Editor Interview: Washington Writers' Publishing House

DC-area authors

Sarabande, Dzanc, Tin House, University of Pittsburgh Press, Richard Peabody (Editor of Paycock Press), Clifford Garstang (Editor of Press 53)

The list is endless, but here are the authors whose books I'd try to save first from a house fire: Daniel Alarcon, Peter Cameron, Junot Diaz, Deborah Eisenberg, Mavis Gallant, Shirley Hazzard, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Antonya Nelson, Andres Neuman, Stewart O'Nan, Edith Pearlman, Anthony Powell, Soledad Puertolas, Barbara Pym, Joan Silber, Helen Simpson, Muriel Spark, Jean Thompson, Colm Toibin, William Trevor, Anthony Trollope, Eudora Welty.

We are a regional press and aim to represent the diversity of writing talent in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area, though our subject matter can range far afield--most recently, to Latin America and Civil War-era California. Our panel of judges is drawn from past winners, making for an evolving aesthetic. We've had runners-up in the fiction contest go on to win in later years.

Read the books of past winners. You may, on the one hand, feel reassured that we publish a wide range of styles and sensibilities. Getting a sense of the quality of work published by WWPH might also be helpful. And if you get a note encouraging you to submit again, please do! We don't send out those letters just to be polite.

The ideal submission is formatted and punctuated correctly, double-spaced, page-numbered, and as free of spelling and grammatical errors as humanly possible. Neatness DOES count--insofar as it tells us that you are professional and serious. If it's a short story collection, put your best work at the beginning, even if another arrangement might make more sense for publication. If it's a novel--prologues can be treacherous bogs. Get the reader rolling along smartly. Humor is great. Empathy is essential.

We don't publish memoirs. And there are many other, far more lucrative places to publish genre fiction--romance, horror, mysteries, or thrillers.

Our initial contest reading is blind, though once we have a shortlist of finalists, we do take a look at publication credits and other evidence of literary citizenship--this can include anything from reviewing books online to being a member of a writing group. So, include relevant literary participation in your cover letter, without being exhaustive. This is because we are a cooperative, and expect our winning authors to become contributing members of the press for at least two years.

We read a manuscript all the way through unless it's a complete mess--i.e., filled with grammatical errors on the first page--nonfiction, or obviously genre like romance or horror. We understand that sometimes it takes a while to hit your stride, and we're looking for love, truly we are.

Finalists will have a second reading, the list will be further narrowed down, and then we'll unveil the names and look at things like publication credits, cover letters, etc. Once we've chosen a winner, we will call the person and have a serious conversation about what it means to be published by a small (if storied!) press--you will not make money off your book, you will not be on the Today Show, you will (so far, at least) not be reviewed in the New Yorker or the New York Times, and you will have to volunteer at the press for two years. If you still love us and want us, we're yours!

Since we have a virtual office and all of us have day jobs, it's more like an evening in the life of an editor: I'll settle down with a manuscript and start reading: Looks like the person knows how to spell and double space...good; first story--huh, pretty interesting--funny, yet heartbreaking. Second story--hmm, doesn't grab me quite as much. But this third story--wow, I see what she's trying to do now. She's got a voice, she's got a point of view, she's showing me something about this part of the world (or another part of the world) I didn't know. Over the next few days I keep reading, then write up a synopsis, urge the other judges to take a look. Next manuscript: Octopus Army Invades Earth. Five different characters die gruesome deaths in the first chapter. Um, no. Still thinking about that story collection. And now here's Novel X. Fantastic opening scene. I want to know more about these characters, but also want to sleep. Will resume tomorrow when fresh. Get a ping from another judge: am loving Novel X so far--you? Three or four months of this, of meetings and emails and debates, and we have a winner.