Editorial Guidelines

These are our Reading Guidelines

The editors and publisher at Astrophil Press are active members of the writing community who read literary magazines, buy books, attend readings and conferences, and engage with the community online and in person. We acquire most of our titles through community engagement and by reading widely. .

Open November 1st, 2025 for the first 100 submissions.

Astrophil Press at University of South Dakota will read for unpublished, book-length manuscripts of prose, poetry or hybrid forms. We are seeking work that is innovative, literary, playful, and striking. As a press, we strive to publish work from a variety of aesthetic traditions that explore the possibilities of genre, form, and language. We thrill in reading work that falls in the spaces in-between what is known and what is unknown.

To this end, if your work is a straight-ahead work of genre (cnf, sci-fi, horror, etc.) Astrophil is not a publisher who could best serve your work. We encourage you to visit duotrope or chill subs to find a suitable publisher.

For a better understanding of what we publish, we strongly encourage you to read one of our titles and decide then if you think your work would be of interest to our editors.

Manuscript Guidelines:

• All work should be in proper manuscript format unless the work is mindfully playing with form (double spaced, serif font such as Times or Garamond, name, title, and page number on every page). Note: if you work requires special formatting you may submit as a pdf to secure formatting.

• We will not publish anything that has been created, checked, or processed through AI

• All work should be submitted as a word document or PDF.

• Save file with the author’s last name and part of the title. For example, “Author Last Name_Title.”

• This open submission period in not open to current students or faculty members of the University of South Dakota.

Because of the volume of submissions we receive, reading can often take up to six months. However, the average response time is often three months or less. Please check with your submittable page to see the status of your manuscript. Though we wish we could respond to every submission personally, we cannot, but please understand that we will read work carefully and appreciate the time and energy you put into your work. If you have not received word on your submission after six months, you may contact us and inquire about your work. As a general rule, you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts outside of our publicized reading periods.

What do we publish? The only way to really know this, is to read our books. If you don’t own any of our titles, you may want to consider why you want to send us your work. See our About Us Page to understand what we look for in work.

We look forward to reading your manuscript when our next reading period is open!