All posts by Editor-in-Chief

We are Reopening Submissions!

Submissions will from now on only be accepted from the 1st to the 7th of each month, with submissions reopening from the 1st of September until the 7th of September 2023. Submissions will then be closed again until the 1-7st of October. So you have a week of every month to submit. Please note, any submissions sent outside of this time will not be considered and will not be replied to.

Please send a digital copy of your submission to submissions@midnightsunpublishing.com. Please include a subject line stating your name, the title of your manuscript, and its genre (e.g.: Jane Doe, ‘High Tea’, Picture Book). Please attach your manuscript as a Word document or Word docx. only, titled, ‘Name: Manuscript Title’ (e.g. Jane Doe: High Tea).

Send the first 20 pages only! If we are compelled to read more, we’ll ask for the rest. We want digital manuscripts with 1.5 or double line spacing. Choose Times New Roman or another easy-to-read font.

Please also include a synopsis of your manuscript (if it’s a longer work. This is not needed for picture books) where you tell us about the main movements in the story, its themes and how it ends. We want to know this. You should not make it a mystery or an enticing blurb. You can attach it as a separate document or make it the first page of your submission.

Please proofread thoroughly and always let someone else read it too before sending us your manuscript. Typos really put us off and we don’t want to turn away an otherwise fantastic project because we have spotted a simple mistake in the first paragraph.

Include a cover letter in the body of the email with your name, the title of your manuscript, your contact details (including email address and phone number) and the word count of your project. If you have previous publications or other relevant experience, please feel free to include it in the letter and also write a paragraph about yourself and your interests if you wish. We would also like to know how you would classify the genre and where it fits in the market. For example, are there any other authors or books you would compare your manuscript to?

Only send one manuscript at a time and wait to receive a response before sending any further projects. This applies to picture books as well as longer fiction. Look at our list carefully and choose only the manuscript that you think would intrigue us the most. Here are some of things we are looking for: stories that are well written (fiction or non-fiction) about interesting characters who are developing a sense of self. The environment, gender diversity, sexuality and desire, feminism, ageing, mental health, physical differences, adversity, racism, love and many other topics are all on our reading lists. We love short stories and novels for adults as well as middle-grade and YA novels and of course picture books.

We are not currently publishing poetry, plays, horror, romance or memoir so please don’t submit manuscripts that fit into those categories.

If you have submitted to us within the designated timeframe and not received a response from us within six months you may email us to check on your submission. Please do not email us earlier than this as your email will not be responded to.

While we do accept simultaneous submissions, it is absolutely essential that you contact us to withdraw your submission if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere or you pursue another mode of publishing, such as self-publishing.

If you follow these guidelines, your manuscript submission will be read by one of our editors. If you have already sent your manuscript according to our previous guidelines, please don’t panic, we will still read your manuscript and respond in due course.

If we love what we read, we will be in touch by email to request a hard copy of the full manuscript to be sent to our office. Please be aware it may take 3-6 months for us to get back to you about your submission. Unfortunately, due to our large workload, we cannot provide individual feedback on submissions.

Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will not be reviewed or responded to.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Medieval Monsters and Other Creatures

Medieval Monsters cover
Medieval Monsters cover
by Timothy Ide

HB 72 | 245 x 280 | ISBN: 9781922858177 | $34.99
Picture book for all ages
MidnightSun Publishing | November 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Take a monstrous journey through the Middle Ages to discover creatures both familiar and unfamiliar.

Explore the hazards of medieval life at the claws, paws and fangs of dragons, wyverns, cockatrices, lamias, manticores, ghouls and Continue reading Medieval Monsters and Other Creatures

This

This cover
This cover
by Lazaros Zigomanis

PB 368 | 198 x 129 | ISBN: 9781922858146 | $19.99
Young Adult | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | August 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

I don’t get this.

I’m fifteen! And in Year 10!

I don’t have anything to worry about.

But when I wake up one night, terrified, it starts a journey of trying to find out what’s wrong. I can’t go to Mum and Dad. They wouldn’t understand. And they’d make fun of me at school. So I’m off to strange doctors, and scurrying around like everything’s okay, while everything’s coming apart.

I don’t get this.

But I’m gonna try Continue reading This

Tanya Hunter

Tanya Hunter
Tanya Hunter
Tanya Hunter’s love of adventure stories began as a child living in Nottingham, England, when she regularly explored the same countryside as the fabled Robin Hood. A former primary school teacher, Tanya has been a police officer for nearly twenty-five years. She is also a proud ambassador for Multiple Sclerosis QLD and has a passion for disability advocacy.

Tanya’s debut novel is The Quest for the Galleon of Time.

The Quest for the Galleon of Time

The Quest for the Galleon of Time cover
The Quest for the Galleon of Time cover
by Tanya Hunter

PB 208 | 198 x 129 | ISBN: 9781922858191 | $17.99
Middle-grade | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | August 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

The year is 1738 and eleven-year-old Tobias Crane is forced to leave his home to work as a ship’s lad on a trading galleon. Once onboard, Tobias discovers that the ship is a time-travelling galleon! A galleon that can inexplicably appear in different dimensions in the past, present and future.

