Little Pigeon Chapbook Series

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About the Little Pigeon Chapbook Series

Why Is the Series Called Little Pigeon?

Once upon a time, our scientific + historical brains accidentally made a press that ended up being Nikola Tesla-themed. There are of course complications with this, as Tesla was by no means a perfect individual (sigh, no human in history is perfect), but here we are, decades later. Most of our journals, series titles, and projects are given names that have to do with Tesla inventions. This one is a little different—this one gets its name from a Tesla trait.

In Nikola Tesla’s later life, suffering from mental illness and scientific blacklisting by Big Science, he claims that his only friends were pigeons. He talked to them, fed them, named them, read to them, sat for hours in the park watching and conversing with them. This series is named in honor of those little guys who helped buoy the genius of just one person who changed the world forever. This is what we want our little pigeons to do: fly out into the wilds to change one reader’s mind in order to change the world, little by little, feather by feather.

Reading Period

Submissions open: NOV 1, 2023
Submissions close: APR 30, 2024
Selections made: Within 4 months
Publication: 2025/2026

Publication

Selected manuscripts receive book publication on Alternating Current Press, which includes distribution through Ingram, Asterism, and all major online retailers. Publication is in paperback and ePub formats, with possible audiobook publication, as well, and includes 10 complimentary paperback copies, a complimentary digital copy in all formats, and 50% net royalties. Publication also includes our standard publicity package, including a press kit, a book-club reading guide, a press release, multiple mailing-list email blasts, social media, review and contest copies, and more. We generally select 4 to 6 manuscripts for publication from our open-reading periods.

Submission Guidelines

• We’re seeking chapbook-length manuscripts that have a single theme of some sort. We are seeking themed or linked pieces with a hook, and we are especially interested in themes with a historical or science bent. We are not interested in material that is not linked in some obvious way.
• Please note the chapbooks in this series are 4” x 6”, with 3” x 5” of working text space. Long lines will get broken, and horizontal concrete poetry or writing with a large shape will not work in this space. Prose forms and left-aligned forms with shorter lines work best in this space.
• All genres, styles, and subjects considered that can work within a small setting, including poetry, hybrid, prose poems, experimental, flash stories, flash memoir, one-act plays, textual/visual, &c.
• Chapbooks should be between-ish 10 to 40 pages, for a soft guideline.
• Manuscripts must be geared toward an adult readership. We are not interested in books for children.
• All work must be in English and must be the author’s own. Single work by multiple authors considered. We will also consider reliable side-by-side (English and a second language) translations for this category. We do not consider AI-generated works.
• These manuscripts are not read incognito. It doesn’t matter if your identifying information is or isn’t inside your submission file.
• If you need to adjust a submission, please use the Request to Edit option through Submittable. Please don’t request to edit for minor flaws, however—all accepted work will go through an editing process and will have the chance to be updated before publication, and your work will not be disqualified for a missing comma.
• All authors must be at least 18 to submit.
• Simultaneous submissions allowed. Please withdraw your manuscript through Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Previously published pieces are considered if they have never been published as a group in a standalone print volume.
• Submit via Submittable only. We do not accept email submissions.
• Straight or scholarly nonfiction should have citations.
• There is a $5.99 fee for each chapbook submitted. You may submit as many times as you’d like, but each submission must be made separately with a separate fee. The fee helps us with needed administration and book production costs, but it’s not meant to be too inhibitive. If you are unable to pay, please email us for an alternative submission method.
• Each paid submission comes with a digital copy of our latest Little Pigeon chapbook, currently black has every right to be angry, a collection of poetry about the historical and contemporary experience of being Black in the United States, by Ashley Elizabeth ($7.99 value).
• We will send a response and notification to every submission within 4 months. Form response only, unless we are interested in publishing your book. We are regretfully unable to provide feedback. If you have not heard back after 4 months, please feel free to follow up (kindly).
• We acknowledge that we are headquartered on what should be Arapaho land on a street that is instead named for a dead white male president who owned enslaved people and severed Native American Nations apart irrevocably. To honor the reparations that this entire country needs to make, Black writers and Native American Indigenous (United States and Canada) writers may submit appropriate manuscripts for free to this open-reading period (please note that if the portal is not open, then we have reached our free-submission monthly cap until the beginning of the next month).
• If you’re ready to submit, head on over to Submittable.

Chapbooks in the Little Pigeon Series

• black has every right to be angry: Poems by Ashley Elizabeth
• Letterlocking: Poems by Stephanie Staab
• Homeslice: Monologues of Millennialhood by Dayton J. Shafer
• Ox: Experimental Micropoems by Ryan Ridge
• Loving Monsters: Flash Stories by Laura Eppinger

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