For authors

What we offer our authors

Our publications are peer-reviewed. Typically, each publication is reviewed anonymously at three stages of the product development process: (1) at proposal stage; (2) when sample text is available; and (3) when the typescript is complete.

The peer review process is designed not simply to assure quality, but also to help authors to develop their work. We seek advice from our editorial board as well.

Our publishing process is designed to enhance the quality of our publications and to be readily communicable to authors. For a concise guide to the process, please click here: CWS publishing process.

During the production process we draw on the talents of several skilled craftspeople. For a list, please see our Suppliers page. Our standard practice is to provide each publication with an index compiled by a professional indexer.

We encourage authors to join the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) to become eligible to receive secondary royalty payments.

Working with us

If you would be interested to provide peer reviews – of book proposals, sample text, or complete typescripts – do please let us know, using the reply box below.

If you would like to propose a book to us, please use our book proposal form. Please note that we do not consider proposals in any other format.

If you would like to discuss an idea before submitting a proposal, you are welcome to contact us, preferably by telephone. Our full contact details are on the About Us page.

For a brief guide to academic commissioning, please click Getting commissioned. For resources on academic authorship, click Resources on scholarly publishing.

We follow Cambridge University Press style guidelines.  Our guide to formatting and presenting typescripts is available text presentation 004.

Our current authors

Amal Chatterjee is the author of Across the Lakes (a novel published by Phoenix House and Penguin India) and Representations of India 1740-1840 (Macmillan and St Martin’s Press). He is Fiction Tutor on the M. St. course at the University of Oxford and on courses in Amsterdam and Zurich. On our list Amal is editing Creative Writing: Writers on Writing.

Dr Sharon Norris is Senior Lecturer in Creative Non-Fiction in the Department of English and Creative Writing, Roehampton University (UK), where she also teaches song writing. Previously Sharon trained as a journalist and worked for the BBC. On our list Sharon is editing Studying Creative Writing.

Stephanie Vanderslice is Associate Professor of Writing University of Central Arkansas. Her previous publications include Can It Really Be Taught: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy (Heinemann), which she co-edited with Kelly Rutter.  On our list, Stephanie has written Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education.

Elaine Walker teaches Creative Writing for the University of Wales, Bangor. Her publications include a novel, The Horses (Cinnamon Press), non-fiction, Horse (Reaktion Books and Kalima Press), and poetry (Roundyhouse, Caught in the Net). She has edited texts by William Cavendish (Long Riders’ Guild Press) and Margaret Cavendish (Serendipity). On our list, Elaine is editing Teaching Creative Writing.

Jen Webb is the Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. Her publications include a collection of poems, Proverbs from Sierra Leone (Five Islands Press), a collection of short stories, Ways of Getting By (Ginninderra Press), and several academic works including Reading the Visual (Allen & Unwin, co-authored with Tony Schirato) and Understanding Representation (Sage). On our list, Jen is writing Researching Creative Writing.