We’re founding Freedom Tunnel Press after years of navigating the traditional publishing world, in which deadlines are routinely missed by months, with no communication. With pandemic overwhelm and the move to remote work, communication has further broken down. Editors ghost agents, and agents ghost writers, leaving writers in silent gridlock. The vital creative energy needed to write is wasted on unread emails… and unread follow-up emails; on phone calls listening—again—to the justifications of an inanely unworkable system and impossible promises to do better; on waiting for the broken cogs of this system to turn, waiting for gatekeepers to do work that writers can do more precisely, swiftly, and effectively themselves. What little communication crosses The Void is vague and unhelpful: not right for our current list, etc. All of this leaves a writer feeling out of control of the thing that they know best: their own work. I’ve not only experienced this, but listened to many writer friends, in various stages of traditional publishing, express the same frustrations at best, hopelessness at worst.
The narrow parameters of traditional publishing, combined with its systemic dysfunction, leave writers stuck and disempowered when they might be ushering their vision—in radiant form—into the world, and moving on to their next project. Freedom Tunnel Press is committed to empowering and supporting our authors and making them full partners in the publication process. We’re committed to engaging kindly and professionally with writers. We believe in structure, deadlines, and clear, respectful communication. As long as you follow our submission guidelines, we will respond to your submission within six weeks. We won’t “ghost” and if we don’t make a deadline, we’ll communicate about it. We are committed to transparency, gorgeous design, transformative literary events, and creating a deeply connected and meaningful community. We will take on only what we can do brilliantly.