The Made in Michigan Writers Series publishes books of literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This series is devoted to highlighting Michigan’s diverse voices, with the aim of encouraging recognition of the state’s artistic and cultural heritage throughout the world. The series is part of Wayne State University Press, a distinctive publisher of exceptional books and journals based in and shaped by the city of Detroit.

Submission Guidelines

Our submission period is March 1–April 30. Writers may submit once per year. 

Writers in the series must either currently reside in or have spent formative years in the state of Michigan, but the work does not have to take place in or be about the state.  

To submit, we ask for a cover letter and your full polished manuscript, which must be between 60 and 90 pages for poetry and between 50,000 and 90,000 words for fiction and creative nonfiction.

Your cover letter should offer a summary of the work as part of a brief artist’s statement, a description of the work’s intended audiences, and why you believe Wayne State University Press is the right publisher for the manuscript.

Series Editors

Nandi Comer is an award-winning poet and essayist and served as the 2023–25 Poet Laureate of Michigan. She is the author of the award-winning poetry collections Tapping Out and American Family: A Syndrome. Comer is a Cave Canem Fellow, a Callaloo Fellow, and a 2019 Kresge Artist Fellow. She is the codirector of Detroit Lit.

Desiree Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist, 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, community activist, and former attorney. She is the editor of Black Summers and author of the award-winning books Nothing Special and Know the Mother (all Wayne State University Press). Cooper’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Flash Fiction America, The Best Small Fictions 2018, Callaloo, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, and many more.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is an award-winning poet, essayist, journalist, scholar, and artist focused on issues of Asian America, race, justice, and the arts. She is the author of You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is in Braids (Wayne State University Press). Her writing has appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Kartika Review, Ricepaper, and Drunken Boat.

Kamelya Omayma Youssef is a text, performance, and education worker. She is the author of A book with a hole in it, which won the Carolyn Bush Award. Her poems and essays have been published by 1080 Press, Poet Lore, Poem-a-Day, Sukoon, Gulf Coast, Mizna, The Margins, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Poetry Project, and Room Project, among others.

What to Expect

Submissions are read from May through October. Series editors along with Press editors select manuscripts to move forward. Once we contact you with a notice of acceptance, our next step as a university press is to have the manuscript evaluated by peer reviewers. With two reviews that recommend publication and with approval to publish from the Wayne State University Press Editorial Board, we offer a publishing contract. Once you complete revisions and submit a final manuscript, the project then moves into production and marketing. Publication occurs about ten to twelve months after we receive the final manuscript.

A Note on Peer Review

[Peer review] is the process through which university press editors commission formal evaluations from experts (‘peers’). . . . This process ideally provides balanced feedback that is both stringent and fair, enables an author to strengthen a work in progress, and adds value and meaning to the work that is ultimately published. (© 2022 by AUPresses)

The peer review process can take three to six months. While it’s not expected that you take every note or piece of feedback, we hope to see the manuscript become stronger with peer review—one of the many unique benefits of publishing with a university press. Reviewer identity is anonymous, but we welcome your thoughts on who to consider as a reader for your manuscript. We value and prioritize calling on diverse perspectives during peer review.