dogleech books
an imprint of moth eaten mag
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✿ dogleech books submission guidelines✿chapbook subs for 2025 lineup open on september 1st, 2024, until september 30th, 2024, or capped at 50 submissions✿ email all submissions to [email protected]
✿ we accept poetry, prose, & hybrids
✿ please include in the subject line of your email your NAME and your BOOK TITLE followed by DOGLEECH SUBMISSION
✿ no specific format required ~ as long as we can read it, we're good! if accepted for publication, you may be asked to send an updated word doc for ease of editing.
✿ your chapbook should be between 15 and 40 pages, with some wiggle room
✿ please include applicable trigger warnings; tws for each individual piece is not needed, a general overview is fine
✿ we, dogleech books, will cover the cost of producing accepted books. cover art may be commissioned elsewhere by the author at their own expense. upon publication, dogleech books will share all profits of books sales 50/50 with the author to be paid out quarterly.✿ what kind of books do we want? ✿we want modern gothic, queer horror, books about lonely trans vampires and cannablism as queer love. the dark, the supernatural, the witchy, the pagan, the horrific, the haunted. we want soft horror, beautiful creeps, gorgeous spooks.✿ socials ✿twitter: @dogleechbooks
instagram: @dogleechbooks
dre levant (he/they)
eic
dre levant (he/they) is a genderqueer writer & artist. sometimes described as "absolutely satanic, demonic, disgusting, evil". writes a lot of poetry about icarus. wears faux cat ears almost all the time. find on twitter & instragam @drethepiper.
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✿welcome to dogleech books ✿dogleech books is an imprint of moth eaten mag, queer-owned and run from a lil apartment in a tiny city.we're a small press run by one queer lad. we want to be the cozy lil shop on an autumnal street with fairy lights in the window selling gothic books that you can hold close to your heart.what we love: books that sing of queerness with a gothic lens, the modern gothic, the pagan and witchy, the horrific and the haunted, the beautifully rotten and gorgeously dark and poignant. think a sinkhole of autumn leaves. think vampirism as a metaphor for transness. think cannibalism as an act of queer love.at the moment we publish four to fivebooks a year. our 2025 lineup will open for submissions soon. head to our 'submit' page for details!
✿dogleech books: the book shop ✿
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The Witch Garden
by Briar Ripley Page
"The Witch Garden" follows the story of a young woman named Marlena who is dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic childhood and an ailing mother. Flashing between her younger and present self, Marlena is forced to face the hurt that's been haunting her as well as try to hold on to the magic of what's left of love. The Witch Garden is a captivating novelette of familial tragedy, medical trauma, and the tethers of humanity that keep us going in the face of nothing but struggle.Hailed as "...a succinct tale that lilts like a lyric, a distillation of the family-hurt so many of us carry inside" (Dale Stromberg), "The Witch Garden" speaks to the bruised heart, the lonely soul, the part of us that seeks to know some kind of light.
A Necklace of Teeth
by Ivy L. James
Ivy L. James's "A Necklace of Teeth" is a visceral read of rage poetry - it speaks deeply to the parts of us that know anger is a part of healing, that bleeding doesn't mean you're weak, that how you choose to heal is completely up to you. James writes to the core, her words bloody and so excruitiatingly raw, honest, unapologetic.
"Someone Else's Blood, Someone Else's Love"
by Dori Lumpkin
Mary Catherine has spent her whole life waiting for this moment. For the day that she'd walk down the aisle and marry the most important man she'll ever know (other than God, of course). Father Osborne has had his eye on Mary Catherine since she was a young girl, and she's always said that she's more than ready to do her duty to her home and become his bride. But when the mysterious Jane comes to town, Mary Catherine's world is turned upside down and back again as she tumbles head over heels into a fascination for this dangerous stranger.Someone Else's Blood, Someone Else's Love is a tale of revenge, love, and recognizing who you are in someone else's life, whether that's just a passing blip, or a force that will change everything.Will you follow the Tenants of the Prophet? Or will you be lost to the outside, forgotten to the world within?
