Submissions

Current Status: Men in Bed: Women Writers on the Male Sexual Experience.

This groundbreaking anthology, edited by Stacy Bierlein, Kat Meads and controversial fiction writer Cris Mazza, notorious for her candid explorations of sexuality, will investigate the sexual experiences and identities of male characters as envisioned by female writers.

Throughout history, male writers from D.H. Lawrence to Phillip Roth have defined sex in literature, including female sexuality. Rare examples of women writers’ sexual explorations were either suppressed or treated as trivial. While women writers in a post-Erica-Jong era have claimed the female sexual experience for themselves, those attempting to explore sex from a male character’s point of view are still often challenged for their so-called lack of credibility, or for trying to push a feminist agenda.

Of course, great works of literature involve writers stepping far outside their own experiences—gender, age, social class, race, nation—to approach a wider envisioning and understanding of the world. In Men in Bed, today’s prominent women writers, alongside emerging talent, explore the provocative and historically pertinent sphere of writing sex through the male lens, thereby reaching a greater understanding not only of human sexuality but of literary tradition and the power of the creative imagination.

Guidelines: Literary fiction only Sexually frank work invited; must have strong literary merit All work should be self-contained and less than 10,000 words. Previously published stories eligible if the author has retained rights Submit work via email to meninbedstories@yahoo.com Please include a brief biographical note.

 

 

General: OV Books reads full-length literary short story collections only. (We occasionally publish themed anthologies and will place calls for submissions for these on our website and in other forums; otherwise we do not read individual short stories.) Currently, we are not reading novels. We publish no nonfiction of any kind.

To submit a short story collection, please query to determine whether we are reading. We publish only 2 titles annually, so we have to be careful not to fill too far in advance or become overbooked; therefore, we read not on a determined reading schedule but based on need. Queries can be sent via email to Gina Frangello at gfrangello@yahoo.com or to othervoicesmagazine@listserv.uic.edu.

We respond to queries very quickly. If we are interested in seeing your manuscript, you will need to submit it by standard post to OV Books, 3629 N. Hoyne, Chicago, Illinois 60618. Please adhere to the general guidelines of double-spacing manuscripts and printing them single-sided only. We love trees, but we also don't want to go blind, or go mad with confusion.

SASE for reply only, or just give us an email address and we will respond that way.

Allow 3 months for consideration of a full manuscript. After that, if you have not heard, feel free to email us again!

OV Books occasionally holds contests. These will be advertised on our website and in other forums when applicable. Otherwise, there is no reading fee. Submissions from agents are also welcome when we are reading. Agents should follow the same guidelines to determine whether we are currently considering manuscripts.