Please read the'What We Publish' section below very carefully before you think of submitting to us. Most of the work submitted to us bears no relationship to what we publish or to what we say we're looking for, and we do not respond at all to those enquiries. So please think carefully about whether your work really falls into the category of writing that we're now looking for before approaching us, and make sure in your email to tell us why you think it does. There are plenty of publishers around, large and small, who publish commercial fiction or conventional generic 'literary' fiction or nonfiction. We are not one of them; we now have a small and focused list that reflects our own personal tastes and values. We plan to publish no more than half a dozen books a year.

And please make sure that you understand and support our approach to publishing before you submit an enquiry, by reading our 'About Us ' page. As it clearly sets out, we're very different from most publishers in the way that we operate and in the resources that we can bring to bear on publishing any book. We are very small (we have NO staff), we have no funding, and we're very independent. We do not fit the usual publishing model and have absolutely no desire to. We won't change for you, whether this is your first book or you've already had a glittering career – so please be sure that our way of working is something you can really believe in!

What We Publish

'Contemporary, cutting-edge, literary, innovative, risk-taking, challenging' – these are the kinds of words we have always used at Two Ravens Press, and they still reflect the ONLY kind of books we're interested in. We plan now to publish books – predominantly nonfiction and poetry – that face head-on the new certainty that ‘business as usual’, as a society, is not going to hack it. We're looking for books that are wilder. Books which reflect the fact that the division of the world into the human versus the natural was always a dangerous fiction. Books that explore ways of living and being human outside the paradigm of growth-addicted consumerism. If we have to put a label on it, we’re looking for ‘ecoliterature’. But really we’re looking for something much broader than that. We’re looking for books that are capable of challenging and unpicking the status quo, of shifting the worldview of their readers away from the creed of 'Progress is Growth is Consumption'.

We are not currently accepting unsolicited fiction submissions direct from authors with whom we haven't previously worked. Relevant submissions through agents are welcome.

Poetry is equally elusive stuff to describe when it comes to answering the question 'Well, what sort of work do you want to publish?' There are the minefields of academic debate and the trip-hazards of new jargon. Even if we simply say that we are reading and looking for ecopoetry, which is true, I daresay we could be accused of jumping on some new bandwagon. So let us put it even more simply. Inside an ecopoem there is (and should be) both the poet, the witness, the perceiver, call them what you will, and there is the environment which is responded to, the place, the non-human – again, call it what you will. For us, the poem lives or dies on the relationship – the balance – between the two ingredients. We still find that much of what purports to be ecopoetry, implictly or explicitly, has a skewed relationship. The human, the witness, is too dominant, leering into the camera, pointing vaguely at the non-human while talking mostly about 'me', 'I', 'my feelings', 'my response'. We want poetry in which the balance is different. We want the poet to fade more into the background and leave us the tiny, fragile signal from the environment. There are plenty of fine poetry presses who want something entirely different. But this is what Two Ravens wants (as best as we can describe it).

In the case of nonfiction: above all, we are looking for writing about nature, place and the environment. (If you take a look at our website for EarthLines magazine, you'll get a clear sense of where we're coming from in this context.) We're interested in work that looks in an intelligent, informed and creative way at the issues that we face in the world today and how we might deal with them. Books that offer a new paradigm for being and for living. However, we don't want self-help or new-age or books on how to do spirituality properly.

Please note that we publish only full-length books (not poetry pamphlets, for example).

How to submit

The warnings

We welcome new and original submissions [please note – 'new and original' means just that – we don't accept work that has been previously published, including self-published, which includes 'publishing' as a downloadable e-book in any form on any website or other medium]. However, we have an email-only submissions policy, whether you are an agent or an author. As well as saving time this also saves trees, which is something we care deeply about. An email-only submissions policy means you should NOT send enquiries/ unsolicited manuscripts/ books/ other materials of any kind by post, even with return postage; we discard them unread and we do so as soon as they arrive. People often find this unreasonable, especially if they don't have a computer, or email/internet access. However, if you don't have a computer or email or internet access we wouldn't be able to publish you anyway: all of our publishing activities and most of our communications with our authors take place by email/via the internet. This is the only way we can practically operate given our limitations and our location; it is also the way we choose to operate.

Also, please don't telephone us to discuss your project or to discuss whether you should submit a manuscript. We're not unfriendly; we just don't have the time! Email is by far the best route and we always respond rapidly. We do not, on the other hand, return unsolicited telephone calls about submissions.

Please do not enquire about manuscripts that you have not yet finished. We cannot consider them, because if they're not finished they can't be properly judged for quality and relevance, and we do not 'commission' work of any kind.

There is little we dislike more than submissions from people who try to pretend they're something they're not. Don't oversell yourself or your work or exaggerate – it doesn't help. We want honest submissions from writers with integrity.

If we are not interested in reading your submission, or if we turn it down after reading it, we won't engage in correspondence with you regarding this decision. We are a part-time small independent publisher, not a publically funded agency or a writing consultancy; we don't have the time to give feedback. There are lots of literary consultancies who will happily offer you such appraisals for a fee. In addition, due to an astonishing number of disgruntled, argumentative and often plain offensive emails from people for whom we've taken the time to give honest, albeit necessarily brief, reasons for turning down their work, we find that the most pleasant route is to provide no comment at all.

The specifics

In the first instance, whatever you're submitting, please send us an email enquiry, to one of the email addresses at the bottom of this page. Please do follow the steps below; if you are asking us to take the time to consider your work we think it's reasonable to ask you to take a little time to explain to us why we should!

— Please tell us exactly why your work fits into the category of book that we're looking to publish. This is important, especially for fiction submissions. If you have to work hard to make it fit, then it probably doesn't.

— In the main body of this email — not as an attachment; we don't open unsolicited attachments — please include a synopsis of your piece of work. We're not hung up on length but please note we're asking for a synopsis, not a sales blurb of the kind you'd find on the back cover of a book. If you're submitting a poetry collection we need to know what is the theme/ idea that binds the poems together.

— Please include a paragraph about your background and writing experience.

— Please also include your full postal address in the email.

We don't respond to enquiries that don't include all this information.

We don't acknowledge enquiry emails (including by means of read receipts) until we're ready to respond to them, so please don't keep emailing us to check whether we received it! We respond as rapidly as we're able and much more rapidly than most.

Submissions from overseas

Please note that it is close to impossible for a small press like us to sell fiction and poetry by an author not resident in the UK, where all of our distribution and contacts are. Fiction and poetry especially depend significantly on the presence of an author to actively promote it. For these reasons we will not accept fiction and poetry submissions from writers resident outside the UK, unless they have previously published work here and can demonstrate that they have a readership.

Nonfiction submissions from overseas are welcome.