fifth wheel press Gold Star Program Gold Star

During the month of June 2026, fifth wheel press will publish 22 queer single-author or collaborative microchapbooks (one each weekday). These small collections will be available to download digitally for free.

First, credit where credit is due: the idea to run this series is heavily inspired by the Ghost City Press Summer Series (Kevin Bertolero), which published my first micro-collection in 2023. I also owe credit to Katherine Fallon from Whittle Micro-Press for showing me the true power a tiny collection can wield, as well as Kendall A. Bell from Maverick Duck Press and Aldrin Badiola from Artists from Maryland for implementing similar micro publishing practices.

Send us anything—any genre, any style, any subject. The only restriction is a hard page count cap of 10 pages of content (not including title page, acknowledgments, etc). Please do include acknowledgments if there is anything previously published in your collection; a ToC is not needed. Pieces in the collection may have been previously published, but please don't send us something that's been published before as a whole.

Additional specifics:

• Selected manuscripts will be published digitally by fifth wheel press for $0+ on Ko-fi. Any tips received will be paid to you, the author, on a biannual basis at the end of June and December.
• If selected, your collection’s cover will be designed in house style for your approval. We are not able to accommodate outside cover artists at this time.
• This does not come with our standard publishing contract—for simplicity's sake, we’re treating it more like a big issue of a literary magazine than a book. Your agreement to participate in the series upon acceptance will grant us first global electronic publishing rights to all works contained in the collection (or second rights, if they’ve been published before).

Not Open

Looking for: chapbooks of any kind, longer poetry collections, hybrid prose manuscripts, photography or lens-based art publications, and experimental works. Our taste veers towards the unconventional and we’re really into conceptual publications, as well as anything that bends genres. Our EIC likes writing with hypersensory imagery and a strong command of lyricism and lens-based work that explores light, body language, and/or composition. Publications (especially art pubs) that address queer experience are also a sweet spot.

Not looking for: novels or novellas, short story collections, essay collections, concepts for comics or graphic novels without art already made. Maybe in the future! But not right now. Exceptions to this rule are possible for the right work, but not likely. We’ll also be transparent and let you know that for personal reasons, work that is heavily related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a hard sell for our EIC.

A few other things:

• Given our roots as a publisher of photographic art, we’ll be holding dedicated space for at least two art publications this cycle.
• We define “queer experience” as anything experienced by a queer person. We say this because we especially don’t want you to self-reject if you don’t feel “queer enough” for us—we promise you are, no matter what that looks like to you!
• If you have previously had a book published with us, we’ll be happy to welcome your submission again three years after your publication date. (E.g. if you were published in 2024, you may submit again for the 2027 publication cycle).
• We will happily consider manuscript submissions that have lost their original publisher. Just let us know in your cover letter.

Send us: One PDF file representing your entire manuscript. That’s it. Please don’t include your address; we don’t need that information. Please, if you’re able, send a PDF and not a DOC, DOCX, or other file type—these files can vary from processor to processor/computer to computer and we want to be sure we’re viewing your work as you intend it to be presented. We’ll be taking submissions through Duosuma once we’re open. Hard page count cap is 100 pages (with a sweet spot of about 35-75 pages). No minimums, but we’re very unlikely to accept microchapbooks or anything else under 15 pages. Please only submit once per reading period; additional manuscripts will be declined unread.

Unfortunately, we have to state this explicitly: Submissions that contain any racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise bigoted content will not be considered. We don’t tolerate right-wing bullshit, or anything resembling it. Writing or artwork that is based on lived experiences from a marginalized perspective is okay provided it does not glorify bigoted behavior.

Eligibility: We’re a dedicated space for queer, trans, and gender variant creatives as, as such, will only be accepting submissions from within those communities.

Content warnings: We reserve the right to apply content warnings for sensitive topics to your work when published. Please also include them in your cover letter when submitting.

Fees: Tips are accepted through both Duosuma and our donation portal if you want to show appreciation for our editors’ time, but no reading fee is required and donations will not affect our decisions. If you do want to donate, the suggested donation amount is $5.

Timeline: All submissions are expected to receive a response by March 1, 2026.

