SUBMISSIONS
Forest Avenue Press will be open to unagented novel manuscript submissions in January 2025.
Our 2025 submission period opens on Monday, January 6, and runs through Sunday, February 9. Our committee of readers is seeking at least two literary novels by US residents for our 2026-27 catalog.
The link below will go live when the submissions window opens.
Forest Avenue Press publishes literary fiction on a joyride. We’re currently seeking novels that dazzle us with language and humanity. We will not accept submissions for short story collections, novellas, poetry, or nonfiction at this time. Submissions of these genres will be automatically declined.
We are a traditional royalty-paying press, meaning that authors are not required to pay any fees to Forest Avenue and its associates. The press publishes an average of two titles a year, with full service distribution from Publishers Group West.
We love fabulism and magical thinking. We love metaphors and grand statements and jaunty characters. Our committee usually seeks some sort of joyous quality, whether that’s humor, whimsy, or interesting language. If your style is playful or gentle, your work may be a good fit for us.
Hard things happen in fiction, because that tracks with real life, but we’re not the place for trauma-centered projects, physical violence, or startling meanness. Bodily function scenes aren’t our thing. People just sitting around thinking are not our thing. We want something to happen, for there to be stakes.
Right now we’re drawn to projects where the antagonist isn’t obviously horrendous, but whose behavior gets in the way of what the protagonist wants. Like stories where a person means well but their decisions make everything harder for the lead character.
We’d like to see stories and points of view that are often overlooked by mainstream presses, with specific interest in authors who identify as BIPOC, queer, disabled, and/or neurodivergent. Forest Avenue began as a place for projects that weren’t finding traction in New York and that perspective continues to inform our submissions process.
Our sweet spot for word count is currently is 60,000 to 80,000 words. Sometimes we fall in love with 45,000-word books that come in strong with an idea and follow it through to unexpected results. (Think Chicano Frankenstein.) It’s unlikely we’ll take a novel over 105k.
We are drawn to authors who support other authors and local independent bookstores.
We are only able to work with authors who reside in the U.S. due to our locally focused publicity and marketing strategies.
FAQ
If you have previously published or self-published your manuscript, do not submit. Forest Avenue is seeking original, unpublished manuscripts.
Please tell us what the book is about. We don’t need a one-page synopsis, but give us enough information that we can tell what the plot is, what the stakes are, and why we should care about the characters. If you don’t take the time to describe your book, we’ll pass.
Unagented? That’s fine! This is an open submission call.
Agents, please self-identify. You’re welcome to submit your client’s work at this time, but please cap submissions at two projects.
Agented authors, if your agent isn’t submitting on your behalf, please let us know you have an agent in your query letter. Contact information would be helpful as well.
Simultaneous submissions are fine.
We are always interested in manuscripts that are connected in some way to the author’s lived experience; if you feel comfortable sharing that connection in the query letter, or as part of your bio, we’d appreciate that insight.
Your bio can include non-writing credits—things that make you you, that inform your way of writing and your themes. We’re a big fan of debut authors, so if you don’t have a book out already, that’s totally fine.
If you’ve met us or been referred by one of our authors, please put that in the first paragraph.
You must submit through Submittable; if you need a disability accommodation, email us so we can devise a workaround.
By US resident, we mean someone who lives in the United States and plans to continue residency in this country during the book publication period. Getting your mail sent to a US post office box doesn’t qualify as residency.
We do not consider manuscripts that were written with AI; in submitting to Forest Avenue, you’re confirming that your work is original and human-created.
If we declined your manuscript in a previous submission period and you haven't made any substantive changes, it's unlikely we will change our minds if you re-submit it. We're happy to consider a new, completed manuscript.
We recommend that you only submit a manuscript that has been through several phases of editing. If you just recently finished the first, or even the second draft, and it hasn't been reviewed by someone other than you (a peer writers group, workshop, developmental editor, etc.), it's unlikely it's ready for submission.
Good luck and thanks for considering Forest Avenue!