Fiction worth your time.
The Yard Lab Publishing Group is an independent publisher of novels and short fiction, and the home of The Lab. Annual. We read every submission, and we pay our writers.
Our books.
Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook wherever books are sold.
The Lab. Annual
N°1 · 2027
Our first annual collection of new short fiction and novel excerpts, coming in 2027. Submissions are closed while our editors read through the current queue.
The hours before morning.
Get the bookJack had given up on the word tired. The word had stopped meaning anything around month four, when sleep became less of an event and more of a rumor — something other people did, in other rooms, at appropriate hours.
What he had instead was a long grey corridor of time that started at eleven and ended whenever the light came back. He walked it. He read paperbacks he could no longer remember the next morning. He learned which floorboards in the apartment creaked and which ones lied.
It was on the long grey corridor — on the fourth or fifth or possibly hundredth night of it — that he walked past the storefront on Columbus Avenue and saw the neon sign humming, even though the building had been empty since spring.
An annual of new short fiction.
The Lab. is our annual collection of short fiction and novel excerpts by emerging and established writers. We read every submission we receive, and we pay our writers.
Our editors choose each year's issue, and we publish it as a print edition with the full contents available online to subscribers.
We look for writers with something to say and the craft to say it well. We edit every book closely and work hard to put it in readers' hands. We read every submission, and we pay our writers.
We're closed.
Thank you for thinking of us. We are closed to all submissions while our editors read through the current queue. When we reopen on January 15, 2027, we will accept short fiction and novel excerpts for The Lab. Annual, and queries for novels and novellas.
Sign up for our newsletter and we will let you know the day we reopen.
The submission form will return here when reading resumes. In the meantime, subscribe to our newsletter and we'll send a note the day we reopen.
- Short Fiction
- Up to 7,500 words
- Novel Excerpts
- Up to 15,000 words
- Novellas, Short Novels & Novels
- By query first
- Response Time
- ~8 weeks
- Reading Fee
- None
- Payment
- On acceptance
Announcements from the press.
The Lab. Annual N°1 moves to 2027.
We're giving our inaugural annual more room. Submissions reopen January 15, 2027, and N°1 follows later in the year.
Submission infoThe Lab. Annual N°1 opens for submissions.
Our inaugural annual is open for submissions through January 31. Read the call and guidelines.
Submission callThe Lab. goes annual — a note on the change.
An editor's note on why we're moving The Lab. from quarterly to annual, and what to expect.
Note coming soonThe Casual Oblivion of Francis Keene — paperback now available.
Furry's debut novel is available in paperback and eBook through major retailers and independent bookstores.
Order the book