Crooked Lane Books and Alcove Press seek manuscripts: crime fiction and upmarket fction

Crooked Lane Books

https://crookedlanebooks.com/

and Alcove Press

https://alcovepress.com/

Note: Don't ever miss what’s happening with Quick Brown Fox. If you’re not yet on my newsletter, send me an email, including your locale to:  brianhenry@sympatico.ca   ~Brian

Crooked Lane Books is an American publisher headquartered in New York. Matt Martz founded Crooked Lane in 2014 to publish the quality crime fiction titles in both print and electronic editions. Martz was formerly with Minotaur Books, the crime fiction imprint for St. Martin’s Press.

In 2020, Martz introduced a second line, Alcove Press, to publish upmarket book club fiction that explores family, friendship, and community.

Crooked Lane and Alcove Press accept both agented and unagented submissions. They ask authors to familiarize yourselves with their line of books and their editorial team before submitting your query letter.

Crooked Lane and Alcove titles are distributed by Penguin Random House.

Their Guidelines:

·         We only publish novels and an occasional short story collection.

·         We do not publish individual short stories, novellas, or essay collections. We do not publish non-fiction. We do not consider previously published novels. Additionally, we aren’t likely to consider books in a series where earlier books in the series were self-published without significant sales.

·         For Crooked Lane, we are interested in mystery, thriller, suspense, police procedural, cozies, and horror.

·         Word count should be between 60,000 and 120,000 words.

To query Crooked Lane, email your query letter and the first two chapters of your book pasted into the body of the email to submissions@crookedlanebooks.com

To query Alcove Press, send your query letter, along with the first two chapters of your manuscript pasted in the body of your email, to submissions@alcovepress.com

If you’re interested in meeting an agent and in getting published, don't miss our online How to Get Published workshop Sunday, June 12, with Barbara Berson of the Helen Heller agency. Details here.

Note: I will be offering a one-day kid lit workshop Saturday, July 16, with Patricia Ocampo, senior editor of Kids Can Press. See here.

And in the fall, I'll again be offering a weekly kid lit class. Once this course is posted, you’ll find it here and just scroll down for all upcoming Kid Lit courses or one-day workshops. ~Brian

Beyond that, my schedule continues to take shape….

Workshops:

Online: How to Write Great Dialogue,  Sunday, June 26. Details here.

 Weekly classes {See all summer classes here}:

Online: Exploring Creative Writing, Wednesday mornings, 10 a.m. – 12 noon; July 6 – August 24. Details here.

Online: Writing Personal Stories, Thursday afternoons, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m., July 7 – Aug 25. Details here. 

Online: Intensive Creative Writing, Wednesday afternoons, 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.; July 6 – August 24. Details here.

Online: Intensive Creative Writing, Thursday mornings, 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., July 7 – Aug 25. Details here.

Writing retreats:

Algonquin Park: Writing Retreat at Arowhon Pines Resort, June 3 – June 6, 2022. Details here. (Wait list only.) 

Summer in Algonquin: Writing Retreat at Arowhon Pines  Resort, July 8 – July 11, 2022. Details here. (Wait list only.) 

Sherwoon Inn

Muskoka Writing Retreat at Sherwood Inn, Friday, Oct 14 – Monday Oct 17, 2022. Details here. Reserve early before it fills up!