What Do
We Publish?

Which bodies of work draw our eye, bear our imprint? The lilies we are drawn to have not appeared overnight. They have required sustained courage, imagination, determination, and re-vision from the writers to bring them into view.

They are soul-stories—the stories, poems, reflections, and perspectives that writers most need to tell because they are rooted in deep, often complex truths that have resisted coming easily into language. They have lived below the surface, stirring the writer’s soul, steadily surfacing images into awareness, insisting that a voice be made to hold their fullest knowing.

They are rooted in a holy place beyond our comprehension, yet within us. They cry out for us to hear and recognize them, engage creatively with them, and commit to giving them a beautiful body of words.

Voicing these deep truths and discovering the structure that most clearly and powerfully embodies the voice takes time, discernment. The listening and writing process itself insists, guides, reveals, and inspires.

This kind of listening and writing process is a transformative spiritual practice as well as a literary art. Bringing it into fruition stretches us so that the writer expands inwardly, deepens, strengthens. When we complete the arduous work, we are not the same person as when we began the process. We have journeyed through darkness and light, discovering, and reckoning.

At River Lily Press, we recognize the lilies that emerge from such sustained and courageous engagement, whether they take the form of poems or of prose or weave the two forms together. We feel their depth of meaning and sincerity of intention. We are drawn by their clarity of purpose, honesty and originality, respect for language that is lyrical, imagistic as well as communicative. And thus we are moved to partner with the writer from whose imagination, life, discipline, heartfulness, and artfulness the lily has taken root and blossomed.

How Do We Offer Our Services?

We partner with our clients. We view it as a privilege to collaborate with writers whose work and purpose we respect. We want to take part in a design and production process that brings meaningful, literary soul-work into the larger world. It is one of the ways that we can help infuse thoughtful, healing energy into the collective.

We tend to invite people to submit manuscripts, and rarely consider work by writers whom we do not already know. It is unusual that we are interested in unsolicited work.

We tend to publish the work of women, usually mature women, although neither gender nor age defines our selection process. We are drawn toward what resonates with us as dimensional, emotionally honest, open-minded.

When we do accept a manuscript, we make clear that our process is completely collaborative. We do not underwrite the cost of bringing the creative vision into production; our authors must have the means to finance the project initially. We expect to be compensated as we advise and guide authors steadfastly through the process of producing and marketing the publication according to their budget.

Yet, even though we offer our expertise and time for a fee, we are highly discerning. Our imprint is not provided casually. Our expertise, time, and collaborative energies are not employed casually. We only take on clients whose work and whose character we believe in wholeheartedly. Often, we lean toward work with a healing dimension.