Coming Soon …

Coming Soon from Dithering Chaps Press

Dithering Chaps press is an independent UK poetry chapbook publisher.

This page showcases the poetry chapbooks at various stages in the production process, offering a preview of the new voices and poetry sequences we’ll be bringing into the world soon!

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

Check out our published chapbooks here.

  • Not published yet?

    For anyone who has not had a collection published before, you might be interested in our ‘First Collection’ submission category.

    We strongly champion new voices and are proud to offer this opportunity. We reconsider all submissions received in this category during each calendar year, and then choose our favourite and publish their First Collection the following year.

    We announced the shortlist of five poets and a highly commended list of ten from 2025, and have selected Bridgette James for publication in 2026.

    Don’t worry if you have missed our end of December 2025 cut-off for this opportunity. We are committed to publishing at least one poet in this category each year, so we’ll run this exercise again at the end of 2026, and, of course, your submission will also be considered for publication in the relevant reading period.

    Please see our submissions page for more details.

  • Forthcoming publications

    We aim to publish at least three chapbooks every year, and usually one of those would have been published in May. However, this year, we’ve been getting two collections ready in parallel, and both are likely to be launched in July/August, with the third appearing in November.

    ‘Gestating Creatures’ by Bridgette James and ‘Unstuck’ by Ceri Morgan are close to being ready. We’ve requested reviews, and are finalising the cover designs for both, before going for our proof prints.

    Meanwhile, Tom McLaughlin’s collection, ‘In Rooms of Falling Rain’, is at the very beginning of the process, and we aim to publish him in November. However, like the other two chapbooks we’re publishing, this is a work of art and won’t be rushed to meet a deadline!

    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.

    Our next cut-off for submissions will be the end of September 2026, at which point we will select our longlist for this reading period. We'll announce our shortlist of five poets by mid-October, one of whom will be published in May next year.

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    See Calling previously unpublished poets, the article in the first column on this page, to read about our First Collection opportunity.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