Stillhouse Press publishes surprising, gutsy fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that can’t or doesn’t want to find a home in big publishing. We are drawn to the strange, the unconventional, the transcendent, the risky. We’re looking for work that pushes boundaries.
As a student and alumni-led teaching press, our primary aim is to provide educational opportunity through applied experience in the art of craft publishing — student staff are responsible for acquiring, producing, and marketing work from independent authors in the course of their professional education, allowing them to forge lasting professional relationships and step out with confidence into the greater literary community.
ABOUT US
In early 2014, in a conference room on the top floor of a George Mason University building that has since been demolished, a group of English department faculty and graduate students voted "yes" to forming a new independent, non-profit small literary press. The terms of incorporation were unconventional: the press would be staffed and run by GMU alumni, graduate students, and undergraduates, under the supervision--but without the editorial intrusion--of faculty or other publishing professionals. Students and alumni would choose, edit, design, and market the titles.
Our experiment in a rare kind of "teaching press" has come a long way from its humble beginnings. Stillhouse is now a member of GMU’s Watershed Lit: Center for Engagement for Literary Arts and Publishing Practice, a professional development coalition for undergraduate and graduate students that includes the Fall for the Book festival, the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, Poetry Daily, and the Northern Virginia Writing Project. Each year, four graduate students in GMU's Creative Writing MFA program receive professional assistantships with Stillhouse Press that come with tuition remission and a standard stipend, while other students complete internships in acquisitions, copyediting, interior design, marketing, website design, social media, and other areas of need. In addition, alumni of the press serve as book editors, designers, technical consultants, and roving goodwill ambassadors.
PUBLISHING WITH STILLHOUSE PRESS
Stillhouse is a nationally-distributed press that offers a competitive royalty-based compensation structure: authors earn 20% of net revenue from standard online and bookstore sales and 25% from Stillhouse website and direct sales. We publish a limited number of titles each year to offer more personalized support and attention to our authors. Collaboration is paramount: we partner with our authors to build awareness of their work through review and award submissions, endorsements, newsletter campaigns, and social media promotion.
Authors interested in submitting to Stillhouse Press can find our guidelines here. We are typically open for new manuscripts from November to March. GMU creative writing students and alumni serve as readers each spring, and offers of publication are generally made in the fall. For questions relating to submission guidelines, deadlines, queries, fee waivers and other policies, please email us at submissions@stillhousepress.org.
Stillhouse Press is committed to publishing work from voices often excluded from traditional publishing, including writers of color, gender non-conforming and LGBTQ+ writers, and those living with disabilities. To create an accessible platform for marginalized voices, we offer fee-free submissions to writers who request a fee waiver via email at submissions@stillhousepress.org.
Please note that Stillhouse Press does not accept agented manuscripts.
Can’t get enough? Check out new releases from our sister press, Relegation Books!
