A Little More Light A Mental Health Anthology from Quillkeepers Press

There are enough spaces online that romanticize suffering without ever asking what healing looks like.

This is not one of them.

We are seeking poetry, short stories, flash fiction, memoirs, and personal essays that engage honestly with mental health, survival, recovery, self-awareness, grief, resilience, treatment, accountability, growth, and the complicated process of becoming whole again. We are especially interested in work that understands healing is rarely linear, but still believes it matters.

A Little More Light is for the writers who chose to stay. The writers who did the difficult work of confronting themselves. The writers who learned that survival is not the end of the story.

We welcome work about anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, neurodivergence, loss, burnout, identity, relationships, recovery, and rebuilding—but we ask that submissions move with intention. We are not looking for work that glorifies cruelty, untreated harm, emotional manipulation, or the romanticization of self-destruction without reflection.

What we want:

• Honesty without spectacle
• Vulnerability with purpose
• Work that reaches toward connection
• Pieces that make readers feel less alone
• Stories that acknowledge darkness while still searching for light

Whether your healing came through therapy, community, medication, faith, art, time, relapse and return, or simply learning to endure, we want the truths you carry.

Someone out there is looking for language that helps them survive another day. Maybe your work is what helps them find a little more light.

We are accepting:

• Poetry
• Flash fiction
• Short stories
• Memoir excerpts
• Personal essays

We especially encourage emerging voices, marginalized writers, LGBTQ+ writers, disabled writers, and writers from communities historically underserved in conversations surrounding mental health to submit.

Because healing deserves literature, too.

We look forward to reading your work. Submissions are open through 09/30/2026.

Please review our guidelines below before submitting:

 General Guidelines

• You must be 18 or older to submit.
• We accept previously published work for our anthology and journal opportunities. Given that the previous publishers allow it.
• Please include all previously published credits at the bottom of the correlating title in the body of the submission, not in the bio, subject line, separate messages, or anywhere else.  
• We do not accept previously published work for our traditional and chapbook publishing opportunities.
• Once accepted, you will be added to our email newsletter, and we will contact you about developments via the email you have listed on your submittable account. You are welcome to unsubscribe at any time.
• Please send any follow-up inquiries through your Submittable submissions portal.
• We are not yet a paying market for our anthology opportunities. Contributors will receive a PDF version of anthology collections unless otherwise indicated.
• If you need to withdraw the submission, please notify us through submittable.
• Contributor or Publisher may withdraw the offer of publication at any time before print.
• By submitting your work, you are agreeing to give us non-exclusive rights to publish it/them, if selected, in the anthology described above. Traditional publishing of full collections or novels requires exclusive rights.
• You may submit to more than one genre, but please do so in separate submissions. Multiple files or subs will be automatically rejected.
• Edit your work before submitting it. Please make sure the line breaks, stanza breaks, spelling, and grammar are EXACTLY how you want them. We will publish it as it is (except for glaring mistakes). We want to stay true to your formatting as closely as possible and will assume minor variations are for artistic flair. There will not be an opportunity to make changes. If you need to make changes, please request that we open the submission for editing via your Submittable submissions portal. This also prevents you from having to withdraw the submission to edit and saves you a 2nd submission fee.
• Quillkeepers Press reserves the right to make revisions to the work for uniformity and style (including capitalization of titles). However, we will solicit the Contributor’s approval for any significant changes.
• We are not babysitters. Please check your email for updates, release letters, and related materials. If we don't receive the release letter by the date listed on the document, we will assume you no longer wish to be part of the anthology, and your work will not be included in the manuscript.
• We cannot grant fee waivers without complicating our submission and project processes, so we do not honor such requests. We are genuinely sorry.

Submission Specifications:

• 1 flash fiction, short story, essay, or memoir up to 4k words.
• Up to 5 poems or prose poetry in a single document. Please ensure each selection starts on a new page. Anything over those numbers will not be read.
• Please use a 12pt, serif family font, standard size print paper (8.5x11), and 1.5 or double-spaced. 
• Please only include a short 3rd person bio starting with your name in the application part of the submission. Include any information you would like the readers to know about you, including any previous publications (this will not hinder or increase your chances of acceptance. We enjoy celebrating your wins in our publication.)
• Please include an author picture (if you want it in the anthology)
• Allow 4-8 weeks after the submission deadline date to receive a response.
• Reader fees cover this ad space and other overhead costs associated with the project.