i've discovered there's a thrill in publishing raw talent, ragged edges, rule breakers.
AngelHousePress publishes poetry chapbooks on occasion in a limited edition of 50 copies, no reprints. if you would like to send a chapbook, please send a query letter first with a brief synopsis of the work, and a short bio to amanda@angelhousepress.com. Note that the manuscript can be no greater than 22 pages, excluding cover. Currently reading manuscripts for autumn 2018. at this point, i am only interested in considering work by those who identify as women, are genderqueer or are in a marginalized group. Please specify on your cover letter. Also please note that if you've already sent me a manuscript or query in a given year, please do not send another manuscript or query that same year.
Manuscript Submission Guidelines
If you have already sent me a query e-mail, and I have agreed to consider your manuscript, please follow the guidelines below when you send me the work.
AngelHousePress chapbooks are published using InDesign.
1. Submit no more than 22 pages;
2. Use Palatino Linotype 12 or 10 point font; this is our house style and if you use this font, there will be no issues with alignment. The point is maximum legibility in print.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatino
3. If possible, prepare and submit your document as an MS Word .doc or .docx file.
4. If you can’t send an MS Word file, please send an RTF file.
5. Do not include illustrations within the manuscript.
6. If you own copyright to illustrations you’d like to include in the chapbook, send them as separate jpgs with an indication within the MS as to where you’d like to include them.
7. Include author photos as separate jpgs.
8. Do not include watermarked backgrounds within your MS or any other graphics.
9. For poetry, place each poem on a separate page.
10. Do not format the document as columns or tables within your MS.
11. Include an author bio and acknowledgements at the end of the manuscript.
12. Do not send a collection of poems that has already been published as a collection.
Conditions of Publication
1. We publish a limited edition of 50 copies.
2. We do not do reprints.
3. Author receives ten complementary copies of the chapbook.
4. North American authors have option of purchasing additional copies at half price. We can't accommodate half price for international authors due to high cost of shipping.
5. We sell copies of the chapbook on AngelHousePress.com and at the Ottawa Small Press Fair.
Story of Lilith
Story of Lilith is an excerpt from an experimental novel called Eros, which retells Romeo and Juliet through a variety of avant-garde constraints. Part Two of Eros tells the story from the “Juliet” character’s perspective—who is named “Lena” here—and is presented as a lipogram that negates the vowels “A” and “E.”
The work is a playful account of the day-to-day life of a young woman. Don’t be surprised to find Virgil and Milton showing up alongside bikinis and Oxycodon, while Sisyphus sings with Björk. In Story of Lilith, you will find amusement for mouth and mind.
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-14-8
Price: $7.00 CAD
Afterlife
AngelHousePress presents our first bilingual chapbook, “Afterlife” by Jennifer K. Dick. Jennifer is an American writer, translator, editor and literary events organizer living in France. “Afterlife” is hymn and imagination, the white smudge after the pages burn. You will be mesmerized by the incantatory language, and fascinated with the shadowlight of Dibutade.
The echoing question of the mark that language leaves on us all and makes of us all is celebrated here in Dick's lyrical recall of the invention of drawing, while her English/French parallel enacts the question of presentation vs representation in yet another way. The parts all come together in a marvelous tumult, endlessly breaking down and endlessly rebuilding. —Cole Swensen, author of On Walking On.
The ideal creator: Jennifer K Dick articulates the inventor/invented myth of Dibutade in delicate charcoal words that revel in the limits of language. -Lisa Pasold, author of Any Bright Horse.
Engager une réflexion sur le langage avec une intrication audacieuse - et rare - de l'anglais et du français, au travers de la légende mythologique de Dibutade, voilà le projet poétique d'Afterlife. Dans une écriture kaléidoscopique, Jennifer K.Dick s'attache avec virtuosité à interroger ce qui fait trace et ce qui nous trace, nous forme, nous silhouettes humaines. Un livre tout en "point d'ombrelumière". Virginie Poitrasson, auteure d'Il faut toujours garder en tête une formule magique.
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-13-1
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Robots vs Kung Fu
Howie Good’s “Robots vs. Kung Fu” is a collection of dark and delightful prose poems that subvert the real. Good is a close observer of the infinitesimal and the infinite. Within these pages you will encounter the surreal bumping up against the ordinary: honey-haired frauleins in Nazi bling vs the clock; trees on fire vs anti-crazy pills; globes crushed by tractors; beasts with seven heads vs sad little funerals in the rain, nagging black flies vs shopping, an angel with brilliant black wings vs school cafeterias. There’s no denying there’s some dark matter here: “What’s been called my heart serves also as a wine glass, a highway, a urinal, a grave.” It would be ham-handed to offer up a general statement about the humour, sadness and absurdity in everyday life, at this point. Better you should read “Robots vs Kung Fu.”
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-12-4
Price: $6.00 CAD
17 Reasons
In 17 Reasons, skeleton mariachis and ghosts wander through the life of a young punk who attempts to navigate the urban circus in all its leopard print and electrified red neon.
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-10-0
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House of Many Words
House of Many Words is a thoughtful, absurd, playful and imaginative work in the spirit of Ionesco and Beckett.House of Many Words is a thoughtful, absurd, playful and imaginative work in the spirit of Ionesco and Beckett.
