations for?
Anything.
For full lengths and chapbooks and everything?
Yeah, sure! I mean the people who nominate don’t necessarily know what the author might have to submit. I ask for a 1-page writing sample, can be a doc or a screenshot.
The nomination includes the sample?
Yeah, that way I can real quick see if i want to research them further.
What’s the deadline?
It’s in a month—I want to have some time to get the word out.
How many do you hope to receive?
I’m hoping to receive lots and lots, because probably not everyone will have a manuscript, who I ask. And then i still might not want to publish it, it, so it’ll be a bit of a process.
If you have a lot of people nominating the same person, will that influence you?
Yeah that would influence me to take a closer look.
Oh, I see. Like, so you choose a nomination, then request a manuscript if you’re intrigued.
Yeah, I will probably request from more than one person.
And just see what happens.
Right, exactly. I have a tiny post about it here. I think it’ll be really special for everyone, like special for the scout, who will then be on the book’s team, and special for the author, even just that someone thought of them.
But they can’t know ahead of time?
No, they won’t ahead of time, so I’m not rejecting anyone.
So can i ask someone to nominate me?
No! The rules state, “On your honor, please do not ask someone else to nominate you.”
Fair enough. Nominate up to two people here.
Adam Robinson lives in Atlanta and runs Publishing Genius Press. He is the author of two poetry collections, Adam Robison and Other Poems and Say Poem.
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