About Held Ground Press

Held Ground Press is an independent literary press devoted to thoughtful writing, careful editorial work, and deliberate publication.

We publish poetry and literary prose concerned with the difficult, enduring parts of human experience: love and loss, memory and identity, attachment and change, suffering and resilience, belonging, obligation, and the ways people make meaning from the lives they have lived.

The press was founded on a simple belief: good writing deserves more than production. It deserves attention.

That means working closely with authors to understand what a manuscript is trying to become, editing without sanding away the qualities that make a writer's voice distinct, and treating the construction of a book—its language, sequence, design, typography, and physical form—as part of the work itself.

Held Ground Press is intentionally small. We are not trying to publish the greatest number of books. We are trying to publish books we believe should exist, and to give each of them the time and care required to become fully itself.

Our publishing program is intentionally small. We consider unsolicited manuscripts during selected reading periods, while continuing to develop the press’s catalog and editorial practice. Current submission availability and guidelines are maintained on our Submissions page.

Held Ground Press is based in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio.