[Alternating Current Press:] How to Hang the Hat: Storytellers on Sondheim

This is a one-time anthology created by Alternating Current Press. Please know what it is before submitting.

We’re seeking poetry, fiction, hybrid, and nonfiction that touches on STEPHEN SONDHEIM in some way. The genre and style is purposely left very open. The theater world lost a titan on November 26, 2021, and we’re coping the only way we know how: an anthology of tributes and words about the legend that was the incomparable, irreplaceable Stephen Sondheim. If you were formed into a human by the man who changed American Broadway musical theater forever, then we want to read your words. All styles welcome, fact or fiction, poetic or stark or hybrid or somewhere in between, but the submissions must have something to do with Sondheim.

We especially want to hear from marginalized and underrepresented authors, and we are an LGBTQUIA2+ safe-space. Accepted poems, artwork, flash, and hybrid that leans toward poetry receives $10; accepted short stories, essays, and hybrid that leans toward longform prose receives $20. All selected pieces receive publication in the anthology and a complimentary digital copy of the finished ebook.

Submissions close: June 30, 2025

Pieces selected: Within 6 months

Publication: 2026/2027

• All styles welcome. Nonfiction, fiction, micro, hybrid, poetry, experimental, and anything in between. Sondheim taught us to ignore boundaries. (Although, your submission does have to deal with Sondheim in some way. Submissions that are off-topic are declined unanswered.)
• If you use any of Sondheim’s lyrics or words in your piece, they must be clearly identified and attributed. His work is not in the public domain.
• The anthology currently has a deadline of June 30, 2025; we may extend as necessary for filling the volume. Acceptances and declines will be notified as they are read.
• No word-count or line-count limits.
• You may submit multiple pieces in a single document file.
• All work must be in English and must be the author’s own. Single work by multiple authors considered. We do not consider A.I.-generated works.
• These submissions are not read incognito. It doesn’t matter if your identifying information is (or isn’t) inside your submission file, as long as your Submittable contact information is correct.
• If you need to adjust a submission, please use the Request to Edit option through Submittable. Please don’t request to edit for minor flaws, however—all accepted work will go through an editing process and will have the chance to be updated before publication, and your work will not be disqualified for a missing comma.
• All authors must be at least 18 to submit.
• Simultaneous submissions allowed. You do not have to withdraw a piece that is accepted elsewhere, as long as you still own the reprint rights after first publication.
• Previously published pieces are considered, as long as you still own the reprint rights.
• Submit via Submittable only. We do not accept email submissions. Please note that we have rolling deadlines that sometimes close at the end of one month and reopen at the beginning of the next month to help us regulate flow. If the portal isn’t open, please don’t email us; just come back later.
• There is a $2.00 fee for each submission (you may submit multiple pieces in a single file). The fee helps us with needed administration and book production costs, and we pay our readers for their time and effort, but it’s not meant to be too inhibitive. If you are unable to pay, please email us for an alternative submission method.
• We will send a response to every submission, and we try our best to respond within 6 months. Form response only, unless we are interested in publishing your work. We are regretfully unable to provide feedback. If you have not heard back after 6 months, please feel free to follow up (kindly), but more than likely, we’re just running behind, so thank you for your patience.
• We acknowledge that we are headquartered on what should be Arapaho land with a warehouse on a street that is instead named for a dead white male president who owned enslaved people and severed Native American Nations apart irrevocably, and an office on a street named after the very People whose land was stolen. To honor the reparations that this entire country needs to make, Black writers and Native American Indigenous (United States and Canada) writers may submit appropriate manuscripts for free to this open-reading period (please note that if the portal is not open, then we have reached our free-submission monthly cap until the beginning of the next month).

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