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The Inflectionist Review is a small press publishing stark and distinctive contemporary poetry that fosters dialog between the reader and writer, between words and their meanings, between ambiguity and concept. Each issue gathers established and emerging voices together toward the shared aim of unique expression that resonates beyond the author’s world, beyond the page, and speaks to the universality of human language and experience. 

Submissions for Issue 4 are open at the moment.

THE WINTER ANTHOLOGY WRITING CONTEST
Final judge: Srikanth Reddy 

Entry fee: $10
 
Deadline: January 31
 
Please send up to 50 pages in any genre (a book or book-length manuscript somewhat over 50 pages is acceptable). Send writings of which you are the sole author and that were not written earlier than 1999. Published and unpublished writings are equally welcome. Two or three poems or a single story or essay are as welcome as entire books. 

To get a sense of our aesthetics, see our previous volumes. All work will be read by the editors, with finalists judged by Srikanth Reddy. Multiple entries are welcome, as are entries including a mix of genres. We accept entries until January 31st. The final decision will be announced here in late winter 2015. In the event that none of the entries meets our standards, no winner will be declared. 

The winner will be published in Volume 5 of The Winter Anthology and receive a $1000 honorarium. Finalists will also be considered for publication.
To enter electronically, use our Submittable page.

GATES OPEN! SUBMIT! 

Iron Horse Literary Review is now accepting submissions for our annual Single-Author Competition. This year, we are seeking to publish a prose chapbook composed of either stories or essays. Roxane Gay will judge. 

To submit, send a manuscript of 50-65 pages composed of either stories or essays in which each new piece begins on a new page. The author’s name and contact information must appear on a title cover sheet, but it must NOT appear anywhere else on the manuscript unless it's nonfiction and the author is referring to him or herself inside the manuscript. While portions of the chapbook may have been published elsewhere, the collection as a whole must be previously unpublished. 

The finished product will emphasize your title, not the name of Iron Horse, and the winner will receive $1,000 and 15 copies. Your $15 entry fee comes with a one-year subscription to the journal.  

Go here for more info, and send us your best by Feb. 28th!

Iron Horse Literary Review is now accepting submissions for our annual Single-Author Competition. This year, we are seeking to publish a prose chapbook composed of either stories or essays. Roxane Gay will judge. 

To submit, send a manuscript of 50-65 pages composed of either stories or essays in which each new piece begins on a new page. The author’s name and contact information must appear on a title cover sheet, but it must NOT appear anywhere else on the manuscript unless it's nonfiction and the author is referring to him or herself inside the manuscript. While portions of the chapbook may have been published elsewhere, the collection as a whole must be previously unpublished. 

The finished product will emphasize your title, not the name of Iron Horse, and the winner will receive $1,000 and 15 copies. Your $15 entry fee comes with a one-year subscription to the journal. 

For more information, go here. Send us your best by Feb. 28th!

Each academic year, Slash Pine Press publishes two chapbooks in limited runs of 125 copies. This year, the press will publish one in the Fall of 2014 and one in the Spring of 2015.

The reading period is now open for our Spring chapbook. We are in search of prose manuscripts of any prose genre, no longer than 25 pages and made up of at least five separate pieces. 
 
DEADLINE: October 31, 2014.  

To submit, go here.

Guidelines:

We’re interested in seeing manuscripts of prose in all genres: fiction, non-fiction, and prose poetry. Manuscripts should be entirely prose, and should be made up of at least five interconnected or separate pieces. We are not considering, for example, submissions of one to four stories or essays. We are more interested in flash fiction or non-fiction, a larger work made up of smaller parts, or work that is conscious of how it uses white space and the page.
 
Simultaneous submissions are OK, but no multiple submissions will be accepted.

Please include your name and full contact information only in the “cover letter” section of the submission page. Authors may also list acknowledgments on the manuscript if desired.

All manuscripts receive a blind reading. The author’s name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript or in the title of file (on Submittable blind readers can still see the name of the file). Those manuscripts that include the author's name will be disqualified.

Manuscripts should be between 15-25 pages not counting cover page, acknowledgment page, or contents page (if included).

Collaborations are OK, but only by two authors.

The accepted manuscript will be determined by the editors and interns of Slash Pine Press. Decisions will be announced early 2015.

The $5 reading fee will go to printing and administrative fees. The author of the accepted manuscript will receive 15 copies as well as the option to buy additional copies at a reduced cost.

Faculty, students, and graduates of the University of Alabama are not eligible for publication.

As always, Slash Pine books are carefully designed and hand bound. To see examples of the books Slash Pine has published in the past, go to Slashpinepress.com.

