Book Reviews

Barrelhouse loves to celebrate books just like you do, so let's do that thing together! We're interested in running reviews of books that fit Our Whole Thing. You read Barrelhouse, so you know what we're about. Let that be your guide. And also, these:

Book Review Guidelines:

• Please send us reviews of books other than your own.
• No self-published titles.
• Do not submit work to the Reviews section that is meant for another section.
• Do not submit excerpts or essays based on your own work.
• We prefer reviews that focus on recent titles, meaning books that came out within the past six months or that are upcoming in the next six months. That guideline can stretch to about a year, but not much farther. (Our Reviews Editor has a pretty good record for response times.) We do not run retrospective reviews.
• We have a strong taste for small-press titles, especially books that might not be reviewed anywhere else. We love weird books, hybrid work, and other rare birds. We are extremely unlikely to accept a review of a book by a major publisher (Harper, Random House, Riverhead, etc).
• We're interested in full-length or chapbook-length collections of poetry & prose. We're open to memoirs and story or essay collections.
• Include publisher, page count, and date of book release. Include a link to the publisher's website for purchase.
• Word docs preferred but RTF is OK. No Pages, dear Lord.
• We are open to non-standard reviewing forms, as long as it doesn't distract from the book in question. We do not want book essays.
• If you've previously spoken to our Reviews Editor, Katharine Coldiron, please indicate that in your cover letter.
• Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but please let us know and withdraw your submission if your work is accepted elsewhere.
• All accepted reviews are subject to editorial suggestions.
• We love you but we do not pay for book reviews at this time. Reviews run online only.

If you are an author or a publisher who wants your book reviewed at Barrelhouse, you can query, but be advised that we almost never assign books pitched to us in this way. Your best bet is to find a reviewer and ask them to submit a finished review to us here, through Submittable.