"this is an odd work, and one that intrigues; after years of poems playing off surrealism, brevity, landscape and the narrative “I,” his foray into script is entirely curious. " rob mclennan, "Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair." Friday, July 29, 2016.
"a dream, a game, a refusal, an attempt, a stand-off. " Cary Fagan, "Curtain Time" December 17, 2016
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-11-7
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jettison/collapse
jettison/collapse by Francesco Levato is a mash-up of poetry, linguistics and critical/cultural theory. Imagine Ferdinand de Saussure colliding with Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson in a fender bender with Benedetto Croce. The result is as delightful as peanut butter and chocolate, and ice cream in July. Levato’s mash-up results in heady imagery and quirky combinations. In this work, Levato offers readers an investigation into the noise of language, language as song and prayer, the body as minimal unit of meaning, the unreliable, traitorous I. The fallen angels adore Levato’s sense of play and innovative engagements with the living and the dead.
"Given this is the first of Levato’s work I’ve seen, the introduction is interesting, and the collection is constructed as a sequence of short poems that blend the lyric and collaged fragment. The effect is lively, precise and even slightly disorienting, as the mind sets the pieces together of his deliberately-worded jumble of words, phrases and ideas, set just as much as a “translation” of a variety of sources into a single text." rob mclennan on Francesco Levato's chapbook "jettison/collapse"http://www.robmclennan.blogspot.ca/…/ongoing-notes-ottawa-s… .
"Contrasting affect with intellect, Levato activates “the orbic flex of his mouth, pouring and filling” in order “to defend against the tide of conceptualism.” It is this enacted debate that gives this collection its vigour. When language explores its lingual potential
“to give, as in fellatio,” it activates the openness of personhood in opposition to pure enunciation.
"The poetic language that results is more immersed and dynamic than Levato’s theoretical musings might suggest. “I take part, I see and hear the whole,” he writes, “the cries, the curses, the fall of grenades, the whizz of limbs, heads, stone and iron.” Alongside his
ideas—which consider topics like etymology, Walt Whitman and Julia Kristeva—there is a sonic and tactile pleasure in saying that becomes the book’s underdog hero, if only because Levato identifies this spirit as a species of subterranean hunger, its “velvet mason
a sweet assault.” Nikki Sheppy, Arc Poetry Magazine 83. For more of the review, please purchase the issue here.
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 9781926786087
Price: $6.00 CAD
phases of the harpsichord moon
AngelHousePress is pleased to present “phases of the harpsichord moon” by Gary Barwin, a rerelease of his first chapbook, and his first individual publication, published by Gary’s micropress, serif of nottingham in 1985 when he was 21. We fallen angels are pleased to be part of this heavenly harpsichordacious delight where Laura Secord fugues with Bach and Jimi Hendrix’s lix are transcribed into imaginative world play. In his introduction, Gregory Betts talks about how Gary’s writing offers readers an alternative to the dreariness of the world. I would also add that “phases of the harpsichord moon” celebrates the beauty of the earth’s minor chords.
"This is an easygoing, unselfconscious and complex sequence of threads that engage a wordplay in and around each other." rob mclennan.
"A pretty neat object, beautifully made and the story of preface and postscript interesting as well. " Pearl Pirie
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 9781926786070
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Worm's Saving Day
In Worm’s Saving Day, a worm is infatuated with a Spanish señorita. Language continues long after we have turned to ash. Evocative of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, this long poem continues the debate over essence vs existence. Steadman has a penchant for the picaresque. Our hero is a lowly worm, his rival is the Ash Man. Worm is a tunneller and a dreamer.
Chapbook launch: Friday, June 12, 2015, 7pm, The Factory Reading Series, Carleton Tavern, 223 Armstrong Street, UPSTAIRS
the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair Pre Fair Reading featuring Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa), Dean Steadman (Ottawa), Alicia Cumming (Kemptville) and
Stuart Ross (Coburg)Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 78-1-926786-06-3
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Where No One Can See You
In “Where No One Can See You,” Anita Dolman describes carnage in the half-light, fallen ballerinas, bleak urban & prairie environments, muffled echoes, confined spaces, battered fedoras, wall-flat moments & the possibility of an open door.
[cover photo: Elizabeth Dolman]
Anita will launch the chapbook at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair Pre-Fair Reading on November 7, 2014, 7:30pm, the Carleton Tavern, 223 Armstrong, Upstairs. The chapbook will be for sale at the Fair on Saturday, November 8, 2014.
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 97-1-926786-05-6
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Kiki in Wonderland
a visual poetry interpretation of Alice, the first section of Kiki.
Limited Edition.
ISBN:
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Bone Sapling
a visual poetry collection of hybrid letter creatures who swim, climb trees & wait in their nests to be born. visual poems woven together with a textual poem.
