Open Reading Period from 11/1/2025 to 12/31/2025
The
Accents Publishing team is excited to announce a two-month open reading period! The goal of the reading period is to discover and select the core of our 2027 catalog.
We are looking for unpublished manuscripts of every genre imaginable. We are excited to read novels, short story collections, memoirs, nonfiction, young adult, children's books, craft books, lyrical essays, full-length poetry collections, as well as chapbooks, plus any genre in between. We will also consider translation projects, but please inquire first.
We are turning our focus towards growth. We want to expand the variety of titles Accents Publishing is offering, and we also aim to increase our geographical reach and readership appeal. Therefore, if you think that your manuscript is nothing like what we've published before, that's even more reason for sending us your work.
Timeline: We accept manuscripts in November and December and hope to announce our selections before the end of March 2026.
Fees: In lieu of a reading fee, to have a manuscript considered, we are requesting that you buy a recent Accents Publishing book directly from our
website.
Process: Buy a recent (publication years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) Accents Publishing book directly from our
website. Forward the receipt to
accents.publishing@gmail.com and attach your manuscript in a pdf or word format and include your brief bio. You are welcome to submit more than one manuscript, though a separate book purchase is required for each.
James Baker Hall Book Award for a Short Story Collection
Judge
Toni Ann Johnson chose
Honeysuckle Season by Willie Davis as the winner of the James Baker Hall Book Award for a Short Story Collection.
Finalists for the award are:
- Re-Member by Kasimma
- The Language of Birds by Geraldine Ann Marshall
- Out of Order by Michelle Ruby
Congratulations to the winner and the finalists!
Honeysuckle Season will be published in May of 2026. The next James Baker Hall Book Award will be for a creative nonfiction manuscript by a Kentucky author. Details to follow.
Willie Davis is a multi-award-winning author who has won the Willesden International Short Story Prize (judged by Zadie Smith) and the Katherine Ann Porter Prize (Judged by Amy Hempel). His work has appeared in
The Guardian,
The Kenyon Review,
Salon,
The Berkeley Fiction Review, and
StorySouth, among other places. His previous books include the novel
Nightwolf and the short story collection
I Can Outdance Jesus.
The James Baker Hall Foundation
The mission of the James Baker Hall Foundation is to preserve and protect our legacy of past great Kentucky writers by investing in future great Kentucky writers.
Following the James Baker Hall Book Award each year, our Kentucky On-The-Road program offers the winner and finalists ongoing opportunities to promote their work across the Commonwealth while helping to nurture the next generation of Kentucky writers. Need based grants are available to support travel and mentoring.
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