Our Goal
In Hamlet, Ophelia is robbed of all agency and voice as the court tells her who and what she is allowed to be. When that mandate no longer matches her true experience, Ophelia is dismissed as mad.
In our current world of AI, genre expectations, social media outrage, and commodified narratives, many writers feel pressured to oversimplify or self-censor themselves, and their stories. In turn, they flatten complexity, kill authenticity, and instead, write stories that seek approval, rather than stories searching for truth.
Like Ophelia’s love toward Hamlet, many writers find their devotion toward writing is met with indifference, if not outright betrayal.
At Ophelia Drowning Books, we help writers rise against the current that seeks to drown them.
Meet the Team
Marisa Manuel
Co-Founder
Marisa Manuel (any pronouns) holds their PhD in Fiction from Georgia State University and their MFA in Writing from the University of Memphis. Their publications are present or forthcoming in Creative Nonfiction, Pleiades, HuffPost, and others. They’re obsessed with their two cats, the horror genre, and black olives.
Chelsea Muzar
Co-Founder
Chelsea Muzar holds her MFA in creative writing from the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her work has been published in Clarkesworld Magazine, Planet Scumm, and Kansas City Voices. When she isn’t writing, she’s enjoying time with her husband, daughter, and their toy poodle.
FAQs
Why did you start Ophelia Drowning Books?
1
At first, we wanted to help find homes for our own books and those by our friends, but the goal quickly evolved when we realized how many other writers were searching for support themselves. Now, we view Ophelia Drowning Books as part publisher, part community.
What sort of genres do you publish?
2
We’re open to all genres! Our view is that, while genre boundaries can encourage good writing, they can also impede it. However, we currently only publish fictional works (i.e. not direct tellings of real life) and have a preference for the dark, magical, and fantastical.
Is Ophelia Drowning a vanity press?
3
Nope! Currently, our goal is to fully finance all the books we publish.
Anything else I should know about the company?
4
Our founders are both queer. As such, we prioritize submissions that deal with queer themes, especially ace and/or aro ones. Additionally, please add trigger warnings to your submission, as we include those in finished publications.
Contact Us
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!