Random House Canada accepting open submissions from underrepresented writers
Random House Canada has announced a new open submission policy, under which "unsolicited and unagented" work can now be sent directly to the publisher. In particular, the publishing company is seeking "high quality commercial fiction" in a number of areas, including literary, romance, speculative fiction, historical fiction, and mystery. While Canadian citizenship or residence is not required, this opportunity is exclusively available to writers belonging to the BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ communities, as well as other traditionally underrepresented communities.
"Our hope is that this will go a small way toward removing some of the barriers that have existed for writers developing their craft outside of traditional avenues of literary exposure", stated the announcement on their webpage.
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Manuscripts can be sent to the editors of the RHC division year-round at randomhousecanadasubmissions@penguinrandomhouse.com. However, it is noteworthy that screenplays, stage plays, young adult fiction, children's fiction, and picture books are not being accepted at the moment. In the case of non-fiction writing, all submissions are required to be submitted by a literary agent and thus does not fall under this policy.
The webpage further included submission guidelines, mentioning that a strong query letter, sample pages, and a brief synopsis of the work (including the ending) should typically be included as part of the submission. The query letter would ideally cover project details, as well as recent comparison or "comp" titles, an author bio, and content warnings for sensitive material. On the other hand, the guidelines encouraged writers to include the first three chapters of their work as the sample and a plot summary (synopsis) of 500 words or less; both documents must be submitted as a .docx attachment or a PDF.
Following submission, the editorial team will respond to writers they are interested within six months. However, the announcement mentioned: "Due to the high volume of submissions we receive, we won't be able to respond to every submission, but please know that each submission will be read and considered with care." Simultaneous submissions are also permitted, but the Random House requested that they be notified if writers received offers of representation or publication elsewhere.
Random House Canada has been publishing both fiction and nonfiction books for nearly 30 years. Several of their titles have gone on to be bestsellers and prize winners, with prizes including the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize, the National Business Book Award, and the Writers' Trust Rogers Fiction Award among others. With over 500 new original titles published every year, bestselling titles either published or distributed by them include The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt, A Little Life (2015) by Hanya Yanagihara, and Women Talking (2018) by Miriam Toews, which was adapted into an Academy Award winning film in 2022.
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