Guidelines: The Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series

Submissions for the Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series are considered annually from October 1 – November 15. Thank you for your interest in Seven Kitchens Press and this series. Full guidelines are posted below.

May 15 update: Dan Vera and Ron Mohring have selected three manuscripts for publication: Finding Helen by Pamela Sumners, No New Wilderness by Andrew Rahal, and She by Theadora Siranian. Look for these chapbooks this September–and thank you again for supporting this series.

Full Guidelines:

Seven Kitchens Press is proud to sponsor the annual Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series for an original, unpublished poetry manuscript. This series honors the vision of poet & teacher Rane Arroyo and is open to all poets. Though Seven Kitchens publishes almost exclusively in English, we welcome manuscripts for this series that mix English and Spanish; there are no restrictions on content or form.

Two manuscripts, one by a writer with, and one by a writer without, previous book or chapbook publication, will be selected for publication in the Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series in a limited edition of 100 copies.
Each winning poet will receive 25 copies of their chapbook, which will be designed, printed, and hand-assembled by Seven Kitchens Press. Additionally, the publisher will distribute ten review copies to reviewers, libraries, and organizations at the author’s recommendation.
The 2020 reading period will extend from October 1 – November 15, and the selected title(s) will be scheduled for publication in summer of 2021.
There is no reading fee, though we encourage readers to purchase copies of our chapbooks and we gratefully accept donations large or small. Seven Kitchens survives solely on your donations and on the sale of our chapbooks. If you are a fan of our project and of the poets we publish, please show us a little love and help us keep doing what we do!
All manuscripts will be read by co-editors Dan Vera and Ron Mohring.
- The editors may, at their discretion, choose not to award publication in either category. It is also possible that more than one manuscript in either category may be offered publication. Please send your very best work.
Submit a paginated manuscript of 16-24 pages of poems, plus front matter such as table of contents, acknowledgments, or notes. Please do not include more than one poem per page. Do not include illustrations of any kind. Please don’t use fancy fonts. Include a cover page providing the manuscript title, author name, address, e-mail and phone number. There is no need to send a second file. We seek work from a diverse range of voices and backgrounds; feel free to introduce yourself in your biographical note.
Include a brief (one paragraph) biographical note, including a statement of any previous or pending book or chapbook publication. (We need this information in order to read your manuscript in its proper category; we are very open to work by new writers and this series is designed to showcase both emerging and established poets.)
The collection may contain a series of poems or one single chapbook-length poem.
Collaborative works are welcome. Should a winning manuscript be collaboratively written, author copies will be distributed equally (for example, two authors writing collaboratively would receive 20 copies apiece).
Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us promptly if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere by sending an e-mail to sevenkitchenspress at gmail dot com.
Submissions must be emailed or posted between October 1 – November 15, 2020.
Please do not double-dip: If your manuscript is currently under consideration for another of our series, please do not send the same work for this series.
We hope to announce the winning manuscript(s) on or before February 1, 2021; manuscripts will be published in summer of 2021. **Feb 15 update: we received more manuscripts than ever before; please bear with us as we deliberate on our selections. Thanks so much.**
Authors will receive updates throughout the process: once finalists have been selected, they will be notified by email, and all other entrants will be individually notified via email.
Manuscripts will not be returned. E-mailed submission is preferred, but you may send via regular mail.
If sending by mail, please use a binder clip and mail flat in an 8.5 x 11 envelope. Please do not use expedited delivery services; your postmark date is sufficient to ensure your entry qualification, and we will allow 7-10 days for receipt of all entries mailed after November 15. Use First-Class Mail and consider spending the money you’ve saved on a chapbook from a small, independent press! Mail your manuscript to: Ron Mohring, Publisher; Seven Kitchens Press; 2547 Losantiville Ave; Cincinnati OH 45237. [WE HAVE MOVED: PLEASE NOTE NEW ADDRESS.]
If sending by e-mail, please send your manuscript in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx file); include the words “Rane Arroyo Chapbook” in the subject line of your e-mail, and please title your document Arroyo_Your Title. Send to sevenkitchenspress at gmail dot com.
Manuscript titles will be posted, alphabetically by title, on the Seven Kitchens Press site (remember to refresh this page to see the most current information).
There is no reading fee for any of our chapbook series; however, we will gratefully accept any donation that you wish to make in support of this series. Checks may be made out to Ron Mohring; Paypal donations may be sent to sevenkitchenspress at gmail dot com. You can even send funds directly to me, Ron, through Facebook. (Seriously: supporting our micropress could not be any simpler.)
Please consider puchasing titles in this series. For a modest donation of $10 with your manuscript entry, you may select a complimentary copy of any title in this series; just indicate in your cover material if you wish to do so.
Please notify us of any changes in your contact information, especially your e-mail address!

The Series:

This chapbook series honors the vision of Rane Arroyo, a deeply talented and much-beloved poet, playwright, and professor. Arroyo received his PhD in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, and taught most recently at the University of Toledo. His poetry collections include The Singing Shark, Home Movies of Narcissus, The Portable Famine, Same-Sex Seances, The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems, and The Sky’s Weight. He also published a book of stories, How to Name a Hurricane, and several plays. He died suddenly and unexpectedly in May of 2010.

The Series Editors:

Ron Mohring (2012 – ) holds degrees from the University of Houston and Vermont College of Norwich University. His work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Assaracus, Bloom, diode, Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, and many other journals. He has served as the Stadler Fellow and as the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. His chapbooks are Amateur Grief (Frank O’Hara Prize), The David Museum (New Michigan Press Prize), Beneficence (Pecan Grove Press), and Touch Me Not (Two Rivers Review Prize); his full-length collection, Survivable World, won the Washington Prize. In 2007 he founded Seven Kitchens Press.

Dan Vera (2016 – ) is a poet, editor, and watercolorist living in Washington, DC. His most recent book, Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press, 2013), won the 2012 Letras Latinas/Red Hen Press Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Cutthroat, Naugatuck River Review, Notre Dame Review, White Crane, and many other journals, and in the anthologies D.C. Poets Against the War, Divining Divas, Gratitude Prayers, and The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South. His poem, “Lingering Fraction” won the 2017 Oscar Wilde Award from Gival Press.

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Eduardo C Corral (2012 – 2015) won the Yale Younger Poets Prize for his debut collection of poetry, Slow Lightning; he is the first Latino recipient of this award. A CantoMundo Fellow, his numerous honors include the Discovery/The Nation Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing at Bucknell University, and the Olive B O’Connor Fellowship in Creative Writing at Colgate University.

Titles in the Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series: