Press Spotlight: UNO Press

Olivia Smith // Blog Writer

Finding places to submit your work can be one of the hardest parts of writing. With hundreds of different presses, journals, and literary magazines, the choices are overwhelming. Sure, there are plenty of catalogs – DuoTrope, The Review Review Classifieds, and New Pages, to name a few – that help narrow down the options. But even with all those resources, figuring out what is a good fit for your writing can be exhausting. In this miniseries, I’m going to be finding and showcasing all the best presses so you don’t have to.

What is UNO Press? 

If you’re a WLP major, you are probably no stranger to the dozens of emails we receive for submissions. It’s easy to give them a quick once-over and promptly forget about them, or, if you’re really tired of them, delete them before they’re ever opened. But there are some things that can’t help but draw my eye, and a subject line with a $10,000 Advance is one of them.

The University of New Orleans Press, according to its website, “seeks work that contributes to the rich cultural tradition of New Orleans and the surrounding region, as well as work that contributes to the
intellectual and aesthetic life of academic and general audiences everywhere.”

UNO is run by students from the university’s publishing institute.

How to Submit

They accept two kinds of submissions. The first is open year-round, in which you mail or email them a copy of your one-page proposal, a table of contents, and a biography. Your manuscript could be fiction, nonfiction, or of an academic focus. UNO accepts writers regardless of where they are from, but they prefer a focus on the Southeastern US.

This submission is free, but it will take 6-8 months to hear a response. Mailed copies will not be returned. Find out more information about this here.

The second submission is through the Publishing Laboratory at the University of New Orleans. It must be a full-length fiction manuscript or collection of short stories. Submissions are open from March 15-August 31 through Submittable, and it costs $28 to submit.

Once submissions close, 15-20 manuscripts will be selected for further consideration, until one is given a $10,000 advance on royalties and a book contract. The book will be released in the fall of 2020. All marketing, editing, and designing will be done by the publishing institute’s class, with the goal of making it a commercial success. Of course, be sure to check out the official information page.

How to Support UNO

All of UNO’s previous publications are for sale online. Books are typically $20. Be sure to check them out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

Check out my next Press Spotlight for another awesome submission opportunity!