Ugly Duckling Presse welcomes submissions of manuscripts of any length during our 2025 open reading period.

For English-language original works: please upload the complete manuscript.

For translations: please upload a sample of 40–60 pages total, including both the original language and the English translation (roughly 20–30 pages of each).

Please note: you may submit only once during this open reading period. Multiple submissions will be disqualified; only the first submission will be considered. Unfortunately we are only able to read one submission per translator.

Please also include a cover letter that describes the project and its background; provides brief bios for the author, translator, and any other contributors; and explains why you are submitting to UDP in particular and what makes your project a strong fit for our publishing program.

Open calls are critical to Ugly Duckling’s commitment to bring innovative literature to readers, and to publish emerging, international, and under-translated authors. To submit work, you need not be previously published, accredited, agented, or accoladed. UDP reviews each submission on its own merit; commercial viability does not play a role in editorial selections. Open calls are the bedrock of UDP’s publishing program because they allow us to move beyond stasis, establishment, and convention towards the experimental unpublishable, undiscovered, useless? Mangy? Outsider? Fuckup? Visionary? Irradiated? Psychically eroded—in short, the ugly! Open calls are important to our mission of publishing work that changes our work. The open call is one of our ways of getting out of our ways, of keeping our doors open to keep our publishing ugly (feral) and alive.

We are committed to holding open this possibility, that something unthinkable could be published, and at the same time, the open call becomes a glut of labor for our volunteer editorial team. In our last open call we received nearly 800 submissions. For the first time we are asking for suggested donations to make the process sustainable. The donation is optional and plays no role in editorial selection.

Thank you for trusting UDP with your work. We’re excited to read it.

We aim to respond to all submissions by spring 2026 at the latest. Accepted manuscripts will be published between 2027-2029.