Nightboat Books Internship Program The Nightboat Books team is pleased to announce our open call for the Fall 2025 independent publishing internship program based in Brooklyn, NY! The program is designed to engage interns in all aspects of literary publishing: editorial, marketing, publicity, online and community engagement, fundraising and development, and other aspects of the publishing industry. This program is a dynamic experience, offering the intern a valuable overview of publishing, while also getting opportunities to focus on assignments that interest them. The selected intern will be paid $17 an hour, receive free books, mentorship, professional recommendations & a jumping off point for a career in independent, literary publishing. The program will last from January to May.

  Nightboat Books, a nonprofit organization, seeks to develop audiences for writers whose work resists convention and transcends boundaries, by publishing books rich with poignancy, intelligence and risk. We are committed to publishing complicated work by a diverse group of writers. We encourage people of all backgrounds, ages, races, ethnicities, gender and sexual identities, and disability statuses to apply.
 

Responsibilities:

• 8-10 hours a week, with one full day in person at our Greenpoint office, for approximately 4 months
• Assist with administrative tasks, including preparing and executing book mailings, and maintaining database records
• Support creation and maintenance of digital content, including the Nightboat website, blog, newsletter, social media, and more
• Support in developing marketing campaigns and planning and attending book launch events
• Proofread, copyedit and fact check manuscripts and publicity packets
• Conduct research on reviewers, magazines, venues
• Attend and participate in staff meetings
   

Qualifications:

• Live in New York metro area and can travel to Greenpoint once a week
• Passionate commitment to literature and desire to support Nightboat authors
• Excellent written, verbal, and organizational skills
• Ability to work independently and as a team while on a deadline
• Creative problem solving abilities as well as excitement about the fast paced world of publishing
• Interest in social media marketing is helpful, but not required

We’re thrilled to announce that Nightboat Books is considering prose manuscripts from June 9th-August 1st, 2025. Please familiarize yourself with our editorial affinities by checking out our catalogue. Buy our books! Borrow them from the library! Read them!

We’re looking for innovative prose manuscripts of formally experimental fiction and/or nonfiction. We welcome prose translations, international anglophone writing, and multi-lingual texts. We’re most excited about projects that disrupt our expectations of what prose can do. No strict forms. No limits. Your manuscript might include poetry and poetic sections, but we’re not considering full length poetry collections at this time. We’re looking for text based projects. You’re welcome to include images in your manuscript, but please note that we are not able to print in full-color.

The kinds of work we are are excited to encounter might include, but isn’t limited to:

    Writing that emerges from the liminal

    Writing that builds up / writing that tears down

    Writing that torques conventional prose forms or genre

    Writing that examines & perverts existing narratives around identity

    Writing that documents past / present / future periods of political uprising

    Writing that investigates or borrows from other mediums: visual art, music, film, performance

    Writing that searches for and troubles the sacred / sacrilegious

    Writing that illustrates and proliferates complexity in our world

    Writing that glitches the algorithm

    Writing that proposes

    instigates

    bewilders

    seduces

Examples of Prose books from Nightboat Books:

   Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter

   Crocosmia by Miranda Mellis

   Residual by Tisa Bryant

   !PóNK! by Marcus Clayton

   The Fifth Wound by Aurora Mattia

   Dreaming in the Fault Zone by Eleni Stecopoulos

   Sex Goblin by Lauren Cook

   Tree Spirits, Grass Spirits by Hiromi Ito, translated by Jon L. Pitt

   Greasepaint by Hannah Levene

   The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell & Ned Asta

   Honey Mine by Camille Roy

   Phototaxis by Olivia Tapiero, translated by Kit Schluter

   Virgil Kills by Ronald V. Wilson

   Neotenica by Joon Oluchi Lee

Please include the following with your manuscript (of up to 300 pages, double spaced) through Submittable.
 (a) your name and contact information (b) a short professional biography (100 words maximum) (c) a description of the book/project (150 words maximum). 

There is a $15 submission fee that goes towards fairly compensating screeners, readers, and editors. We plan to accept 1-2 manuscripts. Authors will receive a $1,000 advance and royalty contract.

 We look forward to reading your work!

Nightboat Books, a nonprofit organization, seeks to develop audiences for writers whose work resists convention and transcends boundaries, by publishing books rich with poignancy, intelligence and risk. We are committed to publishing complicated work by a diverse group of writers. We encourage people of all backgrounds, ages, races, ethnicities, gender and sexual identities, and disability statuses to submit.