WWPH WRITES ISSUE 100
WWPH Writes 100… and we’re celebrating! Three years ago, we launched this lit mag with the hope of expanding publishing opportunities for writers from DC, Maryland, and Virginia–and we have published over 200 poets and prose writers, including more than a few who have been published for the first time in WWPH Writes! We now have nearly 1,300 subscribers and many more readers through social media. It’s been a joy to read, edit, and publish your work.
In honor of the 100th issue, we’re sharing for the first time two of our works in these pages–poems published in our new fabulous pocket-size anthology, Capital Queer, along with 30 other writers from the DMV.
However, we are eager to read more of your work! Our book-length manuscript contests are now open for submissions. We are seeking poetry, fiction, and for the first time, poetry in translation. You receive: a $1,500 award, publication, editorial guidance, and the opportunity to call us your press-mates! The deadline is July 15th. TINY POEMS return this August to WWPH Writes. This is when we publish lots of TINY POEMS and show them lots of love. This year’s call is for American Haiku with themes of celebration, resilience, and/or rebellion. FREE to submit. See below for more information.
Lastly, please join us at our 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda on Sunday, September 14 from 3-6 pm. This is a rare ticketed event for your Washington Writers’ Publishing House — $50.00 for our 50th ($40 if you are members of the Writer’s Center)– and we are taking over the Writer’s Center with celebratory readings in the theater featuring Grace Cavalieri and E. Ethelbert Miller and more special guests, plus, live jazz, libations, and literary festivities! We are more than 50 percent sold out, so please don’t wait to purchase yours.
Tickets are available here via the WRITER’S CENTER and are limited to the number of theater seats.
Read on!
Caroline Bock & Jona Colson
co-presidents/editors
WWPH WRITES POETRY
Jona Colson is the author of Said Through Glass, winner of the Jean Feldman Poetry Award from WWPH, and the translator of Aguas/Waters by Miguel Avero. His poems, translations, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, LitHub, and elsewhere. He is co-president of Washington Writers’ Publishing House and edits the bi-weekly journal, WWPH Writes. He is also the co-editor of Capital Queer and the upcoming AMERICA’S FUTURE: poetry & prose in response to tomorrow anthologies. He is a professor of ESL at Montgomery College and lives in Washington, D.C. www.jonacolson.com
Caroline Bock is the co-president/prose editor at the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. She is the author of Carry Her Home, winner of the WWPH Fiction Award, the young adult novels LIE and Before My Eyes, and the forthcoming The Other Beautiful People (Regal House Publishing, 2026), her first novel for adults. She is a longtime ally of the LGBTQ+ community, going back to the 1990s, when she organized a ‘Moment Without Television’ within the cable industry to mark World AIDS Day and raise awareness of the AIDS crisis. She is the co-editor of Capital Queer and the upcoming AMERICA’S FUTURE: poetry & prose in response to tomorrow anthologies. She is currently working on her hybrid collection: I Should Have Slept With Them All.
Jona and Caroline are seen here at the World Pride Day Festival on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, earlier in June. Happy Pride!
CAPITAL QUEER: A PRIDE CELEBRATION FROM THE WASHINGTON WRITERS’ PUBLISHING HOUSE – our first pocket-size collection with 32 LGBTQ+ writers from the DMV! More details and purchase here.
WWPH NEWS
All invited! However, space is very limited. Please RSVP here. WWPH Literary Salon: PRIDE Edition is made possible by a grant from the
DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities.
Publish your book with WWPH! Now open for submissions. Send us your manuscripts via Submittable here. $28.00 submittable fee. Please let us know if this is a financial hardship via wwphpress @gmail.com. This fee, like all monies raised by WWPH as a cooperative nonprofit, pays it forward to our basic operations and the next generation of writers.
FREE TO SUBMIT!! Open through JULY 6. Celebration, resilience, and/or rebellion. If you only want to celebrate, send us 3 lines. If you want to show us your resilience, send us three lines. If you are ready to rebel, send us your three lines.
We are so thrilled when our WWPH award-winning books receive more accolades! Now available in print/ebooks everywhere books are sold, including at our bookshop.org affiliate page here
WWPH WRITES is open for submissions! We now pay $25.00 for poetry (up to 3 poems) and prose (up to 1,000 words of fiction or creative nonfiction–and we only have only 4 open slots for prose remaining for 2025!) Free to submit! And Caroline is especially seeking horror, weird fiction, or creative nonfiction to publish in October. More details regarding all our calls for submissions on our Submittable page here.
Thank you for being part of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s community!