Call for Work

For an anthology of contemporary poetry on girlhood aimed at high school and college level readers, co-editors Arielle Greenberg and Becca Klaver seek submission of poems on or relevant to any aspect of the experience of girlhood, from childhood to young adulthood by poets with at least one published or forthcoming poetry collection from a nationally-distributed press. We aim to create an anthology that addresses the need young women have for challenging, intelligent, complicated literature about their lives. Possible subjects include but are not limited to experiences of family relationships, work, activism, sexuality, friendship, consumer culture, physical or mental illness, body image, domesticity, athleticism, intellectual pursuits, creativity, geography, displacement, belonging, separation, identity formation, partnership and triumph. Poems that are not “subject-driven” or narrative but might still be of particular interest to a teenage girl reader are also welcome.

In addition to submissions of your own work, we would be interested in hearing suggestions of individual poems that you know of and feel should be included in such an anthology.

As we have a very limited permissions budget, we prefer submissions of poems that are either unpublished or to which the poet retains the rights. Previously published poems will be considered; please indicate if the poems you are submitting have been published.

Switchback Books plans to publish the anthology in 2009.

Please send no more than three poems no later than October 1, 2007 via email Word attachment to becca [at] switchbackbooks [dot] com or via snail mail in care of Becca Klaver, Assistant Programs Director, English Department, Columbia College Chicago, 600 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605-1996. Please include an email address. We expect to notify poets regarding submission status via email by Summer 2008.