We are seeking boundary-breaking chapbooks that evoke vivid truths. We want work that takes risks, work that awes. We seek writing that brings us to new understandings about the way the world functions, writing that encourages empathy, writing that connects. We are accepting chapbooks from new, emerging, and established writers.

 
 

Judges

Prose | Bhanu Kapil

"What excites me in prose is a sensing and becoming or never-becoming (not in the time of the writing though sometimes afterwards.) I love prose that is the most real writing of the body-life. What that real is sometimes breaks the prose up and sometimes it puts it together again. I am interested in prose that makes my heart burst with joy, and which tells the truth about the parts of life that remain incomplete, that are burning still. "

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Bhanu Kapil is a British-Indian-American writer who teaches at Naropa University and Goddard College. She is the author of five collections of writing in variable prose forms, most recently Ban en Banlieue (Nightboat Books, 2015).

Poetry |Saeed Jones

"I'm in search of poems that aspire to challenge us all to keep moving forward precisely by disrupting what we thought we knew about ourselves and each other."

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Saeed Jones’ debut poetry collection Prelude To Bruise (Coffee House Press) was the winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award For Poetry and the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award and a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award. The book was also a finalist for 2015 awards from the Lambda Literary and the Publishing Triangle. His poetry and essays have appeared in publications like the New York Times, NPR, Guernica, Ebony, and Best American Poetry, among others. Saeed won a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2013 and is BuzzFeed's Executive Editor of Culture.

 
 

Prize

Each winner will receive $500, print publication, author copies, distribution in bookstores across America, and a jar of berry jam.

Finalists may be offered publication at Honeysuckle Press' discretion.

 
 

Guidelines

  • Manuscripts should be no shorter than 20 pages and no longer than 35 pages. This does not include the table of contents, title page, or identity statement. You may submit in poetry and in prose. There should be no more than one poem per page. 
     

  • Submissions are open from October 1st 2016 to January 1st 2017. 
     

  • We do not believe in reading fees so entries are free. However, if you'd like to submit more than one manuscript in each category, you may do so by using our Tip Jar portal for $20. If you use the Tip Jar portal, you will receive copies of both winning chapbooks in 2017.
     

  •  Your manuscript should be in Times New Roman or Garamond, size 12. Prose should be double spaced, poetry should be single spaced. Please include a title page and a table of contents, but do not include your name/any identifying information anywhere within the manuscript or title of the submission. Please do not include an acknowledgements page.
     

  • Please include an artist statement on the second page of your manuscript, after the title page. Use this space to show how your identity helps shapes your work. It should be no longer than two paragraphs. This statement will not be included in publication -- it's for us to have an extra lens when viewing your work. Literature does not exist in a vacuum; identity is an important shaping factor in any artist's work. Please do not include your name or specifically identifying information in this statement. 
     

  • Individual poems/stories may be previously published.
     

  • We will be accepting simultaneously submitted work. All semifinalists will be required to remove their work from simultaneous review upon notification.

 

Submissions are now closed. We will reopen for the 2018 Chapbook Contest in the Fall.