WoodPig Press Gold Star Program Gold Star

WoodPig Press is an independent micro-press specialising in speculative fiction and non-fiction. We are a loose collective of creative freelancers – writers, illustrators, designers, editors – who share a belief that humans are more than machines, and there’s more to life than money. Read more about us and our values here.

All WoodPig Press titles will be published in print and digital and distributed via the Books Council of Wales. Our submissions process is anonymous and deliberately minimal. We don't want to know anything about you. We don't require a bio, synopsis, cover letter, list of competing titles, and we don't care about the size of your social media following. Nor do we require a sample – just submit the whole manuscript. We just want your book to speak for itself. The only thing we ask is that your book – whether fiction or non-fiction – is "speculative" in some way. To find out more about the submissions criteria, go here.

Speculative Non-fiction Free Tip Jar Option Open

In terms of non-fiction, we’re looking for anything broadly philosophical that questions established beliefs and dogmas. This needn’t be “philosophy” as such, but can be cultural critique, literary criticism, popular psychology, sociology, anthropology, or anything that looks to explore and analyse some potential of human experience. So, for instance, the feasibility of colonising Mars, or how social media is destroying our children’s mental health and what they might look like as adults. But speculative non-fiction need not be about the future; you could argue that the contemporary obsession with zombie films is an unconscious cultural expression of the dehumanising forces of capitalism, or that the Asterix books have done more to shape our understanding of Ancient Rome than Mary Beard. Again, the key thing here is “speculative”, and while we are open-minded to almost anything, the more of this speculative element there is, the more likely we are to be interested.

Aside from this, the book should be aimed at the general reader. This doesn’t mean that it should dumb down or patronise, but rather that it doesn’t assume any prior knowledge or expertise.

Please submit your full manuscript as a .doc, or .docx file. Do not include an author bio, synopsis, cover letter or any other information – we just want to read your book. This is an anonymous submission process, so please ensure that there are no identifying personal details.

NOTE ON WORD LIMIT: While we have no strict word limits, we are looking for full length works, and are unlikely to accept anything under 40,000 words. Obviously, this does not apply to graphic novels or books of a primarily visual nature.

NOTE ON RESUBMISSIONS: We do not reconsider works that have been previously rejected. If we want you to revise and resubmit your work, we will ask you to do so.

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Speculative Fiction Quota Met

Quota Met! This call has met its submission cap for this submission period.

We are looking for "speculative fiction". This may be defined as anything with a “What if…?” premise. Wikipedia has a useful overview of what the term generally covers. It can apply to the past, present or future, and includes (but is not limited to):

science-fiction
fantasy
alternative history
time travel
horror
the paranormal and the supernatural
weird/slipstream fiction
the dystopian and utopian
apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
magical realism
fairy tale/fable
satire (assuming it takes some speculative form – e.g. Gulliver’s Travels)

Or any blend of the above – we are less worried about whether your book is a neat fit for a particular genre, and more interested in the quality of your writing. In fact, we hate genres. They can be helpful when used in a broad sense, and useful when trying to work out which part of a bookshop or a library to look in, but in practice they are primarily useful for marketing and sales algorithms – and we couldn’t care less about any of that.

So, if your story has some speculative element, then whatever the genre, we will likely consider it. This also applies to graphic novels or anything with a non-conventional format: if there’s a speculative element, then we’ll take a look. Is your book a mishmash of different elements/genres? Even better. As long as it’s speculative.

Please submit your full manuscript as a .doc or .docx file. Do not include an author bio, synopsis, cover letter or any other information – we just want to read your book. This is an anonymous submission process, so please ensure that there are no identifying personal details.

NOTE ON RESUBMISSIONS: We do not reconsider works that have been previously rejected. If we want you to revise and resubmit your work, we will ask you to do so.

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