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Kentucky Small Magazines and Presses
Kentucky Small Magazines
Since 1973, Appalachian Heritage has been a leading literary magazine of the Southern Appalachian Region. With a subscription to Appalachian Heritage, you will delight in the poetry, thoroughly enjoy the short stories, be stimulated by the literary biography and criticism, and be awed by the photography and art. You will also find that you can keep up with new regional books, literary events and news easily in the quarterly issues of Appalachian Heritage and on our Web site.
The Heartland Review (founded 2001) is a biannual digest-sized journal published with funding from the Kentucky Community & Technical College System and contest reading fees. Issues come out in the fall and summer every year. The Heartland Review seeks poetry, short stories and artwork from writers and artists from Kentucky and other states
Kudzu, the literary magazine of Hazard Community and Technical College, has been publishing work from around the country since 1993. Prior to acquiring the name Kudzu, the college�s literary magazine was titled YarnSpinner. We publish one issue in the spring and we accept submissions of poetry, fiction, essay, and artwork during our reading period from August to February of each year.
In every issue we strive to publish works by published writers as well as those who have never published. We publish good writing.
The Journal of Kentucky Studies welcomes articles on any theme — art, commentary, critical essays, history, literary criticism, short fiction, and poetry. Black and white photography is also accepted.
Limestone showcases original and imaginative writing and art by residents of the Bluegrass region of Kentucky and from across the nation. Graduate students in the Department of English at the University of Kentucky publish Limestone annually. The journal is a member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. Issues are indexed in the Index of American Periodical Verse.
Staffed by student editors and editorial assistants, The Licking River Review is Northern Kentucky University’s annual literary/art magazine. Sponsored by the Department of Literature and Language and the Art Department, the purpose of The Licking River Review is to showcase the best literary and art works submitted each year by NKU students, alumni, and emerging or established writers. At least twenty-five per cent of the literary works (poems, one-act plays, short stories) published each year is student work.
The Louisville Review, housed at Spalding University since 1998, was founded in 1976 at the University of Louisville by faculty editor Sena Jeter Naslund and two students. Known for excellence nationwide and abroad, … Receiving the top award of the Kentucky Arts Commission as the best literary magazine in the state with its maiden issue, …The goal of the magazine continues to be to import the best writing to local readers, to juxtapose the work of established writers with new writers, and to export the best local writers to a national readership. Each poem and story submitted to TLR is judged entirely on its own merit whether the author is already nationally known or previously unpublished.
New Madrid is the official journal of the low-residency M.F.A. program at Murray State University. It takes its name from the New Madrid seismic zone, which falls within the central Mississippi Valley and extends through western Kentucky. Between 1811 and 1812, four earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 7.0 struck this region, changing the course of the Mississippi River, creating Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee and ringing church bells as far away as Boston.
New Southerner is a quarterly online magazine of literary journalism about Southern people, places and issues. We encourage readers to live a more meaningful, self-sufficient life through thought-provoking and instructive articles on good stewardship of our land, conservation of natural resources, neighborliness and support of local communities. We also highlight visual art and literature that show appreciation of these values in Southern culture.
Pegasus, the KSPS poetry journal, publishes three issues each year, Spring/Summer,
Fall/Winter, and a Prize Poems issue featuring all first place poems from our annual
contest. A subscription to Pegasus is provided at no cost to KSPS members. For all
others, Pegasus is available for $3.50 per copy.Founded in 1987, The Pikeville Review is an annual publication of contemporary fiction, poetry, creative essays, and book reviews. There is no particular editorial bias at The Review, either geographically or thematically. Quality and a concern for craft are the only true requirements for acceptance, the determining factor being work which demonstrates an aesthetic balance between content and form.
Though The Review publishes the work of a number of established writers from within the Commonwealth of Kentucky and around the country, we are equally open to submissions from new and unpublished writers.
The Pikeville Review is funded and published by the Division of Humanities at Pikeville College.
To be a writer is to learn how to be still.
The moonshine still is one of the stereotypical images of Appalachia.
As a culture, Appalachia has been told for decades that it is disappearing. We are still here, proud and strong as ever.
James Still, author of River of Earth, The Wolfpen Poems, and many other great works, is the grandfather of modern Appalachian literature and has inspired us all.
wind was founded in 1971 in pikeville kentucky by quentin r. howard. in the time since then, through many hands, many aesthetics , basement offices, financial turmoils, & personal chaoses, wind has become one of about 20 small independent literary journals in the united states to live longer than 30 years. wind is kentucky’s longest running independent literary journal.
