Submissions

Magical Realist Eco-Fiction Anthology

We are currently taking submissions for a magical realist eco-fiction anthology centered on finding and examining “the sublime” and “the unknown” within our daily lives, and/or addressing the ways in which we interact with them.

We’re looking for eco-poetic prose musings, fantastical short stories, and fictionalized memoirs that lead readers to reconsider the spaces – both natural and manufactured – we encounter and reside in.

Submissions open until February 1st, 2023.
4,000 words maximum per story, and up to two stories allowed per submitter.
We will pay submitters $50/story for accepted work.

Submit work by emailing bluecactuspress@gmail.com. Label your submissions as follows in the subject line: Sublime_[Title]_[Last Name]. Do not include your writing in the body of the email. Include it as an attachment in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format.

General Submissions

We’re accepting rolling submissions for full-length manuscripts by women, transgender and gender-nonconforming People of Color in the Pacific Northwest. We’re primarily interested in non-fiction works, including poetry, but will consider fiction if the content is in conversation with other works from our catalog. We’re particularly interested in works related to:

Regional/cultural history from non-dominant cultural perspectives
Chicano/a voices and experiences
Queer parenting / birthwork
Death Doulas
Immigration / Deportation
Non-traditional romance

Please include a cover letter with your manuscript addressing the following:

How your work connects to our mission statement and engages in conversation with other works from our catalog
Recurring themes in your manuscript
What you hope to accomplish via publication

Send your cover letter and manuscript to bluecactuspress (at) gmail (dot) com. Manuscripts should be sent in Microsoft word (.doc or .docx) format, in 12 point, Times New Roman font. For prose, please ensure your work is double-spaced. For poetry, please send your work spaced/placed as it is intended to be read on the page.

Submitted manuscripts will be considered for 2023 and 2024 publication. We will try our best to personally respond to your submission within three months of receiving your work. However, depending on the volume of submissions, we may not be able to.

If you are not a woman, transgender and gender-nonconforming person of color, we will not read or respond to your submission. We value and respect a diversity of voices in our community, however, we are intent on building spaces and dialogue in which marginalized voices are centered.

books

Browse our books below, as well as some from like-minded presses and authors of the Pacific Northwest. Your purchase allows our collaborators — including authors, artists, designers, editors, marketers, and printers — to thrive.

Papeachu Review Issue 1

Papeachu Review is an annual anthology of prose, poetry, nonfiction, art, and comics, all created by female, nonbinary, and genderqueer artists. In this issue, each of the 24 contributors were able to publish up to 3 individual pieces along with a bio page, showcasing not only their work, but who they are as artists.

$18.00

Papeachu Review Issue 2: Beauty

Papeachu Review is an annual anthology of prose, poetry, nonfiction, art, and comics, all created by female, nonbinary, and genderqueer artists. In this issue, each of the 31 contributors submitted artwork, poems, short fiction, or a personal essay based on the theme of beauty and their interpretations of that theme.

$18.00

Papeachu Review Issue 3: Beginnings and Endings

Papeachu Review is a bi-annual anthology of poetry, prose, essays, comics, and art, all created by female and non-binary artists. This issue is extra special! Not only is this our largest issue yet, it is also our first color edition! With 35 talented contributors across mediums, this issue is one of Papeachu’s proudest moments. Celebrate marginalized voices with this 220 page anthology.

$22.00

Papeachu Review Issue 4: Real Magic

Papeachu Review is a bi-annual anthology of poetry, prose, essays, comics, and art, all created by female and non-binary artists. This issue was created during a global pandemic and a continuing fight for racial justice, which is the Real Magic of this collection. We are so pleased to share this stunning, full-color anthology containing 28 bright, talented, and passionate contributors across mediums. We are also excited to announce that $2 from every book will be donated to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute! Celebrate marginalized voices with this 178 page anthology!

$22.00

Papeachu Review Issue 5: Comfort

Papeachu Review is an annual anthology of prose, poetry, nonfiction, art, and comics, all created by female, nonbinary, and genderqueer artists. This issue is extra special! For the first time ever, Papeachu Review has been published BIG, sizing up from the original format of 6.5 x 6.5 to 8 x 8! This size change has been a long-awaited goal, and we are so happy to announce it after 4 years of publishing. This issue’s theme was comfort, and artists created work centered around that theme.

$26.00

Vega

Much like the star, Vega is a dazzling light for those who struggle with grief, depression, and loss. Written by poet and publisher Christina Vega, this sophomore poetry collection centers the Chicana experience amid the rippling effects of unexpected loss within multigenerational families, strained familial dynamics, and reconnecting with ancestral ties. Vega is a book about finding power within liminality, rather than a path away from it.

$20.00

Difference and Survival

This short but impassioned speech by writer, radical feminist, and activist Audre Lorde is about self-actualization, the power of language, and what happens if we sit back and allow others to take charge of our stories. Originally delivered at a commencement ceremony for college graduates in the twentieth century, Difference and Survival returns to deliver the same life-changing message to today’s readers: the stories we tell ourselves have the power to change our lives. This is a limited edition, recycled, and handcrafted chapbook.

$10.00

Select options

Maps

3rd Edition Maps is the transmutation of Christina Vega’s debut poetry collection — and the book that started it all at Blue Cactus — Still Clutching Maps. First published in 2017, this pocket-sized poetry collection explores Vega’s cultural and geographic roots as a Chicana in the American Southwest. Vega sends readers down a path of memories, dreams, and warnings, asking them to witness the liminality of borderland existence. The poems in this collection, whether by omission, change, or preservation, illuminate Vega’s lived experiences as their queerness, cultural frameworks, and home drift toward and away from borderlands.

$20.00

Less Desolate

Haiku by Shin Yu Pai & Comics by Justin Rueff Publication Date: November 11, 2023 Multidisciplinary artists Shin Yu Pai and Justin Rueff have created Less Desolate, a stunning haiku comics book exploring Pacific Northwest and pandemic life. Less Desolate represents an hybrid literary artform that brings together the lyricism and associative qualities of poetry, while also drawing from the craft of sequential art. Within its pages, Pai and Rueff uncover the quiet moments of calm that anchor us within urban surroundings, while also contemplating climate change, poverty, homelessness, loneliness, parenting and mental health during isolation and confinement. Less Desolate was fully…

$15.00 – $30.00

Select options