Submissions

January 2026 OPEN CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

We will be accepting manuscripts from January 26-30, 2026 (closes midnight AEST). We are looking for collections of short stories, essays, novellas, novels and poetry for publication in 2026/2027.

We are looking for poetry collections of up to 100pp and prose works up to 350pp. 

We're interested in writing that is original and innovative, generous and kind, given to peace and love, and vibrating with creativity, unique expressions of some kind of connection, wisdom, and care. We want to hear you in all your strangeness and beauty.

If you're unsure what we mean go read our Living Systems anthology. 

Let us know if the manuscript has been previously submitted to other publishers.

 If it's currently under consideration with another publisher, please do not send it to us. 

To submit your manuscript, we will need the following in a single PDF:


1. Cover letter – providing (a) the author’s contact details (including legal name if writing under a pen name); (b) author bio and publishing history; (c) a brief synopsis of the work; (d - optional) any quotes from reviews/comments on your work by other writers/critics/reviewers.

2. The manuscript – remember to include a table of contents, list of acknowledgments of work in the manuscript previously published elsewhere and sources of any copyrighted material used (epigraphs, cut-ups, collages etc).


3. Letter of support (optional) – letter of support from other writer familiar with your work and the manuscript you are submitting.

Please save and send the above as a single PDF using your family name + the title of the manuscript + the genre as the file name. (For example, ‘Thomas_ExhibitionText_novel.pdf’, ‘Holt_Capacity_poetry.pdf’).



Due to limited resources and funding, we are only able to publish a small fraction of the manuscripts we receive each year and will only be able to respond in detail to submissions we hope to publish.

 

Please send submissions to <submissions[at]vagabondpress[dot]net>. Submissions won't be accepted outside the open call dates noted above.

Creative Partnerships

We remain interested in forming a partnership with university-based creative writing schools wanting to develop and fund new works or a new list of works of poetry, prose and translations stemming from their faculty and program. If you run a program and have funding to support a list of work produced by students or faculty, please get in touch.