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-04-9
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Four Hundred Rabbits
Steven Artelle's long poem "Four Hundred Rabbits" is simultaneously imaginative & philosophical. There are red rabbits, shy rabbits, rabbits into soft core porn, rabbits with foot fetishes, filthy creatures who become deities of dust, robot rabbits, masked rabbits. Above all "Four Hundred Rabbits" has a poignant lyricism with descriptions which bring to mind Albrecht Dűrer's Apocalypse & William Blake's illuminated books. This work is full of energy, heat, humour & creativity. If John Updike, Dante Alighieri & Lewis Carroll were to have a love child, his name would be Steven Artelle.
"one rabbit cried/our divinity was nothing without the cities/the cities with their night fires and their cavernous days/and praise and praise and praise was the pulse of our dancing"
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 97819267860302
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Steve Kulash & other autopsies
In "Steve Kulash & other autopsies" Catherine Owen offers poems which portray leaps, misfits & the wild. Yet these poems are rooted in ordinary moments or finding beauty & ecstasy in the ordinary. Owen populates her poems with both desolate and lush landscapes, graffiti, fire & grief. She uses language that appeals to all the senses. She is sensitive to sound as demonstrated by the exquisite musicality and rhythm of the lines. She is a close observer. It is as if Owen holds a magnifying glass to life and is reporting on its intricate details, translating them into poignant imagery and metaphor. These poems are in part empathetic explorations of the nature of grief and an attempt at solace, an attempt at joy, at persevering. Side by side with images of emptiness & incompletion are joyous contortions of language, Whack-A-Mole, buttons popped open, Beaujolais and Betty Boop. When I first heard these poems, I was struck by how imaginative and intense they were, and how I responded to them with understanding, with a feeling of relief at not being alone.
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-02-5
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notes from a cartywheel
a scrappy commonplace book containing incantatory delights with a dark edge, piceous pit shadows, turquoise ballerinas, unlaced violins, bad dreams & lost maps. printed on distressed & glossy paper.
Apt. 9 Press publisher & poet Cameron Anstee has written a thoughtful and engaging review of Christine McNair's chapbook, "Notes from A Cartywheel" being launched on Thursday, December 1 at the Factory Reading Series, which takes place at the Carleton Tavern, 7pm UPSTAIRS. Christine will be sharing the stage with local publishers & writers Bardia Sinaee & Matthew Firth.
The review is here:
http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2011/11/christine-mcnair-notes-from-cartywheel.html
Event info is here: http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2011/11/span-o-presents-factory-reading-series.html
"Notes from a Cartywheel" will be for sale at the reading, or for those who are not in Ottawa or unable to attend, on the site via Paypal.
Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-01-8
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house: a (tiny) memoir
tells us about his childhood in Glengarry County by way of old family photos, his own memories and recollections from family. "Home is a series of recollections, of distances, as easily remembered as mis-remembered, and a blending of events that can sometimes never be confirmed. And why write as a "memoir" instead of calling them "prose poems"? I want these stories not to be misunderstood; I want them to be seen as what I remember, what I believe to be true, from my vantage point of some three decades later, and thousands of miles. It felt like reclaiming something that had been far away for a very long time, but no longer. It felt like bringing out the good out from underneath all the bad that came later, overshadowing so much of what had happened before." rob mclennan
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-7-3
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over my dead corpus
offers up a feast of sounds, playful and thoughtful poems culled from the corpus of the world. "The main source corpus is over 500 pages of scrap notes that served as fodder for recombinance. Words or phrases were scraped for letter sequences within syllable or that broke across syllable or word. The other corpus is incidental word combinations from scrabble strung in the mind's insistence for meaning or sound." Pearl Pirie
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-00-1
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Alert
is a collection of poetry that will take you to Nunavut and set your dreams howling. In lines as long and fragile as icicles in early spring, you will find salt and tulips and deranged weeds, Danes and a gentleman of snow. A recent graduate of Carleton University and a stalwart of Ottawa's literary scene, Ben is leaving Ottawa for the wilds of the UK. His rugged and sensual poetry, served to you on fine linen sheets, will warm you in the cold winter nights to come.
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-9-7
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Pent Up
Five Ottawa writers play dominoes with sound and language. This is the second chapbook of the as yet unnamed poetry group, following Whack of Clouds published in 2008.
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-8-0
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Ursula
is a long poem about Ursula who wanders city streets and back alleys while having visions of Saint Ursula, the patron saint of lost girls, said to have been massacred along with 11,000 virgins en route to her wedding ceremony to a young Pagan prince.
Limited Edition of 26 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-6-6
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Compositions
is a fevered tumble of sensuality, art, and passion. The art reflects the moods and tones of the poetry in the form of a defiant woman in shades of red and black. The chapbook's rough cotton pages serve to represent the dream-like intensity of the contents.
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-5-9
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Secret Vespers: I Only Pretend to Hide
gives the reader 28 vignettes that reflect his witty and wistful views of day-to-day life.
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-4-2
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Signs of the Apocalypse
is a sporadic magazine published in the form of nuclear bomb-resistant broadsheets. AHP dips its wings into history and current apocalyptic anxiety to offer an alphabetical reflection of the end of the world.
Limited Edition of 26 copies.
ISBN:
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Whack of Clouds
is a limited edition deck of poems featuring slights of word, shredded cards, and magic tricks.
Limited Edition of 54 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-3-5
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