Soho Press seeks crime novels, especially for young adults

The Sweet Dead Life by Joy Preble

coming from Soho Press in 2013

Soho Press

853 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

http://www.sohopress.com/

Soho Press primarily publishes literary fiction and international crime. While most of their fiction comes through agents, they not only accept manuscripts from new writers but they give them priority.

Also, in 2013, Soho will launch a Young Adult mystery line.

Here’s what Soho says they’re looking for:

Soho Teen publishes a select list of YA mysteries and thrillers by international bestsellers, award winners, and debut novelists. Born of the conviction that compelling YA of any genre involves thrill and mystery, Soho Teen's titles include the paranormal and dystopian, the humorous, the realistic, the tragic and uplifting–whatever serves a great story best. Soho Teen's small list is unique in that every title has a high-stakes, page-turning puzzle at its heart. Read excerpts from Soho's 2013 teen books here.

On the crime side, our books are almost entirely 1) series and 2) set abroad. If your crime manuscript doesn’t fit this profile, it’s probably not for us. Our authors/locales include Cara Black (France), Stuart Neville (Ireland), Martin Limon (South Korea), Collin Cotterill (Laos), James R. Benn (World War II era Europe), and Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis (Denmark).

On the literary side, we cast a relatively wide net. Our novels include Luminarium by Alex Shakar, The Funny Man by John Warner, The Detour by Andromeda Romano-Lax, How Evan Broke His Head by Garth Stein, Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat and The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips. We are looking for novels with strong voices, great writing, and unique ways of seeing the world. (At the risk of opening a can of worms, we are not the right publisher for genre fiction such as romance, sci-fi, fantasy, or really any genre apart from international crime—though we like literary novels, such as Luminarium, that explore genre conventions.)

Submissions:

Start by mailing three chapters (or fifty pages) and a cover letter to Soho Press, care of acquisitions editor. Full submissions guidelines here. Notice their submissions guidelines don’t yet mention their YA mysteries. Good – this gives you a better chance to get in on the ground floor!

Brian Henry will lead a “Writing for Children and for Young Adults” workshop in Newmarket on Saturday, September 22 (see here), and he'll lead a "How to Get Published" workshop on Saturday, October 13, in Toronto with Monica Pacheco of The Anne McDermid literary agency (see here). But the best step you can take toward getting published is to take one of Brian’s weekly courses, such as The Next Step in Creative Writing (see here), though beginners will want to start with Welcome to Creative Writing (see here).

See Brian's full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Gravenhurst, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.