innovative. daring. beautiful.
Rockwood Press makes right-sized poetry chapbooks for people who need poems.
We believe chapbooks are an art form as much as a literary form, perfectly suited for revolution, protest, political change, and social critique. They can be both haunting and hauntingly beautiful.
We believe in emerging and established poets and aim to make room for all kinds of mighty voices in teeny books that might not otherwise find their way into the world.
We believe that a work doesn’t have to be full-length to have a full life. That’s why almost all of our releases are open editions.
Part confession, part survival, this collection gathers poems born from memory and resistance. In Khadija Ceesay’s debut chapbook, a resilient woman recollects her own childhood pains, politics, and passions that have transfixed her to this day. These poems trace the echoes of hurt while reaching toward something softer. From facture to freedom, each poem carries hope like a small flame in the night.
Khadija Ceesay is an Afro-Arab poet from Pittsburg, Kansas. She has been writing poetry since 2014 about her sexuality, religion, and race and owes much of the ideas behind her work to her relationships with family, both good and bad. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Pittsburg State University where she studied English literature and poetics. During her free time, Ceesay enjoys reading, crocheting, and spending time at home with her wife and two cats.
Details
Title: Black by the Bedside
Author: Khadija Ceesay
Publisher: Rockwood Press
Released: 2026 - August
Format: chapbook, acid-free paper, silk cover
Pages: 32
Price: $10
ISBN: 978-1-59498-236-1
Black by the Bedside
Black by the Bedside
Recent titles
Forsythia Overnight by Dave Malone, coming September 15!
Annunciations by Buffy Shutt, coming September 8!
nor are you free to abandon it by sarah klein, coming September 1!
Letters to the Dead by Toni Ortner, coming August 19!
Black by the Bedside by Khadija Ceesay
Tiger Bite by Ursula McCabe
Cumulus by Shivani Gupta
minutes between city and forest by Ceridwen Hall
AMERICANAPOCALYPSE by tommy wyatt blake
This Rough Magic by John A. deSouza
HEAVY: poems that count by Megan Hollingsworth
by-the-wind-saylor by Maya Cheav
Paradise by Stephan Antoine Viau
View all our available chapbooks
submissions
We select manuscripts through an open submissions process that occurs year-round.
Manuscripts should be tightly linked collections of ten to thirty poems or up to forty pages, submitted in .rtf, .doc, or .docx formats only. All submissions should be made via email. We do not accept unsolicited paper submissions.
Eligibility: Poets writing in English are eligible. Previous book publication is not a consideration. Simultaneous submissions are permissible, but entrants are asked to notify Rockwood Press immediately if a manuscript becomes committed elsewhere.
There is no open submission fee.
We do our best to reply to submissions within one month, but the time can vary depending on submission volume. If your work has not been accepted or declined, it’s still under consideration. Every submission is considered thoroughly before a response is made.
All submissions are eligible for publication by Rockwood Press with a standard royalty contract.
submissions at Rockwood Press dot com
If we seem familiar
That’s because, Rockwood Press, a not-for-profit literary imprint, is a project of Fernwood Press and its parent company, Barclay Press. For years, we’ve made our books and full-length poetry collections available through POD services, but we wanted to produce more books in-house where we have control over color, texture, paper quality, and the overall shape each project takes.
We’ve also seen a ten-fold increase in poetry submissions over the last year and sensed from our conversations with writers that it’s getting harder and harder to find homes for good work.
The project of Rockwood Press is to bring more great poetry into the world in smaller, focused collections that can be produced locally, quickly, and beautifully.
