We are publishing a book and we’re inviting you to submit your writing! We’re creating a poetry and short prose anthology with work provided by bowel cancer and bowel disease patients, researchers, and clinicians in the UK. Profits from the book will go to Bowel Research UK to help us continue to fund vital research.
If you would like your writing to be featured in the anthology, please read the below guidelines.
Submission Guidelines
Who Can Submit?
We are looking for work from bowel cancer and bowel disease patients, researchers, healthcare workers and carers or friends and family based in the UK. If you have a connection to a bowel condition and have something to say about it, we want to hear from you.
Poetry and Prose
We accept poetry of any length and prose of 500 words or less, as well as anything that you think inhabits the space between poetry and prose, such as prose poems or experimental work. Excerpts from longer work are fine as long as they stand on their own without additional background/context.
Please send 1-3 pieces of work in one email, either as an attachment or in the body of the email. If you send more than three pieces, only the first three will be read. Please do not send PDFs, as these are very difficult to edit. We’re interested to read anything linked to your experiences around bowel conditions – send us your best work.
Artwork
We accept artwork submissions for the front cover of the book. Please send 1-5 high-resolution images. We’d like to see images that depict your feelings or experiences as literally or as abstractly as you would like. You can send an image that is the entire front cover, spans the front and back cover, or can be placed on the front cover with space around it. Whatever you choose, please bear in mind that the title of the book (yet to be decided) will need to fit either on top of, above or below your image.
Deadline
The submission period runs from 1st April to 16th June 2023. We will send responses within a couple of months after this date, with the aim to release the book in late November.
Book Launch
We would like to hold a book launch event where writers can read their work, meet other writers, and celebrate the release of the book. This would be held in central London. Please let us know when you submit if you would be interested in attending or reading your work at this event if your work is accepted. Of course, your answer to this question has no bearing on whether your work is selected – it’s simply to help us with planning.
How To Submit
We accept simultaneous submissions but please let us know as soon as possible if your work is accepted elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been published elsewhere, including on personal blogs or social media. Please, no PDFs for poetry or prose.
When you email us, please:
- Tell us your full name (and pen name if you would like to be published under a different name).
- Tell us if you are a bowel disease or bowel cancer patient, healthcare professional, researcher, or carer, family member or friend of someone with bowel disease or bowel cancer.
- Please provide a short third-person bio of 75 words or less to appear in the back of the book. This might include your connection to bowel cancer, bowel disease, Bowel Research UK, your writing experience or style, your occupation or location, or anything else you would like to say about yourself or your work. Bios longer than 75 words may be edited to shorten them.
- Tell us if you would be interested in attending a book launch event, whether you would want to perform your work at that event if your work is published, and whether you would attend an event like this in London or if you would prefer an online event.
- For written work: Please either attach your poetry or prose (1-3 pieces) in one document or paste it into the body of your email. If submitting multiple pieces, please show clearly where one piece ends and another begins.
- For front cover artwork: Please attach 1-5 high-resolution images as separate files.
All set? Send your work and the information above to books@bowelresearchuk.org
If you’re wondering who to address it to, our Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Manager, Sam Alexandra Rose is the editor!
Your Rights
If your work is accepted, you will receive one complimentary contributor copy of the book.
For pieces we publish, you grant us non-exclusive rights to print, publish, distribute and sell copies of the work in printed form and online in the English language throughout the world. We will publish each accepted piece of work in the book and may also print work or extracts of work on our website or social media channels to promote the book.
Your work will be printed exactly as you have sent it and only the font type and size will be changed to conform to the style of the book. We may edit the work if we find anything we believe to be a spelling or grammar error. Any italics, underlined, bold, etc. will be exactly as you have emailed them to us.
You may publish your work in other mediums if you choose, but we would appreciate it if you would credit Bowel Research UK as the first publisher. Any compensation you receive from other mediums remains yours in whole.
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