FLOOD 2025 Submission Guidelines
The Fleet Ordinaries of the — (FLOOD 2025) is a literary sprint from conception to execution to publication. At midnight on June 1st, 2025 writers will be supplied with a list of prompts provided by guest judge Elisabeth Blair. Submitting artists will then have one week to complete their submissions.
Submission guidelines include:
- Submitting artists must contact Gothic Funk Press (see below) by 11:59 PM on May 31st, 2025.
- Prompts will be received by submitting artists at 12:01 AM on June 1st, 2025.
- All submissions must be received no later than 11:59 PM on June 7th, 2025.
- Only one submission is permitted per entrant.
- The judge and editors will respond to all valid submissions.
- Please do not contact Gothic Funk Press to receive a decision prior to July 31st, 2025.
- Compensation for publication includes a complimentary copy of FLOOD 2025 and an invitation to the FLOOD 2025 launch party.
- The anthology will be launched on August 16th in Flint, Michigan.
- Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not permitted in the creation of FLOOD submissions.
- There is no fee to submit your work to FLOOD 2025.
- Publication is not guaranteed to any submitting artist.
- Additional submission guidelines may be included in the prompt email sent on June 1st, 2025.
To submit please email connor@gothicfunkpress.com with the following information.
Subject: FLOOD 2025 Submission
Body: Please include:
- Full name as you would like to have it published in the anthology.
- An email address where you can be easily reached.
- A short bio (100 words or less).
- How did you hear about Gothic Funk Press / FLOOD 2025?
Guest Judge Elisabeth Blair
Elisabeth Blair is a poet, editor, and workshop leader with an extensive background in music and the visual arts. Her publications include full-length collection because God loves the wasp (Unsolicited Press 2022), two chapbooks—We He She/It (Dancing Girl Press 2016) and without saying (Ethel Press 2020)—and inclusion in Biblioasis’ anthology, Best Canadian Poetry 2025. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including carte blanche, Harpur Palate, Feminist Studies, and Juked. She has been artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Wildacres, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and ACRE, and has received several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. Her monthly newsletter, lullabies & alarms, explores the craft of poetry.
To request a copy of the 2024 FLOOD anthology, email connor@gothicfunkpress.com
ABOUT THE FLOOD ANTHOLOGY
The first FLOOD Anthology debuted on April 20, 2024, offering an adventure in imaginative storytelling. Writers featured in FLOOD 2024 included Nadia Alamah, Nic Custer, Roy Richard, and Jan Worth, and it was published by Gothic Funk Press in partnership with Buckham Gallery.
Participating writers responded to a set of writing constraints selected by Gothic Funk Press director Connor Coyne: every piece of writing shares several features including an emphasis upon water, a withholding of names, and an allusion to the Djuna Barnes poem “This Much and More.”
The publication was launched on a bitterly cold April morning with an enthusiastic crowd at Flint’s Pierce Park Nature Preserve. Future installments of FLOOD will feature prompts created by other writers from Flint and around the world!