Papeachu is a small press currently open for submissions until February 28, 2022 for a themed collection of poetry and nonfiction centered around stories of abortion, reproductive healthcare, mental illness, and any intimate medical experiences.  There is a $1 submission fee, but they will waive it if needed. “Papeachu (puh-peach-oo) is a feminist small press publishing the works of women and nonbinary creators in order to elevate and venerate a community of work often under-appreciated. We publish the works we believe in, and believe in the people we publish. Our mission is to see more women and nonbinary creations on the bookstore shelves, in hands of young readers, and in the homes of everyone we both know and don’t.” For more information see my interview with Meg Gray (she/her) and Lynne Ellis (she/they) and a link to submission guidelines below.

HOPKINSON: Tell me a little bit about Papeachu Press. 

MEG: Papeachu is a tiny book press that aims to diversify gender representation in the literary arts, amplify emerging voices, and encourage everyone who publishes with us to take pride in their art. We publish solely female and nonbinary/genderqueer creators in order to give specific space to underrepresented artists. Our primary aim is to exist for the creator.

LYNNE: Can confirm that Papeachu exists for the creator! Meg and I met at an open mic, in a basement bar in Belltown. I’d just read a sprawling road-trip love poem (later anthologized in The Stars from Outrider Press), and Meg came over to say that she loved my work, and she was starting a press, and did I have a manuscript? I had published maybe three poems at that point, I didn’t have an MFA or anything—she had just seen me read a few times and believed in my work.

HOPKINSON: How/why was Papeachu Press originally started? 

MEG: The why is easier—it started out of anger. It started because there are so many massively talented creators who aren’t given a fair shot in the publishing world. We wanted to help showcase those voices. With work and luck and help, we were able to make something of the idea. We reached out to creators doing something similar to our vision, and really relied on their generosity. So many folks built Papeachu, but we couldn’t have done it without Rachelle Abellar over at Archive Six, who answered my desperate cold-call and responded with such transparent advice and kindness. She’s a gem-person.

LYNNE: And then a few years after she published my chapbook, Meg invited me to join the press in an editorial capacity. I mention this because it was a second start for Papeachu, after the long dark of canceled book fairs and live events. Our second start was possible because of our community of Kickstarters who supported this forthcoming anthology.

HOPKINSON: Who is your target reader audience? 

MEG: At the risk of sounding too-cool-for-school: I haven’t really considered target much when working with creators. Our books range so much in tone and topic—in our collections we have penis poetry and love letters to a grandmother’s cooking and illustrations of tentacle sex and reflections on queer identities and photographs of pigeons. I think maybe I view the artists themselves as the target audience. At the end of the day they are the ones I’m thinking about.

LYNNE: These books are for everyone, even readers on the outside of the frame! For example: The Clitaurus Chronicles centers clitoral pleasure and orgasm in a way that’s often ignored in our culture. How cool, to get to look at that! Our next project centers healthcare—and the nonbinary and/or genderqueer and/or female experience of the medical environment. I want cis men to read these stories and gain empathy. I want trans men to write their stories and be heard. And I want all people who have uteruses and ovaries and fallopian tubes and cervixes to just…talk about them (in the present or past tense).

HOPKINSON: What type of work are you looking for? 

LYNNE: We want work that showcases a writer’s complexity. We love sense-forward work and experimental forms. For this collection, we’re looking for narratives which show that a person is more than simply a body, that they bring their whole life into a healthcare context. More generally, we want work that draws us through the piece, work that holds us, work that queers the language. Subversive concepts of gender, challenges to compulsory capitalism. Love poems and self-love poems. Every writer brings a unique language to their work, and this language helps alter the world.

HOPKINSON: What do you wish you’d see submitted, but rarely comes in? 

MEG: I would love a collection of short fiction, or a brutally sad but lovely selection of prose poetry. I would love to cry more during the submissions process. 

LYNNE: I love reading poems in form! The incomparable Natalie Diaz works with equal prowess in free-verse and in established poetic forms, so I know that it’s possible to break hearts with form. I also love work that invents new forms—like the kinds of work that CAConrad and Danez Smith are adding to the conversation.

HOPKINSON: What are some of your favorite lit mags/journals?

LYNNE and MEG: The Shore, Sugar House Review, The Adroit Journal, Foglifter, Crazyhorse, self-published poets on Instagram, The Sun, Blue Cactus Press, Guesthouse, Poetry Northwest, and zines and zines and zines! Oh! And when it was operational, Rookie Mag was everything.

HOPKINSON: What is your favorite part of being on staff with Papeachu Press?

LYNNE: Boosting voices that question norms and demand a departure from traditional power structures. Sharing that flammable joy with our community! Writers come to Papeachu with their most intimate thoughts and calls for a more inclusive world, and we are here for it!

HOPKINSON: Where can we send submissions? 

LYNNE and MEG: https://manager.submittable.com/opportunities/organization/24094

HOPKINSON: If someone has a question, how can they contact you? 

LYNNE and MEG: DM us on Instagram: @papeachupress or email us: papeachupress@gmail.com 

Click here to read submission guidelines.

• SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Feb 28, 2022
• THEME(S): “From the Waist Down: the body in healthcare”—stories of abortion, gender-affirming surgery, reproductive healthcare, and other intimate medical experiences
• FORMAT: print
• SUBMISSION FEE: $1 (DM us for fee waiver)
• PAYMENT: One of our operational goals is to become a paying market within the next 5 years, but we’re not there yet.
• ISSUE FREQUENCY: yearly
• AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME: less than 6 months
• SUBMISSION METHOD: Submittable
• SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Yes! Please notify us if you’re accepted elsewhere so that we can celebrate you!
• FORMS: For our current anthology we are looking for autobiographical non-fiction and poetry only. For Papeachu Review we welcome all forms and visual art!
• SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook, Instagram

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