Our fall 2014 issue features our very first chapbook contest! Our illustrious chapbook finalist judges panel includes Susan Tepper, Matthew Burnside, Allie Marini Batts, and Michael Dwayne Smith. You can read the judges' bios (and our previous issues) on our fall masthead.

MRR will publish four small chaps (20-25 pages each) within the fall issue of MRR; categories are poetry, flash fiction, hybrid, and flash non-fiction. Our issues are typically 220+ pages, so the plan is to publish four winning chaps within the issue, along with 100+ pages of general submissions, art, and interviews. Fun!

All entries will be read by MRR staff, and final determination of contest winning submissions will be made by our panel of judges: Allie Marini Batts, Matthew Burnside, Susan Tepper, and Michael Dwayne Smith. The chapbook guidelines and contest entry fee for each genre are on the Submissions page. 

Entry Fee: $5.00 per category

Contest entries close 10/1.

Here's the info about the general submissions:

In February, June, and October we publish poetry, fiction, non-fiction, hybrid works, chap/book reviews, plus articles or interviews relevant to arts and letters in the southwestern USofA. Please reference below the specific parameters for each category (max length, etcetera). And remember: if you wish to submit quality creative work that doesn't fit guidelines, we're always open to conversation about innovative goodness; please do contact us at:

mojaveriverpressATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

We're genuinely eclectic, open to all styles and topics, but are especially interested in poets, writers, and works related to southwest/desert culture(s). Read issues of Mojave River Review and dig for yourself. They're online and free. Works deemed by MRR as hateful and/or mean-spirited (misogynistic, racist, etc.) will be rejected without further consideration.

Simultaneous submissions are fine. Previously published work is not.

Here's the submissions website.

Blast Furnace: Call for Submissions: Volume 4, Issue 2

As a reminder: we accept a few kinds of submission formats: portable document format (.pdf), rich text format (.rft) and .doc/docx (Microsoft Word) files, OR .mp3/.wav audio files.

That said...please submit no more than three (3) of your BEST poems, or, if you prefer to create an audio recording of yourself reciting your poetry, send ONLY ONE (1) file attachment of NOT MORE THAN 2 MINUTES/120 seconds in total duration here.

For our fourteenth issue, we are entertaining poems with the theme(s) of origins and beginnings, as well as fine original poetry outside of this/these theme(s). We simply ask that individual submissions do NOT exceed more than three (3) poems per poet, and that each individual poem NOT exceed more than three (3) pages.

Please read our Mission/Values, Submission Guidelines and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) posted near the top of our web page, before submitting to review what resonates with us. We love a variety of poetic styles, but we are also picky.

DEADLINE: June 15, 2014


ADDITIONALLY, We are now accepting submissions for our first annual poetry chapbook contest, to be judged by Heather McNaugher!

For contest details, visit our Submittable page.

Olga Garcίa Echeverrίa

Safe!

Gurba Wielding Chapbook-Making Electricity

Myriam Dearest

Myriam Gurba: As American As Capirotada

Imipolex Press is a chapbook press dedicated to the promotion and preservation of heteronymic literature.

Wordrunner eChapbooks publishes four online collections annually of fiction, poetry or memoir, each featuring one author, and the occasional anthology. Submissions are open for the December 2013 memoir/personal narrative e-chapbook from October 1 through November 30, 2013.  

Payment: $65. At least 1/4 of the collection should be previously unpublished. No fee to submit.

Detailed guidelines are posted at our website.

2013 Native Writers Chapbook Series Contest

The Sequoyah National Research Center is pleased to announce the return of their Poetry Chapbook Award for emerging American Indian writers. One manuscript will be published annually, and although there is no cash prize, the writer selected will receive 250 copies of their chapbook to distribute at will. The winning manuscript will also be archived in our prestigious Tribal Writers Digital Library.

Guidelines are as follows:

• The Sequoyah Chapbook Award is open to any member of a federally recognized tribe in the United States. Individual must be either enrolled as a member of that tribe or accepted by that community as a member.

• Manuscripts, which need not be Native American in theme or subject matter, should be between 20 to 36 pages of poems, bound with a clip, single-spaced, one poem per page, paginated consecutively, with a table of contents and acknowledgments. Previous journal or magazine publication (web or print) is encouraged with acknowledgements, but we will not reprint work that has appeared as a whole in books (self-published or otherwise).

• A cover letter is required that identifies the writer’s tribal affiliation and has all contact information, including name, complete mailing address, email, and phone number. A short bio would also be helpful.

