Bridge Books + Imprints StepSister Press + Hurm Editions 2026

Submissions  Thank you for your interest in Bridge Books, Chicago's independent, intersectional art and culture journal. We welcome submissions in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, visual art, dance, architecture, politics, and hybrid work from established as well as emerging writers and artists. We are especially interested in work that embraces the world and continues, however subtly, the ongoing global conversation about culture and society that Bridge has championed from its beginning in 1999. We also accept reviews and interviews, which we publish throughout the year.

How to Submit: We accept all submissions through Submittable, an online submissions system. There is no charge to create a Submittable account, but please note that we do charge a small reading fee to help cover the costs of the software and some operating expenses. We do not accept mailed or emailed submissions. As a periodical, we publish when we have sufficient material to justify it, and accept submissions year-round.

Bridge Books encompasses three distinct presses: Bridge Books, its specialty imprint StepSister Press, and Hurm Editions, a transgressive pulp fiction press. For these presses we are currently seeking:

Please include in your cover letter which press you are submitting for, the title of your submission, year and any other information, including a short bio. Other specific criteria as listed within the submission form are also requested. 

Categories within this submission include:

BRIDGE BOOKS

- Artist's Monographs

- Book-Length Monographs of Literary or Poetry Criticism / History / Theory

- Book-Length Poetry Collections

- Book-Length Literary Fiction

- Arts Practice & Theory for the following focus areas:

- Essays for an anthology exploring the history & present of cinepoetry

- Essays / short book-length titles on dance and performance art

STEPSISTER PRESS

- Book-Length Monographs on Museum Studies & Art Educational Topics

- Book-Length Young Adult Fiction

HURM EDITIONS

- Graphic Novels

- Transgressive literary and pulp / genre fiction

An independent imprint founded in 2023 as a press to release artist’s editions from Michael Workman Studio, including his graphic novel Biography of a Villain, due out in 2026, Hurm Editions also seeks to fill a void in the current international publishing landscape. In a culture increasingly sanitized by the infringements on art of corporate norms as community standards, that helps fosters a culture of mass shootings by refusing to depict the aftermaths of our national obsession with gun violence, and that claims to celebrate sexual identity while outlawing any depictions whatsoever of sex or eroticism, Hurm Editions seeks to support work that challenges convention, pushes boundaries, and that revels in the grotesque, incoherent, offensive and obscene.

While many independent presses and publishers of transgressive literature have faded from view in recent years, or otherwise gone out of business, Hurm Editions recognizes that much original, intelligent, genre-busting and groundbreaking new work goes unpublished and unnoticed. We will publish original titles in literary fiction and graphic novels, poetry, occult and witchcraft, nonfiction, erotica, memoir, and the unclassifiable. As well, we seek essays, scholarship and writing that expands and works to preserve underrepresented histories and voices, including crip lit, LGBTQIA, Black arts, writing by sex workers, and the incarcerated, and that explore taboos in drug use and addiction, sex and pornography, violence (societal and otherwise), and other controversial subject matter that would otherwise be deemed illicit and unsupportable, often because of its implicit critique of societal norms. We seek to give voice to the poor, the disenfranchised, the disabled, outcast and delinquent, and some of our favorite writers (whose work would likely otherwise slip through the cracks today) include such critical voices as: Georges Bataille, John Rechy, Hubert Selby, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Kathy Acker, Anaïs Nin, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Maquis de Sade, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Dennis Cooper, Jean Genet, J.G. Ballard, and Fyodor Doestoevsky.

Hurm Editions is currently building its mailing list, which you can join by singing up here. All new publication announcements and calls for submissions will be announced through this mailing list. Currently, we do not accept open submissions but feel free to query your work by emailing us here.

All submissions to categories within this submission include:

Please include in your cover letter, c.v., previous book publications (if any), which press you are submitting for, the title of your submission, year and any other information, including a short bio. 

All book-length fiction and poetry submissions must include a completed manuscript. Nonfiction and scholarly submissions should include a proposal abstract, chapter list, and sample intro / first chapter with their submission, as well as a list of other current relevant titles in the specific field of interest. If the proposed title is a book in translation, please also include what countries the title has appeared in previously, as well as name and contact information for first appearance publisher.

Please refer to our submissions guidelines before submitting your work. We DO NOT accept simultaneous submissions for our books submissions, exclusive submissions ONLY are allowed for this category. You can withdraw or edit your submission at anytime by logging into your account. To learn more about Bridge and our mission as a periodical, please refer to our About Us page.