Editor Interview: The Jean Feldman Poetry Prize

Fiction, poetry, and CNF

We admire our fellow independent literary publishers across the spectrum --from the university presses to the literary independent powerhouses such as Graywolf Press and Copper Canyon to those small literary presses in our region of DC-Maryland-and-Virginia including SFWP, Mason Jar Press, Word Works, Alan Squire Publishing.

Among are favorite writers are those we publish at WWPH--we publish writers from across DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

We are a cooperative (all-volunteer) regional press dedicated to writers from DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

Read our recent winners.
Make sure your work is proofed by multiple people before submitting it to us--our publication time is tighter than many literary presses, and we are looking for work that is near publication-ready. We chose our winners in the early spring and publish their books in October.

We love voice, characters, and story that in some way or form challenges us to think more or differently about our world. Keep in mind: our readers are all literary writers (i.e. past winners judge each year-- read the recent winners).

Submissions that are not from residents of DC, Maryland, or Virginia.
Submissions that are too long or too short. Please read the guidelines.
Submissions that are not proofed closely (we will excuse a few typos, but not glaring grammatical errors.
Most, luckily, do get it right, and we very much appreciate it.

We do read cover letters. Notably, while the work is paramount, we also ask that our winners become actively involved in our unique cooperative (volunteer) press. We ask for a two-year service commitment to the press (this is often serving as a reader/judge for two years). Hence, any sense of literary community in a cover letter, is a good thing to include.
Importantly, starting in 2023, we will also be asking for short synopsis on fiction and literary nonfiction.
We do review previous publication credits, but we have also published writers with few or none.

At least two readers, and often more, will review the work. We aim to read the entire work.

We review reader comments and discuss deeply our submissions. We also look closely at the cover letter since we are a cooperative (all-volunteer) press.

As co-president and fiction editor, during our judging period November-February, I read daily and on regular basis lead our fiction and creative nonfiction discussions via our online chats and in person. WWPH's other co-president, Jona Colson, is also our poetry editor, and he does the same for our poetry submissions.

The author is part of every stage of the publication process.
We work closely with our winning authors, especially from February-June to ready the work for publication (i.e. the author should be available to work on their manuscript during this time period).
An author should expect editorial guidance from one or two of their fellow press-mates, which often includes key editing suggestions. We do engage professional proofreaders for our fiction and creative nonfiction works to proof and copyedit the work. In addition, the author works closely with our cover designer and manuscript designer. The author approves final edits.

Yes. However, as a press, we only nominate for awards where a publisher nomination is required. We ask our authors to submit on their own to other awards.