✿dogleech books: the blog ✿
"It's Deeply Important To Me That These Uglier Stories Get Told": An Interview With Dori Lumpkin On The Importance of Queer Rage And The Role of Horror in Their Book, Someone Else's Blood, Someone Else's Love (dogleech books)
interview published September 17th, 2024
1. What does your writing process look like? Where do you get inspiration and how do you like to start putting a story together?My writing process is a little insane sometimes, depending on the project. I'm a very visual writer, so I mostly write stories broken down into scenes that contain certain images or visuals that I'd like to convey. I like to start by making a list of the scenes and visuals, in whatever order they need to appear in the story. This functions as an outline for me, basically. From there, I just bounce around to whichever images seem the most appealing at the time so that I don't get bored with writing the scenes. I write everything deeply out of order and based entirely on vibes and it tends to work for me! It also means that I usually have like eight to ten to twelve works-in-progress at any given time.As far as inspiration goes, I really get my inspiration from anywhere. Oftentimes music and art are my biggest inspirations, though. I make in-depth playlists for each piece I write that contain thematic songs and pieces that remind me of a story. I also really love to just scroll mindlessly through pinterest sometimes just to see what comes up and if it sparks anything. Someone Else's Blood specifically was inspired by the song Hell's Comin' With Me by Poor Man's Poison, which I absolutely recommend. A very fun and good time.2. Your work often combines the queer experience with horror. What, in your perspective, draws these two subjects together?Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh I think that horror is deeply connected to the queer experience. Intimately so. I could get on a soapbox for hours about the connection between queerness and monster stories, specifically. I think that when the reality is so awful, when we're faced with legislation and leaders that actively want us dead, it's comforting to escape into realities that we know aren't real, where awful things can happen but we know that we're safe. It's why I like haunted houses so much! Like literal haunt attractions, not just stories featuring them. They're completely safe environments where you can get the shit scared out of you with no consequence!*3. Were there any real-life experiences you drew from when writing SEBSEL? Any traits of Mary Catherine or Jane that are based on people you know/parts of yourself?I think that all of my stories are like tiny pieces of myself, just scattered throughout the world. Each thing I write has something of myself in it, whether that's a character trait or an environment, and I think that there isn't any writing out there that isn't influenced by the author in that way. But because you're asking specifically about this one, then I wouldn't say there are any real-life personal experiences that influenced Someone Else's Blood. That being said, though, Jane and Mary Catherine both feel like parts of myself. I sort of consider them to be the proto-Nora and Abby from my debut novella, Antenora. Mary Catherine is the version of myself who never acknowledged my queerness, and Jane is the version of myself that is full of fire because of what she was put through. But also the environment in which they live is very heavily influenced by the world that I grew up in and experience regularly. I'll never not love writing in the south and that sort of Southern Gothic energy. Telling stories in those environments is very comfortable and cozy for me.4. What was most important to you to express when writing SEBSEL?Queer rage. There's a lot that I wanted to express with this story, but I think Jane's rage is the most important. I think that queer joy is lovely and has a place and I value it immensely, but it is deeply important to me that these uglier stories get told at the same time. Queer people like Jane are allowed to make tough decisions that don't always end in happiness. You're allowed to fight for what you want, even if you know that fight is going to be ugly. I don't recommend revenge, but I think that queer people should be allowed to fuck shit up when they need to.5. Any projects you're currently working on or specific ideas you have for future projects you'd want to share with us? Be as vague or precise as you'd like!I'm currently plugging away at my Masters Thesis, which is a lesbian coming of age retelling of the 80's movie The Lost Boys. Because of this, I've had to put my other projects on pause. I'm really excited about that project and eventually finding a home for it because it's been super fun to work on, HOWEVER, the project of my heart is currently a short novel project that I'm just referring to as my haunted house book. It's like... I Saw The TV Glow meets The Haunting of Hill House, it's about trauma and reconciling the past and the future and it's very, very personal to me. I'm hoping to start querying it by the end of the year, but it's very disjointed and strange, so I hope people like it! I've also got my Big Vampire Book that hopefully I'll start working on next year, which I won't say very much about just yet, but know that I'm very, deeply excited for it.6. Lastly, where can our readers find you and latest updates about what you're up to?I'm on almost every social media platform at @whimsyqueen so you can find me there! I have an out-of-date website that I need to update desperately, but I like to yell on twitter constantly about everything!A very huge thank you to Dori for answering our questions and being a part of the dogleech family! You can order Dori's book RIGHT NOW in both print & digital formats.