f u g u e   s t a t e   p r e s s
p.o. box 80, cooper station
new york, ny 10276
208-693-6152 fax



guidelines for submissions


Dear authors, we're looking for innovative novels. We aren't looking for poetry, or short stories, or non-fiction books. Please only send us novels.

We're looking for experimental novels that are ambitious, visionary, private, idiosyncratic, emotional.

It's hard to define what experimental means. By its nature there're no rules. We'd love to see a book that's like an artifact, elemental, less like storytelling literature, more like dirt or air. We often enjoy prose that's broken, writing in which the flaws are obvious and grow out of emotional necessity. Writing that's clearly different because its author is different. But no guidelines are possible; it's up to you.

Genre work is not what we publish. Please don't send: thrillers, detective novels, children's books, fantasy, or science fiction.

The most helpful thing you could do is look carefully at some of the excerpts we provide online. If they mean something to you, maybe we'd be a good place to submit your work.

We're very arbitrary in our likes and dislikes, and often turn down genuinely brilliant work--sometimes a lot better work than we've published--just because it doesn't seem right. It's all down to the odd tastes of the editor. (Also realize that we get about a thousand book submissions a year, and publish only three in a good year.)

Please contact us only by email, not by mailing a manuscript through the post office--you'll hear back WAY faster by email. Query first, using the form here. And again, my god, please don't send us something totally different than what it is we publish! We aren't about fast-paced satire or highly readable romps either.

In your query, just describe your novel a bit, and we'll let you know what to do from there.




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