A captain’s obsession with revenge will force Tobias and the crew on a dangerous adventure through treacherous waters. With the help of new friends, Tobias must somehow return home to warn his father that Continue reading The Quest for the Galleon of Time

Alice’s Shoe

Alice's Shoe cover
Alice’s Shoe cover
Written by Julie Thorndyke and illustrated by Jennifer Harrison

HB 32 | 297 x 210 | ISBN: 9781922858139 | $29.99
Picture Book | MidnightSun Publishing | July 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

A country child, Alice ran barefoot. On smooth waxed floorboards, over dusty clay in the yard, through icy water in the creek… she refused to wear shoes. After losing her sight and hearing through illness, Alice slowly made her way back to life and became the first deafblind person in Australia to be educated. Her hated shoe was Alice’s first connection with the world of language as she learnt to sign. Continue reading Alice’s Shoe

Nean McKenzie

Nean McKenzie
Nean McKenzie
Nean McKenzie is a children’s writer and optometrist who lives in western Melbourne. Originally from Bendigo, Nean lived in New Zealand, Europe and North East Africa before returning to Victoria. She lives with her family and a cat called Lemonade who purrs, even when nervous.

Nean has had three middle-grade novels out with MidnightSun Publishing: Cryptosight (2019), Xenoflight (2022) and Timefire (2023). She was awarded a Maurice Saxby mentorship in 2016, a fellowship for the KSP Writers Centre for 2023 and has a diploma in Professional Writing and Editing from RMIT. Continue reading Nean McKenzie

Timefire

Timefire cover
Timefire cover
by Nean McKenzie

PB 200 | 198 x 129 | ISBN: 9781922858030 | $17.99
Middle-grade | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | July 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

In the scorching summer of 2033, Gilbert Black is accused of being a firebug, just like his mother was thirteen years previously. That night a fire starts on his family’s farm. A fire with a tunnel in the centre of it. And that’s when things start to get really weird.

Pulled repeatedly back and forth through time, Gil finds himself at big Australian bushfires from the last two centuries. He searches across the years, determined to unlock the secret to his family’s legacy. Gil can’t change the past, but can he learn from it in time to return home and save his family from the biggest inferno ever known? Continue reading Timefire

Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar

Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar
Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar
Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar writes novels and short stories drawing on her love of history, music and mythology to explore the stories left untold in conventional historical accounts. Her short story The Man Who Rowed Away was published in the anthology Crush: stories about love (MidnightSun Publishing, 2017) and she self-published her debut novel Vivaldi’s Lost Concert in 2019.

Her previous work as a social worker provides her with a rich source of material to develop her colourful and complex characters and compelling plots. Her travels have taken her to beautiful and enchanting places, including Continue reading Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar

Missing Pieces

Missing Pieces cover
Missing Pieces cover
by Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar

PB 304 | 234 x 153 | ISBN: 9781922858092 | $32.99
Novel | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | June 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Inspired by the 1831 discovery of a hoard of priceless chess pieces on a remote Scottish Island, Missing Pieces tells the story of four women who created and protected the now famous artefacts.

When Marianne is coerced into leaving the security of her comfortable London life to curate an exhibition on the Isle of Lewis, she uncovers her own ancestral connection to the mysterious island. Her eerie connections to the past introduce us to Magrit, the Icelandic artisan, beholden to a power-hungry Bishop, Morven, the rescuer, who seeks intimacy with a mysterious stranger and Mhairi, the negotiator, fighting a greedy landlord to stave off Continue reading Missing Pieces

Kaye Baillie

Kaye Baillie
Kaye Baillie
Kaye Baillie is a writer of fiction and non-fiction children’s picture books.

Kaye began writing stories and making books during the long, hot summer holidays on the orchard where she grew up in Victoria. With her sister, she sat at the kitchen table coming up with ideas and adding her own (not very good) illustrations. Now she writes stories at her kitchen table near the beach, where she lives with her family and their high-maintenance pets. Kaye has a strong interest in researching and writing stories about unique individuals and events.

Kaye has a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing. In 2022 her book When The Waterhole Dries Up was shortlisted in the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards and many of her picture books have won or Continue reading Kaye Baillie

Luisa Gioffre-Suzuki

Luisa Gioffre-Suzuki
Luisa Gioffre-Suzuki
Luisa Gioffre-Suzuki is a professional illustrator, artist and teacher based in Victoria. After spending over a decade in Japan, her personal style has developed with influences from vibrant Japanese culture and is underpinned by her Fine Art training and love of color. Luisa uses a variety of mixed media including inks, watercolor, acrylic, pastel, pen and pencil to create her colorful imagery. She has illustrated Continue reading Luisa Gioffre-Suzuki

Zena Shapter

Zena Shapter
Zena Shapter
Zena Shapter writes from a castle in a flying city hidden by a thundercloud, reaching across age and genre into the heart of storytelling. A multi-award-winning author of speculative and contemporary fiction, she loves conjuring journeys into the beyond and unusual. To read more of her work, please browse the bibliography on her website at zenashapter.com.

When not writing, Zena loves movies, frogs, chocolate, potatoes and living with her family among Sydney’s beautiful Northern Beaches. She’s travelled all around the world, visiting close to 50 countries, which inspire her to create worlds of her own. With her BA (Hons) in English Literature, Zena enjoys working as a mentor, editor and inclusive creativity advocate, inspiring Continue reading Zena Shapter