We want to share an important update about the changes happening at our publishing house.
From the beginning, many of you will remember that for each submission, we committed to planting a seed in and around our neighborhoods in Northwest Arkansas and Northeast Oklahoma. Then we partnered with one of our old team members Leslie, who runs The Oasis Apothecary, and she began editing for some of our journals and planting seeds in the growing Community Food Forest in Bella Vista, AR.
We’ve made the decision to discontinue our seed-planting initiative tied to submissions (for now).
This change comes alongside another shift we’ve already implemented: we no longer charge submission fees. Expanding access to writers and artists remains deeply important to us, and removing financial barriers is one way we can continue to support a broader creative community.
We are currently developing a new imprint that will expand our focus beyond plant-centered themes, opening space for a wider range of stories, voices, and experiences.
At the same time, we are preparing to sunset our free online journals. Print and digital copies will still be available.
This decision has not been made lightly. Like many publishers, we are navigating a rapidly changing digital landscape. The increasing practice of content scraping, particularly the use of creative work to train AI systems without consent, has raised concerns about how we protect the voices we publish. In addition, maintaining this platform requires resources that we are choosing to redirect toward new and future projects.
Some of these changes might make you sad, disappointed, or annoyed, but trust that these changes needed to happen in order to keep the lights on. As business owners and artists ourselves, we have to adapt. So, here we are.
We are deeply grateful to every writer, reader, and supporter who has been part of this journey so far. Your work and your trust have shaped who we are, and they will continue to influence where we go next.
More details about upcoming projects and the new imprint will be shared soon. We hope you’ll continue to stick around.
— Plants & Poetry team
TLDR: At Plants & Poetry, we are trimming, pruning, branching out. No submission fees, no planting commitment. No more free journals. New imprint coming soon. This is due to the realities of today’s publishing environment and our desire to grow beyond our original scope.