• We ask that you not submit manuscript simultaneously to other publishers or contests; winner will be notified no later than June 15, 2013.

• There is no reading fee, and manuscripts will not be read anonymously. All things being equal, we will select the work of emerging authors over established ones.

• Please include a stamped, self-addressed postcard for confirmation of receipt of your manuscript.

• Manuscript must be postmarked between March 15 and May 1, 2013. Anything received after that reading period will be returned unread. We do not accept email submissions. Please mail submission to:

Professor Nickole Brown, Department of English
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Little Rock, AR 72204

• Questions should be emailed to Professor Brown at:

 lnbrownATualrDOTedu (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)
Again, please do not email poems.

After a wonderful first-ever contest in which we published a novella by Sean Bernard, a memoir by Sandra Doller, and collection of poems by Kristin Hatch, we  would like to extend our call for submissions again this year. The winning  manuscript receives $1,000, publication, and 25 author copies. All writers who  submit will receive a copy of CutBank 79. We've included more information below, and the complete guidelines are available online.

PS---Don't forget to check out our $500 genre prizes judged by John D'Agata,  Maile Meloy, and Cole Swensen! $17 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank beginning with issue 79. Go here for more details!

CutBank Literary Magazine
Chapbook Contest

Deadline: March 31, 2012
Entry Fee: $17
Website

A prize of $1,000, 25 author copies, and publication by CutBank will be given annually for a poetry or prose chapbook. CutBank editors will judge. Between January 1 and March 31, 2013, submit a manuscript of 25-40 pages. Poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as hybrid manuscripts are welcome. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

National Chapbook Fellowships
Judged by
Thomas Sayers Ellis and Nick Flynn
Open to any U.S. Resident who has not published a full-length poetry collection.

New York Chapbook Fellowships
Judged by
Mary Ruefle and John Yau
Open to any New York City resident who is 30 or under and has not published a full-length poetry collection

Note: Poets may apply to one contest only.
GUIDELINES FOR BOTH CATEGORIES:

1. Manuscript page length: between 20-30 pages of poetry (front matter not included in count). Poems must be typed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper and bound with a spring clip. No illustrations may be included. Do not include photocopies of poems from magazines or journals. Please submit only one copy of your manuscript. Manuscripts should include no more than one poem per page.

2. A complete submission should include:

a. Title page with contest name (The National Chapbook Fellowship or The New York Chapbook Fellowship), your name, address, telephone, email, and any other relevant contact information. Your name should not appear elsewhere in the manuscript.

b. A title page with just the title of the manuscript.

c. An acknowledgments page. Poems included in your manuscript may be previously published, but please include an acknowledgments page listing specific publications. Note: previous publications and/or the inclusion of published poems will not serve as a determining factor in the screening or judging of manuscripts.

d. A complete Table of Contents.

e. Payment of a $12.00 non-refundable entry fee (check or money order payable in U.S. dollars to Poetry Society of America). This fee is not waived for PSA members. Please do not send cash. While you may not submit to both The National Chapbook Fellowship and The New York Chapbook Fellowship, multiple submissions to one contest are accepted. Please note: we require separate entry fees for each manuscript you submit.

f. Self-addressed stamped post card for confirmation of receipt and a self-addressed stamped envelope for announcement of the winners.

3. Manuscripts by more than one author will not be accepted.

4. Translations will not be accepted.

SUBMISSIONS:

Entries will be accepted between October 1st and December 22nd, 2012.
Entries postmarked later than December 22nd, 2012 will not be accepted.
Manuscripts will not be returned.
Electronic and faxed submissions will not be accepted.
If your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere, you must notify the PSA.

Submission to the Chapbook Fellowship Program does not prohibit you from applying to the PSA Annual Awards.

SEND TO:

PSA CHAPBOOK CONTEST
Poetry Society of America
15 Gramercy Park
New York, New York 10003

Standing Rock Cultural Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit cultural arts and education organization in Kent, Ohio is holding its third annual SRCA POETRY CHAPBOOK COMPETITION.

Information and Submission link.

Entry Fee: $9 per manuscript (via Submishmash) to defray expenses and support poetry programming.

ALL ENTRANTS RECEIVE A COPY OF THE WINNING CHAPBOOK. Contest open to U.S. residents only.

WINNER RECEIVES 25 COPIES AND $50 MINIMUM CASH PRIZE.

Submissions accepted July 1-October 31, 2012. Electronic as well as mailed entries are accepted; electronic preferred. Guest judges will be Lynne Albert, John Dorsey , and Allen Hines. Editor Tina Puckett may judge in the finalist round. Entries are blind and the guest judges will be blind judging entries. The editor will see entries only if there is an issue with a submission at the time of receipt.

