Whisper House Press

Notes from the desk of the editor are offered in the interests of personal posterity and transparency for writers and other potential editors who wish to learn from my experience

the editor

As a publisher embarking on a second anthology, I want to improve on our first. Costs of Living has already been a huge success in production, and it will be released 9/1/2025 after a Kickstarter campaign in January/February 2025. Dread Mondays is our second anthology, and it should be released 10/31/2025. One specific point on which I hope to improve is to reach writers who are members of underrepresented groups in writing (and in horror writing in particular).

One step I’ve taken is to offer a monthlong extended deadline for members of historically marginalized communities (which I’ve identified on my site as including but not limited to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities).

I’ve also been google things like “calls for submissions BIPOC,” and I’ve sent the call to one site in particular that seems to be a clearinghouse specifically for submission calls for members of marginalized communities. I’m having trouble finding others.

I need your help.

Do you know of any places I might post the call for Dread Mondays to encourage more submissions from BIPOC (in particular) writers? I’d love to hear from you. Please email me at stephen [at] whisperhousepress [dot] com.

I have been frustrated by some responses to my press’s efforts. For some reason, folks who don’t seem to understand what structural inequality is or how it works respond to these public efforts (and I’ve received a few long emails to this effect) also seem to misunderstand the review process and suspect that I’m somehow favoring or “adding points” (whatever that means) to submissions from members of marginalized communities. This isn’t the case. While I won’t rule that method out for the future, right now what I want to provide, insofar as I’m able, additional opportunity in the form of additional time to submit. I don’t want to get into debates with people who don’t think I ought to provide additional opportunities, so I haven’t been very responsive to these complaint emails. They don’t seem to have been written in good faith, anyway. I doubt these folks have read our “Who We Are” statement, but for anyone looking at this post, this is near the top of that page:

We believe in inclusion and equity and in using the privileges we’ve been gifted to boost the voices of those with fewer opportunities. We celebrate submissions from frequently marginalized groups and offer extended deadlines to those who face structural challenges in everyday life.

Whisper House Press will always use whatever little power we have to offer systematized improvements in opportunity for members of marginalized communities.

If you think that racism doesn’t exist or don’t understand or believe in structural inequality, you should not reach out to me for an argument, as I won’t be offering one and don’t have the time to teach you about it. I do encourage you to learn, however, about how this world works.