For further information about Kentucky periodicals, check out Kentucky Periodicals, Magazines, and Journals
Kentucky Small Presses
Our mission is to promote brilliant voices in an affordable publication format, and to foster an exchange of literature among different world cultures and languages.
In 1999, a small group of Appalachian writers decided to establish a press with the aim of publishing their work as it relates to the region and to the environment.
418 Ann Street
Frankfort, KY 40601-1929502.223.4415
Finishing Line Press is an award-winning small press publisher.
The primary mission of the Fleur-de-Lis Press is to publish first books of authors who have appeared in The Louisville Review. The press currently has seven such books in print.
Gnomon Press
PO Box 475,
Frankfort, Kentucky502-223-1858
The Jesse Stuart Foundation is devoted to preserving the human and literary legacy of Jesse Stuart and other Kentucky and Appalachian writers. The Foundation controls rights to Stuart’s published and unpublished literary works. Since its restructuring in 1985, the JSF has reprinted many of Stuart’s out-of-print books along with other books that focus on Kentucky and Appalachia, and has evolved into a significant regional press and bookseller.
The Foundation also promotes a number of cultural and educational programs. We encourage the study of Jesse Stuart’s works, and of related material, especially the history, culture, and literature of Kentucky and Appalachia.
What we try to do with our Craft and Art is to publish in a well designed, well made way. Our focus is on the writing. Artwork is used to complement the Poem or Story. We try to publish an edition that is affordable. Most of the writers we’ve published are living. Many of our books have been the Author’s First Book, and the work of many of them is now well known. We’ve also had the privilege to work with many established writers.
In addition to publishing, we are helping keep alive the traditional Art of letterpress printing, which is shown in the special editions we issue, along with the more affordable regular editions.
It is fun work. Over the years there have been many Apprentices at the press, but the folks now responsible for the work are Leslie Shane, Carolyn Whitesel and Gray Zeitz.
Did you ever notice a shaft of light falling through a window or slanting through trees in shady woods and find yourself watching tiny particles dance within it? Those little particles are called
motes. Some people call them ‘dust motes’ because they look like dust floating around. Dust, pollen, flakes … they are particles of things that are always in our air. Minuscule bits and pieces of us and of our world. And even though we breathe them in and out all the time, we do not see them until a focused beam of light slices through their particular segment of the universe to illuminate them.…
Our books are kind of like that … filled with interesting thoughts that might otherwise go unnoticed, even though they exist all around us. We like to think that these are books that might not have found a publishing home elsewhere until we turned a beam of light on them to illuminate these fascinating realizations, ideas, phrasings, characters, lives, events. Once seen, such notions are no longer invisible … they seem to take on a life of their own. Such literary Motes, like their physical namesakes, co-exist with us. We share newly understood space with them.
MotesBooks doesn’t claim to be a large or powerful publishing house. We’re contented being small but significant … finding fascinating ideas that might otherwise go unnoticed and bringing them into a focused “light” so that you, too, can enjoy their dance.
And so, in the spirit of literary metaphor and the ancient tradition of allusion, MotesBooks are the kind of well-written, intelligent, engaging read that might otherwise have remained obscure and, perhaps, unpublished — the kind of literature you might not have known to be sorry you missed … until now.
Unsolicited manuscripts are not considered.
Always query first.Our mission is to revive long lost, but well loved children’s books. Today’s children deserve to read wholesome stories from a simpler time and we know grownups want to revisit with old childhood friends too!
Please note that Purple House Press does not accept manuscripts for new books, there are too many old ones out there we want to save! If unsolicited manuscripts or previously published childrens books are submitted for consideration we will not able to return them.
Sarabande Books, a nonprofit literary press located in Louisville, Kentucky, publishes quality poetry, essays, and short fiction.
Founded in 1994 as an alternative to mainstream publishing, Sarabande Books strives to provide talented authors with a final product and visibility, in short, a real “home” for their work.
We’re convinced that quality book design contributes to a literary work’s value and are committed to keeping our titles in print.
Founded in 2003, Steel Toe Books publishes 1-3 single-author poetry collections per year. Our authors have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s radio program, “The Writer’s Almanac,” on Ted Kooser’s newsletter, “American Life in Poetry,” as well as on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. Our books have been reviewed in fine publications such as Verse, Small Press Review, Rhino, The Comstock Review, and Chemical and Engineering News.
Our books are professionally designed and printed. They are distributed through Ingram. We read unsolicited submissions during the month of June only.
Wind Publications is an independent small press located in Nicholasville, Kentucky. Since its inception Wind has followed the goal of seeking out and publishing the best new and emerging, as well as established, writers from Kentucky and the world.
Artistic Support
Sherry has also received an Artist Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
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