Please read all guidelines and rights prior to sending submission! Inquiries (without attachments) may be sent to:

 SRCAChapbook(AT)gmail.com (replace (AT) with @).

The 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submission!

We are pleased to announce that the 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submissions April 1 through June 30, 2012. There is NO fee to enter this contest.
Mary Ballard Wright wrote poetry, but almost no one knew it. She raised three children through two marriages, kept a home, and scribbled verses in those moments when she dared to think of something other than daily life.

In 1979, a tornado swept through her town of Wichita Falls, taking her home and everything she owned. Among the things she lost were her life's work, handwritten poems kept in a closet.

Mary died in 2010, and here at Casey Shay Press, we have decided, in her memory, to publish one poet each year. It is our hope to keep others' work from sudden loss, be it a natural disaster, a technical failure that destroys a hard drive, or a personal loss in the theft of the laptop where we kept our work.

The winner of the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize will receive $500, 25 printed copies of the chapbook, and a book contract for the sale of physical and electronic versions of the chapbook.

There is NO fee to enter this contest, but each entrant may submit only one manuscript.
Rule for Entries:

Deadline: June 30, 2012
The Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open to all poets, published or unpublished.
Poems should adhere to a theme, however loosely.
We consider themes for adults as well as collections for children.
Individual poems may be previously published, but poems should not have been published as a group in any form, including self-published collections.
No more than 10% of the poetry should have been posted to blogs or web sites previously, and print and digital rights to any published poems should have reverted to the author to be eligible.
Manuscripts may be either a collection of poems or one long poem and should be a minimum of 20 pages and a maximum of 40 pages (not including the title page).
All poems should be single spaced and typed in size 12 Times New Roman or similar font.
Each manuscript should include a title page. This page should include the title, a one-sentence explanation of the chapbook's theme, and contact information on the poet. Please use your real name for your submission. If you prefer to use a pseudonym on your chapbook, that will be arranged later.
If any poems have been previously published, please indicate their titles and where they were published.
If the poet already participates in readings, poetry groups, or writers' organizations, we would love to hear about that, but it is optional.
The reading period for the 2013 competition begins on April 1, 2012. Entries must be submitted by June 30, 2012. Submissions will only be considered if received between those dates.
The quarter-finalists will be announced July 31, 2012.
We are all-electronic, so submissions should be emailed with a doc, docx, rtf, or txt file attachment to:

poetryprize(at)caseyshaypress.com (replace (at) with (@) when sending email)

Please do not copy your poems into the body of the email.

The 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submission!

We are pleased to announce that the 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submissions April 1 through June 30, 2012. There is NO fee to enter this contest.

Mary Ballard Wright wrote poetry, but almost no one knew it. She raised three children through two marriages, kept a home, and scribbled verses in those moments when she dared to think of something other than daily life.

In 1979, a tornado swept through her town of Wichita Falls, taking her home and everything she owned. Among the things she lost were her life's work, handwritten poems kept in a closet.

Mary died in 2010, and here at Casey Shay Press, we have decided, in her memory, to publish one poet each year. It is our hope to keep others' work from sudden loss, be it a natural disaster, a technical failure that destroys a hard drive, or a personal loss in the theft of the laptop where we kept our work.

The winner of the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize will receive $500, 25 printed copies of the chapbook, and a book contract for the sale of physical and electronic versions of the chapbook.

There is NO fee to enter this contest, but each entrant may submit only one manuscript.

Rule for Entries:

Deadline: June 30, 2012

--The Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open to all poets, published or unpublished.
--Poems should adhere to a theme, however loosely.
--We consider themes for adults as well as collections for children.
--Individual poems may be previously published, but poems should not have been published as a group in any form, including self-published collections.
--No more than 10% of the poetry should have been posted to blogs or web sites previously, and print and digital rights to any published poems should have reverted to the author to be eligible.
--Manuscripts may be either a collection of poems or one long poem and should be a minimum of 20 pages and a maximum of 40 pages (not including the title page).
--All poems should be single spaced and typed in size 12 Times New Roman or similar font.
--Each manuscript should include a title page. This page should include the title, a one-sentence explanation of the chapbook's theme, and contact information on the poet. Please use your real name for your
submission. If you prefer to use a pseudonym on your chapbook, that will be arranged later.
--If any poems have been previously published, please indicate their titles and where they were published.
--If the poet already participates in readings, poetry groups, or writers' organizations, we would love to hear about that, but it is optional.
--The reading period for the 2013 competition begins on April 1, 2012. Entries must be submitted by June 30, 2012. Submissions will only be considered if received between those dates.
--The quarter-finalists will be announced July 31, 2012.
--We are all-electronic, so submissions should be emailed with a doc, docx, rtf, or txt file attachment to:

poetryprize(at)caseyshaypress.com (replace (at) with @)

Please do not copy your poems into the body of the email.

