10/22/20

The Journal Submission Journal Issue 6—Contesting Collections in Fall 10/22/20

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The Journal Submission Journal Issue #6 
10/22/20
Contesting Collections in Fall
20 Poetry Book (and 8 Chapbook) Contests with Deadlines Before December

The year from outer space continues! And it is a crazy one. How crazy? So crazy that I'm hardly going to rattle on here. I have been slacking on the submissions with so much reading still to do, but I've tried to get a few in each week. Substantially, at long last I've posted the first two issues of "Spy in the Slushpile" which interviews literary magazine editors with a special eye to giving potential submitters a good idea of what the editors want in a submission.
 
Issue One: Pithead Chapel
Issue Two: SCAB MAG
Issue Three: After the Pause (coming soon)

Then of course Eyes Forward is still very useful on the regular for those folks that are interested in experimental/avant-garde literature. Eyes Forward: Avant-Garde Literature and Literary Journals in 2020

On the experimental literature tip I just wanted to add that I am supremely honored to have won the Gulf Stream Literary Magazine 2020 Summer Contest with my poem "[START AT THE BEGINNING]". It's not the easiest poem to read, so I'll give the advice of starting in the top left box, and follow the lines which will direct you through the poem. And yep, that is a triolet in the top left boxes. Try your own triolet with our guided poetry prompt here! Anyone can do it!

I have launched a literary magazine recommendation service called "The Submission Wizard" after a writing group member jokingly called me that for my frequent and accurate journal suggestions. I concocted three 'tiers' of surveys which will give me an insight in the piece/s you want to submit and what you want in a journal. I want to help everyone that needs help so I've adopted the 'tip' model, keeping the base price of the service extremely low and asking folks consider tipping based on how happy they are with the results. 

And I mean very low prices: $3 for a sampler of the service, $5 for the 'full' service which gets at least 10 journal recommendations for lit mags I think would be appropriate for what you're submitting and are actively reading. Check out the surveys, consider it, pass it along please. All fees and tips will be 100% cycled back into literary magazines through my own submissions.

Then one last thing before we get to the point already, I'm really pushing my first collection this fall, I would love to win a prize with it. I have over 300 pages of published poetry that I'm wrassling into three variations of one concise collection. But in order to enter all of these contests I'd be forking over $690 (well, minus the contests I do not qualify for) which, while it would be awesome to be able to donate that much to small presses, but it's also far outside my submission budget. If anyone would like to sponsor my entry fee to any of these contests via donations I would not only be eternally grateful, but when the book does eventually get published I will 100% give you a shout out in the 'Thank you' section of the collection. 


I feel very dirty now, but I just really want this first collection published already. But that's enough. Let's go.

20 Poetry Book (and 8 chapbook) Contests with Deadlines Before December

This isn't for everyone, but it will hopefully be useful for enough people for me to take the time here.

10/13/2020 deadline
FULL COLLECTIONS
Press/Sponsor: American Poetry Review / Copper Canyon Press
First Book Contest? Yes
Page Restrictions: at least 48 pages 
Entry Fees: $35
Grand Prize: $3000, royalties
Judge/Other Notes: Ada Limón

Press/Sponsor: Conduit Books & Ephemera
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $1000 (and 25 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: The Conduit editorial board

Press/Sponsor: Elixir Press
Page Restrictions: at least 48 pages
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $30
Grand Prize: $2000
Judge/Other Notes: John Nieves

Press/Sponsor: Indiana Review / Indiana University Press
Contest Name: Blue Light Books Prize
Page Restrictions: 48-75 pages
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $20
Grand Prize: $2000 (The winner will also receive travel expenses to read at the 2021 Blue Light Reading in Bloomington, Indiana)
Judge/Other Notes: Nadi Comer

Press/Sponsor: Persea Books
Page Restrictions: at least 40 pages
First Book Contest? Yes 
Entry Fees: $30
Grand Prize:  $1000 (The winner also receives a six-week, all-expenses paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy)
Judge/Other Notes: Prize is only open to "self-identifying women who have yet to publish a full-length book of poems"

Press/Sponsor: Red Hen Press
Page Restrictions: 48-96 pages
First Book Contest? No 
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $3000 (and a four-week residency at PLAYA in Summer Lake, Oregon)
Judge/Other Notes: Jeffrey Harrison

Press/Sponsor: University of North Texas Press
Contest Name: Vassar Miller Prize
Page Restrictions: 50-80 pages
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes: Leigh Anne Couch

CHAPBOOKS

Press/Sponsor: Black Lawrence Press
Page Restrictions: 16-36 pages
Entry Fees: $15
Grand Prize: $500 (and 10 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: Poetry or Prose

Press/Sponsor: Comstock Review
Contest Name: Chapbook Contest
Page Restrictions: 25-34 pages (max 38 lines per page including blank lines between stanzas)
Entry Fees: $32.50
Grand Prize: $1000 (and 50 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: Mike McAnaney

Press/Sponsor: Finishing Line Press
Page Restrictions: 16-36
Entry Fees: $15
Grand Prize: $1000 (an royalty contract)
Judge/Other Notes:

Press/Sponsor: Kissing Dynamite
Contest Name: The Microchap Series
Page Restrictions: up to 15 pages
Entry Fees: No Fee
Grand Prize: $50 (and 10 copies)
Judge/Other Notes:

Press/Sponsor: Tupelo Press
Page Restrictions: 20-36 pages
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $1000 (and 25 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: Mark Bibbins

November 2 Deadline
FULL COLLECTIONS

Press/Sponsor: Alice James Books
Contest Name: Alice James Award
Page Restrictions: 48-100
First Book Contest? No 
Entry Fees: $30
Grand Prize: $2000
Judge/Other Notes: Author must be a US resident.