Nuts, bolts, rights, and payment: Accepted authors will have their work published by fifth wheel press in a print run of 75 copies and as a digital pdf. Each author will also receive 10 additional author copies and 50% of the net profits (total sales minus cost to print + ship) from print and digital sales. Depending on demand for a title, we’re also always open to discussing second, third, etc. editions. All rights remain with you as the author except for the non-exclusive right to publish and sell your book.

Not Open

Not Open

Looking for: chapbooks of any kind, longer poetry collections, hybrid prose manuscripts, photography or lens-based art publications, and experimental works. Our taste veers towards the unconventional and we’re really into conceptual publications, as well as anything that bends genres. Our EIC likes writing with hypersensory imagery and a strong command of lyricism and lens-based work that explores light, body language, and/or composition. Publications (especially art pubs) that address queer experience are also a sweet spot.

Not looking for: novels or novellas, short story collections, essay collections, concepts for comics or graphic novels without art already made. Maybe in the future! But not right now. Exceptions to this rule are possible for the right work, but not likely. We’ll also be transparent and let you know that for personal reasons, work that is heavily related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a hard sell for our EIC.

A few other things:

• Given our roots as a publisher of photographic art, we’ll be holding dedicated space for at least two art publications this cycle.
• We define “queer experience” as anything experienced by a queer person. We say this because we especially don’t want you to self-reject if you don’t feel “queer enough” for us—we promise you are, no matter what that looks like to you!
• If you have previously had a book published with us, we’ll be happy to welcome your submission again three years after your publication date. (E.g. if you were published in 2024, you may submit again for the 2027 publication cycle).
• We will happily consider manuscript submissions that have lost their original publisher. Just let us know in your cover letter.

Send us: One PDF file representing your entire manuscript. That’s it. Please don’t include your address; we don’t need that information. Please, if you’re able, send a PDF and not a DOC, DOCX, or other file type—these files can vary from processor to processor/computer to computer and we want to be sure we’re viewing your work as you intend it to be presented. We’ll be taking submissions through Duosuma once we’re open. Hard page count cap is 100 pages (with a sweet spot of about 35-75 pages). No minimums, but we’re very unlikely to accept microchapbooks or anything else under 15 pages. Please only submit once per reading period; additional manuscripts will be declined unread.

Unfortunately, we have to state this explicitly: Submissions that contain any racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise bigoted content will not be considered. We don’t tolerate right-wing bullshit, or anything resembling it. Writing or artwork that is based on lived experiences from a marginalized perspective is okay provided it does not glorify bigoted behavior.

Eligibility: We’re a dedicated space for queer, trans, and gender variant creatives as, as such, will only be accepting submissions from within those communities.

Content warnings: We reserve the right to apply content warnings for sensitive topics to your work when published. Please also include them in your cover letter when submitting.

Fees: Tips are accepted through both Duosuma and our donation portal if you want to show appreciation for our editors’ time, but no reading fee is required and donations will not affect our decisions. If you do want to donate, the suggested donation amount is $5.

Timeline: All submissions are expected to receive a response by March 1, 2026.

Nuts, bolts, rights, and payment: Accepted authors will have their work published by fifth wheel press in a print run of 75 copies and as a digital pdf. Each author will also receive 10 additional author copies and 50% of the net profits (total sales minus cost to print + ship) from print and digital sales. Depending on demand for a title, we’re also always open to discussing second, third, etc. editions. All rights remain with you as the author except for the non-exclusive right to publish and sell your book.

Not Open

fifth wheel press will run 4–5 workshops during the summer of 2026 (June, July, August). We will accept proposals from 4/15–4/30.

Workshop leaders will be compensated via a profit-sharing model that splits ticket proceeds from each workshop equally between our Workshop Coordinator, workshop leader, and fifth wheel press' operating budget. Estimated earnings for a 1-2 hour workshop: $50–150.

We’re keeping our wish list short and sweet this year—we want to learn the thing only YOU could teach. Whether it's craft or generative (preferably both), give us something that showcases your passion while making it relevant to modern writing and publishing.

Not Open