Take a look at our 2012 winner: Uncommon Clay by Darlene Franklin-Campbell! You can read free samples of her work at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

I am busy lining up a director for my New York reading of Blue Roses at the Dramatists Guild Friday Night Lights series on October 28, 2011 at 6pm. Stop by if you are in Manhattan that evening. The play runs between 60-75 minutes. You can still make your 8pm show.
I will have finished a first draft of the sequel to Blue Roses by then, which I can pitch at will to anyone who shows interest, and maybe to strangers who will listen, just for practice. (Pitching your story is critical if you're a writer who wants to get produced.)
On the poetry front: I received a late night email from Binge Press and Productions. They want to publish my mini-chapbook "Invert Sugar" of lesbian poems. I'm quite happy about it. They produce these minis, not to make money, but to promote poets. I'll receive 50, fifty!, of these little charmers, plus 100 broadsides of one of the poems from the book to promote myself, and they will sell as many as they can at places like the AWP, book fairs and readings.
Serendipity much? I'll be giving away books and broadsides at my reading, won't I? And handing out business cards, of course. Speaking of which, my new cards sport ALL my social network info: google+, Twitter, blogspot, Facebook, website, email and cell. What do you include on your card?

Children’s writers all know what constitutes a chapter book or chapbook. After all, many writers create those delightful books for the young reader. A few short chapters welcome the child into the expanded world of books for confident readers. Think back to the Frog and Toad books of childhood.

Yet, many children’s writers may have overlooked a relative newcomer to the publishing market. A decade or so ago, an emergence began of a revamped version of the historically relevant Chapbook. So begins the confusion for beginning children’s writers everywhere.

I discovered the genre in an article appearing in Poets & Writers Magazine, Sept./Oct., 2009 issue. I’m sure that somewhere in the back of my brain I must have a faint recollection of such a genre, but I wouldn’t guarantee it.

P&W’s article explores the genre up to and including how to create your own small volume. Tips include; types of bindings, number of usual pages, and particulars on marketing. It’s a fascinating piece. Reviews of Chapbooks can be had for the looking, simply by going to Amazon.com. There are also links to and interviews with authors. In fact, according to Amazon, one such book made it all the way to the NY Times Best-Seller List.

The problem lies in the fact that this much older form of writing and publishing also went by the name Chap Book or Chapbook. It began centuries ago so that writers could get their work out to the public. Those writers used the form for poetry, lyrics, essays, folktales, fairy tales, etc. There’s a rumor that the Brothers Grimm began with these tiny handmade books.

These books have begun plugging a large hole in the mainstream publishing industry. Small presses, too, publish these books all over the United States and England. Individual writers self-publish their efforts as well. Much of this writing centers on poetry or personal essays. These usually four by six-inch volumes are beginning to make an impact.

But a question begs asking. What does the children’s writer do about the name confusion? Can he/she do anything? Of course, any of these writers could publish their own chapbook for the child who hasn’t read the story about The Great Blizzard That Buried New York. In truth, such books of children’s poetry are out there in the marketplace already.

Also, when querying a publisher, how does the writer describe his/her manuscript? Perhaps, “Dear Editor, please accept this manuscript of chapter book length.”

I have nothing against the method or purpose of the modern version of history’s Chapbooks for the reading public. On the contrary, I think it’s another practice of the past being revived for the sake of the profession and its market. I just wish those tiny tomes of literary endeavor had a different name.

Perhaps, children’s writers could devise a different name for their own efforts. There’s always Ever-After-Books, the books that change a child’s reading ability forever. Or, Big-Kids-Books. That’s self-explanatory.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that those time-confused interlopers of literary exploitation will disappear from the industry soon. Unfortunately, I’m willing to believe that in today’s time-conscious world, the little gems will make themselves right at home, and we’ll all soon be carrying them with us as true pocketbooks.

Hey, there it is! The real name of those little books – Pocketbooks! I wonder if anyone will notice how that name got borrowed from the past, too?

Well, there you have it. My thought for the day. I’m sure some enterprising publisher somewhere will take these wee books and provide them for the developing world of the e-book enthusiasts, if they haven’t already.

Until next time, a bientot,

Claudsy

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