November 10 Deadline
FULL COLLECTIONS

Press/Sponsor: Cloudbank Books
Page Restrictions: 60-90 pages
First Book Contest? No 
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes: Christopher Buckley (Poetry &/or Flash Fiction)

November 15 Deadline
FULL COLLECTIONS

Press/Sponsor: Nightboat Books
Contest Name: Poetry Prize
Page Restrictions: 48-90 pages
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $28
Grand Prize: $1000 advance (also royalties and 25 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: Kazim Ali

Press/Sponsor: Perugia Press
Contest Name: Poetry Prize
Page Restrictions: 45-85 pages
First Book Contest? Yes (or second book)
Entry Fees: $27
Grand Prize: $1000 (and 10 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: Author must identify as a woman

Press/Sponsor: Academy of American Poets
Contest Name: Academy of American Poets First Book Award (formerly the Walt Whitman Prize)
Page Restrictions: 48-100
First Book Contest? Yes
Entry Fees: $35
Grand Prize: $5000
Judge/Other Notes: Claudia Rankine

Press/Sponsor: Yale University Press 
Page Restrictions: 48-64 pages
First Book Contest? Yes
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes: Rae Armantrout

November 30 Deadline
FULL COLLECTIONS

Press/Sponsor: BOA Editions LTD
Page Restrictions: 48-100 pages
First Book Contest? Yes
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes: Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Press/Sponsor: Green Linden Press
Page Restrictions: at least 45 pages
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $12.50-$30
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes: The Wishing Jewel Prize honors a manuscript that challenges expectations of genre, form, or mode while engaging the rich possibilities of lyrical expression.

Press/Sponsor: Small Harbor Publishing
Contest Name: Laureate Prize
Page Restrictions: 50-80
First Book Contest? No 
Entry Fees: $25
Grand Prize: $300 (and 35 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: Karen Craigo (Books centered around a unifying theme will be given preference)

Press/Sponsor: White Pine Press
Page Restrictions: 60-80 pages
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $20
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes:


December 1 Deadline
FULL COLLECTIONS

Press/Sponsor: Meadowlark Books
Contest Name: The Birdy Poetry Prize
Page Restrictions: 
First Book Contest? 
Entry Fees: $30
Grand Prize: $1000 (and 50 copies)
Judge/Other Notes:

Press/Sponsor: Ohio University Press
Page Restrictions: 60-95
First Book Contest? No
Entry Fees: $30
Grand Prize: $1000
Judge/Other Notes:

Press/Sponsor: Waywiser Press
Page Restrictions: 48-88 pages
First Book Contest? Yes (or second collection)
Entry Fees: $29
Grand Prize: $3000 (The winner will also be invited to give a reading at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in spring 2022)
Judge/Other Notes: 

CHAPBOOKS

Press/Sponsor: Bateau Press
Contest Name: Boom Chapbook Contest
Page Restrictions: 20-30 pages
Entry Fees: $14
Grand Prize: $250 (and 25 copies)
Judge/Other Notes: "THE SEXY BATEAU STAFF" (open to Poetry / Fiction / Nonfiction / Hybrid writing)

Press/Sponsor: JuxtaProse Literary Magazine
Page Restrictions: 20-40 pages
Entry Fees: $20
Grand Prize: $1000 (and 50 copies)
Judge/Other Notes:

Press/Sponsor: Slipstream Press
Contest Name: Poetry Chapbook Competition
Page Restrictions: up to 40 pages
Entry Fees: $20
Grand Prize: $1000 (nd 50 copies) 
Judge/Other Notes:

*

Journal Researching Lists
Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash

Entropy Mag's list of where to submit is a great resource and while this is the list for June/July/August, there' s a good amount of places that have rolling deadlines or aren't until sometime in the summer.
Derek Annis' Submission Calendar. He has a long list of journals with rolling submissions and a calendar with journal openings linked in the calendar (not closing, when they start reading). Very useful resource.
Zebulon's Flash Fiction Submission Guide. Yeah, I'll admit I referenced this, I put a lot of work into it, and though it's almost 5 years old and needs an update, there are a lot of smaller and lesser known journals I reminded myself with using this guide.
Duotrope. Always. A great search and browse function.
Submittable Discover Tab. Good for deadlines. There are a few June deadlines and definitely some end of the month/July 1st ones to keep your eye on.
Poets & Writers Contest Calendar. If you've got a little extra scratch and want to enter some contests this is one of the best places to go. 
New Pages Calls for submissions. New Pages is a tremendous resource, they have lots of supplemental information about hundreds of journals including lit mag reviews, which you don't see too many places.

Check out the lists and get your work out there! I'd love to hear other journals you fine folks have found recently, or are your favorites too. And if this post or my blog in general has been helpful, I'd really appreciate any donations you might be able to spare. Submission fees can add up for me too.