Backwoods Literary Press published their first book, Discarded, a rural anthology, in October of 2024. The press will open submissions for next year's anthology in early 2025. If you would like to pitch an idea, please reach out through the contact page. We are interested in publishing full collections of poetry, essays, short stories, etc.

All contributors retain the rights to their published pieces. Contributors may submit their art to other publications.

Belle Townsend is the founder of Backwoods Literary Press. Appalachian Community Fund is the fiscal sponsor of this non-profit project. Trish J. Gibson served as the Managing Editor for the first publication of Backwoods Literary Press, Discarded, a rural anthology. Ansley Perryman served as the Editing Intern for the first publication. Erin Shina, Shiloh Stump, and Megan Day were all supporters in scoring the hymnal portion of the first publication.

Backwoods Literary Press put out its first publication, Discarded, a rural anthology, in October of 2024. We will be calling for submissions for the next anthology publication in spring of 2025. If you are interested in submitting your work to have a collection of poetry or essays published, please reach out through the contact page for more information about what and where to submit.

Yes! We will be launching virtual workshops in late 2024. Keep an eye out on our events page or on our Instagram.

Backwoods Literary Press is centered around platforming people who have self-identified on having firsthand experience with rural culture. There is often complexity in place-based identity with moves and relocations, but we are trusting contributors to self-identify. We ask people submitting where they are from and where they live now, and we attempt to discern through the writing that rural identity comes through. We have a particular focus in documenting people who are LGBTQIA2S+, Appalachian, BIPOC, AAPI, and Latino/a.