Editor’s Note—We are on a temporary hiatus from reading submissions, but will open back up for pitches to cover books in Fall 2021. In the meantime, please check out the list below of books we’ve still got our eyes on.
The Margins is now accepting submissions and pitches in the following categories: author interviews and features; critical books essays; and essays on writing craft. Pay ranges from $150 to $300 depending on length and type of piece.
Please read The Margins to familiarize yourself with the type of work we publish in the magazine. Pitches should be 500 words or under. We cover literary work in all genres, including but not limited to poetry, fiction, experimental and hybrid-genre, creative non-fiction, academic work, and translations.
You can view a list of 2021 titles we are interested in covering on this page, but feel free to send submissions and pitches for books not included here. We aim to publish interviews, critical books essays, and craft essays related to books published from Fall 2020 onward.
Due to the volume of submissions we receive, our response time is 4 to 6 weeks. All accepted pieces will undergo a collaborative editing process that may take up to 1 month, and involve multiple rounds of edits.
Author Interviews and Features
We’re looking for conversations with authors of upcoming or recently published books. We’re also interested in pitches for features and profiles that cover an author’s body of work and that include elements of reporting. We accept both pitches and completed conversations and features.
Examples:
An Expelled Tongue: A Conversation with Don Mee Choi by Emily Yoon
Woman Warrior for the 21st Century: A Conversation with K-Ming Chang by Jennifer Tseng
Unsettling the Nation from the Land: A Conversation with Manu Karuka
The Refugees Continued Journey: A Feature on Porochista Khakpour by Wendy Lee
Critical Books Essays
Send us completed critical essays on upcoming or recently published books, or essays on previously published books that are tied to a timely issue. We don’t publish reviews, and are instead looking for essays that place a text in a larger historical, political, or cultural context; essays that place two books in conversation with one another; essays that place a book in conversation with another work of art. We are open to essays that combine memoir and criticism. Essays should be no longer than 3,000 words.
Examples:
The Border Against Belonging by Asa Pimentel
The Ghosts They Carried by Kitana Ananda
Theory of the Gimmick and Why I Feel Bad About Politics on the Internet by Isla Ng
Being Watched by Adnan Khan
Essays on Craft
We’re accepting completed essays from authors with upcoming or recently published books on writing craft or on the historical, political, and literary context in which their work sits. Essays should be no longer than 2,000 words.
Examples:
Let Us Today Enter the Bazaar in Shackles by Adeeba Shahid Talukder
Monsters Made, Not Begotten by Tiffany Tsao
The Unreliable Truth by Larissa Pham
Book List
Bride of the Sea by Eman Quotah (January)
If I Tell You The Truth by Jasmin Kaur (January)
The Sunflower Cast A Spell to Save Us From the Void by Jackie Wang (Nightboat, January)
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January)
An Educated Woman in Prostitution by Manabi Debi, trans. Arunava Sinha (Simon & Schuster India, January)
Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar (Catapult, February)
Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen (HMH, February)
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap (Small Beer Press, February)
Brown Baby by Nikesh Shukla (Macmillan, February)
Writing The Camp by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh (Broken Sleep Books, February)
My Heart Became a Bomb by Ramy al-Asheq, trans. Levi Thompson (UT Press, February)
Ulirat: Best Contemporary Stories Translated from the Philippines (Guady Boy, March)
Peach State by Adrienne Su (University of Pittsburgh, March)
Yolk by Mary HK Choi (S&S YA, March)
The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan (HMH, March)
Dēmos by Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley (Milkweed, March)
The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Atlantic, March)
The City of Good Death by Priyanka Champaneri (Restless Books, March)
Current, Climate: The Poetry of Rita Wong (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, March)
A Thousand Crimson Blooms by Eileen Chong (UQP, March)
Alien Miss by Carlina Duan (University of Wisconsin Press, March)
On the Origin of Species and Other Stories / I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim (Kaya Press / HarperCollins, April)
Pillar of Books (The Moon Country Korean Poetry Series) by Bo Young Moon, trans. Hedgie Choi (Black Ocean, April)
Hong Kong Without Us (A People’s Poetry) edited by The Bauhinia Project (University of Georgia Press, April)
My Good Son by Yang Huang (University of New Orleans Press, April)
Dear Bear by Ae Hee Lee (Platypus Press, April)
Gold Diggers by Sanjana Sathian (Penguin Press, April)
A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure by Hoa Nguyen (Wave, April)
Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change by Anjali Enjeti (University of Georgia Press, April)
Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng (Simon & Schuster, May)
Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah (Abrams Books, May)
Heaven by Meiko Kawakami (Europa Editions, May)
Pop Song by Larissa Pham (Catapult, May)
Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho (Feminist Press, May)
Angel & Hannah by Ishle Yi Park (One World, May)
Imagine Us, The Swarm by Muriel Leung (Nightboat Books, May)
The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim (Quill Tree Books, May)
Small Gods by Alex Quicho (Zero Books, May)
Words as Grain by Duo Duo, trans. Lucas Klein (Yale Unviversity Press, May)
Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen (Knopf, May)
The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti (Hub City Press, May)
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (Tor.com, June)
Slipping by Mohamed Kheir, trans. Robin Moger (Two Lines Press, June)
How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina (Harper Perennial, June)
An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi (Harper Collins, June)
The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura, trans. Lucy North (Penguin, June)
Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung (One World, June)
The Membranes by Chi-Ta Wei (Columbia University Press, June)
Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke; trans. by Carlos Rojas (Text (AU), June)
A Bell Curve is a Pregnant Straight Line by Vi Khi Nao (1111 Press, July)
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead, July)
Names For Light: A Family History by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint (Greywolf Press, August)
Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar (Greywolf Press, August
Winter Phoenix: Testimonies in Verse by Sophia Terazawa (Deep Vellum, October)