August 2025 Newsletter
Hello, Dithering Chaps Community!
It’s been a year since our last newsletter, and we’ve been busy celebrating milestones, sharing new work, and opening our doors to fresh voices. Here’s what’s happening right now:
Award Shortlist
We published Helen Kay’s beautiful collection, It Was Never about the Kingfisher, earlier this year, and it was a finalist in this year’s Rubery Awards. That’s national recognition for a collection many of you have loved and a first (of many, we hope) for Dithering Chaps. It's no surprise, then, that Helen's book keeps popping up as a pick for this year's Sealey Challenge. Congratulations, Helen!
Just Released
Another of our publications, Nicole Durman’s Ghosts of Nightshifts Past, debuted to a full house at our launch event. Attendees couldn’t get enough of her vivid, heartfelt poems. Discover the buzz and explore her work at ditheringchaps.com/ghosts-of-nightshifts-past
Coming Soon
Later this year, we will be publishing Christopher James' sonnet sequence, The Ice Sonnets. We’ll announce our crowdfunding campaign and reward tiers very soon, so stay tuned!
Open Submissions
Our current reading window for poetry chapbook submissions closes on 30 September 2025 (for our May 2026 publication slot).
STOP PRESS: for poets who have not previously had a poetry collection published, we’ve added a third publication slot. Every December, we will review all submissions from that calendary year and select our favourite debut collection (for publication the following summer.)
Submission fee: £10. Please note, for this one-off fee, we will consider you for publication, and will provide thoughtful, personalised feedback, whether we publish you or not. Full guidelines for submissions can be found on our website: ditheringchaps.com/submissions
Thank you for being part of our poetry family. Whether you’ve read at our open mic event, submitted your poetry, or simply supported our authors, we can’t wait to share more creativity and community in the months ahead.
With warm wishes for the rest of your year,
David Herring
Lead Editor, Dithering Chaps sent a (newsy, upbeat) newsletter out to our subscribers today. Lots to celebrate this year (and submissions windows to plug).
If you want to receive these (twice-yearly) updates - please fill out our ‘Contact Us’ form…