Deadlines: August & September 2023
Every middle of the month: new deadlines, new contests, and new opportunities for your work to find its audience. Here is a roundup of ten submission opportunities with deadlines in August or September, including The Palette Chapbook Prize, Phantom Kangaroo, Black Warrior Review, and more.
DEADLINE: 8/20
We warmly invite you to submit your manuscript to the 2023 Palette Chapbook Prize! Poetry chapbook manuscripts of all styles are welcome—we have no theme or aesthetic preference. The guest judge this year is Danez Smith, who will select the winning manuscript from ten finalists chosen by Palette editors.
The winner will receive $2,000 and Summer 2024 publication, which includes a free, downloadable digital chapbook on our website, fifty physical author copies to share and sell, and the option to enable drop-shipping sales at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and Barnes & Noble, earning 50% royalties on your chapbook. Additionally, thousands of readers, editors, and journals will receive chapbook access through our newsletter. The winner will have creative agency over cover art/design, and also be offered the opportunity to work with Paletteeditors to revise the manuscript.
Reading Fee: $25
DEADLINE: 7/31
There can be great pleasure or catharsis in writing, but it is revision that reveals the true essence of a poem, and revision that ultimately carries a writer from a handful of poems to a cohesive manuscript. I’m delighted to invite you to our second annual manuscript revision lab, designed specifically for poets who, like Hirschfield, are ready to parse the connections between their poems and assemble their bones into an agile body. Assembling a successful manuscript can feel like a lonely and daunting process, but our manuscript revision lab provides practical tools, community support, and astute feedback to help you refine your manuscript into a book ready for submission. This lab is an entirely online, asynchronous opportunity to have your manuscript draft read and reviewed by professionals at renowned presses. Our editor-partners with backgrounds at Sundress Publications, Milkweed Editions, and Alice James Books have selected and supported manuscripts that have gone on to win national awards and receive critical acclaim. They will apply their expertise—both as poets and experienced editors—to provide developmental feedback that will help you take your manuscript to the next level. A significant portion of the lab fee goes directly to the editors.
Reading Fee: $697
DEADLINE: 08/02
Phantom Kangaroo is seeking dream accounts, automatic writing and surreal, mystical, supernatural and occult poetry and artwork (especially collages) for Phantom Kangaroo: Issue 30 to be published in print and online on October 13, 2023. Founded in 2010, Phantom Kangaroo is a portal for inter-dimensional poetry. Submit 1-3 written pieces or artwork, and a 3rd person bio. Each contributor will receive two complimentary print issues.
Reading Fee: none
DEADLINE: 08/01
The Coniston Prize is an annual award that recognizes an exceptional group of poems by a woman writing in English. Any poet who identifies as a woman is eligible. The winner of the Coniston Prize will receive $1,000, and up to 10 finalists will also be awarded $175. The winner and all finalists’ poems will be featured in the October Coniston Prize Issue. Submissions are open June 1 – August 1. We notify all entrants before October 1. The entry fee is $20. *For the first 7 days that Coniston Prize submissions are open, we will waive fees for BIPOC poets. After that time, paid submissions will continue to be open to all eligible poets. If you wish to take advantage of this opportunity, please submit through the “BIPOC Poets” option in Submittable.* Submit 3-5 previously unpublished poems in a single document through our submissions manager. You may include a cover letter and brief bio in the comments box. Multiple submissions are acceptable with additional reading fees. This award recognizes an exceptional group of poems. We therefore suggest that you submit poems that are intentionally cohesive in some way, whether connected by subject matter, theme, voice, style, or imagery. Guest Judge: Ellen Bass.
Reading fee: $20
DEADLINE: 8/15
Ruth Stone Poetry Prize
Submissions will open on February 15, 2023 and close on August 15, 2023. $500 prize for first place winner in each category. Publication in Hunger Mountain for first-place winners and runner-ups. Please submit up to three original unpublished poems in one entry (all three poems in one Word document or PDF). Submissions should be anonymous. Your name or any other information that would allow someone to identify you (email address etc.) should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Contact information should only be included in the Submittable form. This year’s judge is Hunger Mountain Poetry Editor, Tarfia Faizullah, author of Registers of Illuminated Villages and Seam. We ask that you do not include song lyrics or any other copyrighted material in your submissions.
Reading Fee: $20
DEADLINE: 09/01
The editors of BWR read regular Poetry, Prose, and Nonfiction submissions from December 1-March 1 and June 1-September 1. Submissions are only accepted through our online submission manager which may be found at bwr.submittable.com/submit.
BWR seeks to publish poems that are:
1. Experimental in form, creation process, content, and/or reading method, 2. Representative of non-traditional voices and contemporary issues, & 3. Impressive in their wholeness, but also in their minutiae.
We’d also love to see more poems that portray nuanced forms of comedy or spirituality, although this is not required.
Submit up to 5 poems with a maximum of 10 pages in one document. In the “Submission Title” field, list all titles separated by commas. Please include a short cover letter and bio (more personal than professional bio preferred). If you are a Black, Indigenous, or incarcerated writer, you may email your submission to poetry.bwr@gmail.com for no fee.
Reading Fee: $3
DEADLINE: 09/01
Salt Hill accepts only online submissions via Submittable for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. For visual art submissions, see below. Most, if not all, of our published work is selected from unsolicited submissions. We accept simultaneous submissions, but ask that you alert us as soon as possible if your work is placed elsewhere by either adding a note to your submission through Submittable or withdrawing the full submission. We ask that you submit only once per genre per reading period. Due to the volume of submissions, we can’t respond individually to submission status queries. We aim to respond to submissions within three to six months. Please submit 1-5 poems at a time.
Reading fee: none
DEADLINE: 09/04
Interim
Open submissions are welcome from 1 January through 1 September. The themed submissions will run for 5 months before closing. Check back for other themed issues throughout the year. Please follow specific genre guidelines when formatting and uploading your submission and limit your cover letter to 150 words or less. Full guidelines can be accessed by clicking on the plus sign located at the top right of each genre category listed below. Although we do accept simultaneous submissions, we do not accept work that has been previously published either in print or online. Submit three to six poems in a single document. If any work in a given submission is accepted elsewhere, please either add a note to your submission or withdraw that submission in Submittable. There is no need to notify us about withdrawals outside our Submittable account. Our response time is generally within six months. We may be faster, and we may also take longer, especially during semester breaks. In cases other than withdrawals, we encourage you to submit only once per reading period. Thank you.
Reading Fee: $4
DEADLINE: 09/03
Please submit your work in a single document. Work should be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed but please let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere. Poetry: Please submit one poem in a single document. If special formatting is required, please send it as a pdf. Please note, we may not be able to reproduce special formatting on the web and mobile versions of your poem but will attach a PDF. Thank you for sharing your words with us.
Reading fee: $4
DEADLINE: 09/03
The Tomahawk Creek Review
The Tomahawk Creek Review is currently open for submissions in poetry. Please submit up to five poems in a single file on any topic or theme. There is no line limit. Submissions must be single-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman font. Send in .doc or .docx format. Payment: At the moment, we cannot pay for authors’ work, but hopefully in the future, a small remuneration will be given. Please include a short biographical statement with your cover letter.
Reading fee: $3