The Appalachia Book Company is a non-profit literary publisher and media company dedicated to empowering the voices of central Appalachia. We seek to preserve and promote the rich literary history of our region and to discover and provide opportunities to emerging writers. We publish a chapbook series called Made in Appalachia along with special projects.
We look for writers who hail from central Appalachia, the Appalachia subregion as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission. This subregion includes parts of eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. The area is remote, mountainous, and traditionally associated with the coal mining industry.
We also encourage writers with stories based in central Appalachia to submit.
We embrace our local dialect. We won't stumble over phrases like "If you don't care to" or "I'd reckon" or "rurnt." If you have a story with mamaws and papaws settin' under a paw paw tree, we get it. That said, we do not ask our writers to perform their Appalachian heritage. There is no Appalachian identity or subject matter that we are specifically looking for.
We pay our writers and publish in print.
Appalachia Book Company proudly announces a new anthology of speculative fiction, These Dreaming Hills, to be published in 2026, edited by Christopher Rowe.
The future happens everywhere, and all who lay their head to rest dream dreams. It is with the rich culture, history by turns painful and joyful, and extraordinary landscape of Central Appalachia as their inspiration that the publishers of These Dreaming Hills call on writers with strong connections to the region to submit stories of fantasy fiction, fantasy, and fabulism for this new anthology.
The strength of the Appalachian people lies in diversity. Indigenous, African, and European traditions are the taproots of our folkways, but people from all over the world created, and continue to create, our culture. These Dreaming Hills will reflect our past heritage, current lives, and our shared future.
Submission details
We will publish original stories rooted in central Appalachia dependent upon broadly defined notions of speculative fiction, written by authors with strong ties to the region. All the elements of good fiction are, of course, required, but Appalachia is made up of its people, so strong characterization is an absolute necessity.
These Dreaming Hills will not include poetry or flash fiction. Reprints, simultaneous submissions, and multiple submissions will not be considered. We are looking for original works of fiction between 1,000-6,000 words. Please submit all manuscripts in William Shunn’s “modern” version of “Proper Manuscript Format.”
https://www.shunn.net/format/story/
The submission window for this anthology opens August 15th, 2025 and closes November 15th, 2025. Submissions received outside that window will receive no response.
Address any questions to the editor at christopher@appalachiabook.co.
Payment and Rights
We offer US $.08 per word for first English world anthology rights. Contributors will also receive three copies of the finished book.
AI Statement
Any use of Large Language Models or Generative AI immediately disqualifies potential writers from the anthology.