Coming Soon …

Poetry Chapbooks and Pamphlets Coming Soon from Dithering Chaps Press

Dithering Chaps press is an independent UK poetry chapbook publisher.

This page showcases the poetry chapbooks we are working on at the moment, giving you a flavour of the poetry sequences and exciting new voices we’ll be publishing soon!

We remain open for submissions all year round. You can find out more here.

Check out our published chapbooks here.

  • First Collection: one submission, two routes

    Dithering Chaps is committed to publishing at least one First Collection each year.

    If this would be your first traditionally published poetry collection, you don’t need to submit separately or pay another fee to be eligible for this opportunity.

    Submit during one of our normal reading periods and tell us that it is your first collection. We will consider it in the usual way for the publication slot attached to that reading period.

    At the same time, it will also remain eligible for our annual First Collection selection.

    This means your manuscript has two possible routes to publication:

    • it may be selected through the normal reading-period process; or

    • if it isn’t selected that way, it can still be chosen through our annual First Collection process.

    You only submit once. You only pay once.

    We do the rest!

    To be eligible for First Collection consideration, you must have not previously had a poetry pamphlet, chapbook or collection published by a publisher.

    Self-published work and poems published in magazines or anthologies would not make you ineligible.

    Please see our submissions page for more details.

  • Forthcoming publications

    We aim to publish at least three chapbooks every year. We published ‘Unstuck’ by Ceri Morgan at the end of August, and ‘Gestating Creatures’ by Bridgette James is available now.

    Meanwhile, Tom McLaughlin’s collection, ‘In Rooms of Falling Rain’, is part way through the publication process, with launch scheduled for 20th November.

    As you’ll see from the next column, we accept submissions throughout the year, so we’re already searching for our 2027 poets -

    could one of them be you?

  • The window is open!

    We are now accepting submissions throughout the year. For more information, please go to our Submissions page.

    We'll be announcing our next longlist on 7th October 2026, and our shortlisted five poets by mid-month, one of whom will be published in May 2027.

    Our next cut-off for submissions will be at he end of March 2027.

    NEW!!
    See Calling previously unpublished poets, the article in the first column on this page, to read about our First Collection opportunity. This annual opportunity runs in parallel with our reading periods.