Resources
From Category:
The Cresset
Accepts submissions of poetry, essays and book reviews.
The Common
The Common is affiliated with Amherst College in Massachusetts. The editorial board includes well-known authors such as Richard Wilbur, Mary Jo Salter, and Honor Moore. Editors say, "The Common publishes fiction, essays, poetry, documentary vignettes, and images that embody particular times and places both real and imagined; from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon: literature and art powerful enough to reach from there to here."
The Cafe Review
Contributors have included Paul Muldoon and Taylor Mali.
The Bad Version
The Bad Version, a print and online journal, is produced by a group of recent Harvard grads, who met during their time at The Advocate and The Crimson. They publish essays, fiction, and poetry, and all of their published pieces have responses to them that comment on the piece, challenge it, and further its ideas. Editors say, "We picture The Bad Version as a snapshot of an ever-evolving conversation."
Subtropics
Simultaneous submissions accepted for prose but not poetry. Past contributors include Steve Almond, Charles Wright, D.A. Powell, Anne Carson, and Billy Collins. Read editors' preferences on website before submitting. Best for authors with some professional publication credits.
StoryQuarterly
SQ pays $150-$200 for accepted submissions, 8,000 words maximum. Enter online only. They seek to publish both prominent and first-time authors in every issue.
St. Katherine Review
Founding editors include such notable writers as Scott Cairns and Kathleen Norris. They accept poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, book reviews, and critical essays. Enter by email. No simultaneous submissions.
spunk [arts] magazine
Spunk was started in New York City by Aaron Tilford in the fall of 2003.
Sport Literate
Personal essays, travelogues, first-person journalism, interviews, and humor are welcome. No fiction. See website for their annual contest.
Spillway
Submissions of poetry, interviews, and articles should be made online only.
Southern California Review
Send 1-3 unpublished poems or one story or essay, maximum 8,000 words. Editors say, "We do consider genre work (horror, mystery, romance, and sci-fi) if it transcends the boundaries of the genre." They also occasionally publish one-act or ten-page plays, scenes, and monologues, and scenes from screenplays.
Sinister Wisdom
Publishing since 1976, Sinister Wisdom works to create a multicultural, multi-class lesbian space. Sinister Wisdom seeks to open, consider and advance the exploration of lesbian community issues. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language to reflect our diverse experiences and to enhance our ability to develop critical judgment as lesbians evaluating our community and our world. The magazine currently welcomes work by transgender women who identify as lesbian. Read back issues online for free in their archive.
Quick Brown Fox: The Literary Journal of the Five Colleges
Editors say, "We seek to bridge the barriers between the colleges and to promote our generation's voice by providing students with space for writing, discussion, and a collaborative intellectual experience."
Ploughshares
Submissions are accepted June 1-January 15. They publish mainly poetry and literary fiction, with a small amount of creative nonfiction. Ploughshares is a paying market. See website for print and online submission guidelines.
Pavement Saw
Pavement Saw Press also publishes innovative poetry books and chapbooks that get good reviews. See website for their contests.
Oyez Review
Well-known contributors have inclued Barry Ballard, Ace Boggess, Gaylord Brewer, Moira Egan, and John Surowiecki. Authors of narrative free verse, prose-poems, and magical realism may find this journal a particularly good fit. Reading period August 1-October 1; no simultaneous submissions.
North Central Review
Deadlines are February 15 and October 15 annually. Students may submit up to 5 poems and 2 pieces of prose per issue. No piece should exceed 5,000 words in length. Include proof of undergraduate status (.edu email address or photocopied student ID without number). Online entries accepted.
New Millennium Writings
"New Millennium Writings is published annually. We accept general submissions January through April of each year. We will consider poetry, for which we pay in two copies, plus fiction, and nonfiction, for which we pay $100, plus two copies, upon acceptance. We're especially interested in interviews and profiles of famous writers or tributes to legendary writers (for our Janus File) who are no longer living but whose influence is still felt."
New Letters
Past contributors have included May Sarton, J.D. Salinger, Marianne Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Tess Gallagher and Richard Wright. See their website for audio archives from their radio program, New Letters on the Air, and rules for their annual writing contests.
Missouri Review
We especially enjoy MR's fiction selections.
Meanjin
Meanjin also gives wide coverage to issues of global concern. It is an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing. The journal's name, pronounced Mee-an-jin, is derived from an Aboriginal word for the finger of land on which central Brisbane sits.
Mary: A Literary Quarterly
Submissions of poetry, fiction, and essays are accepted by email. Maximum 5,000 words per piece. Contributors have included Tom Cardamone, Christopher Hennessy, Michael Montlack, and Sarah Sarai.
MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine
Contributors have included Joyelle McSweeney, Eula Biss, Gabriel Gudding, and Joe Meno. See website for upcoming themed issues. Editors say, "Chicago is a storyteller's city, and MAKE is the story's magazine. Chock full of fiction, poetry, essays, art, and reviews, MAKE is substantial in both feel and scope. MAKE expands on the Chicago tradition to entertain and to inform."
Los Angeles Review
Each issue is dedicated to a contemporary writer or cultural leader; honorees have included Ishmael Reed, Eloise Klein Healy, Judy Grahn, and Bruce Holland Rogers.
Kyoto Journal
See website for submission guidelines for poetry, prose, and artwork. Recent themed issues have included "Unbound: Gender in Asia" and "Transience: Dwelling in the Moment".
Kaleidoscope Magazine
They accept poetry, fiction, essays, interviews and book reviews. Submission deadlines are March 1 and August 1 annually. The editors say: "Unique to the field of disability studies, this award-winning publication expresses the experiences of disability from the perspective of individuals, families, healthcare professionals, and society as a whole. The material chosen for Kaleidoscope challenges and overcomes stereotypical, patronizing, and sentimental attitudes about disability. Although content always focuses on a particular aspect of disability, writers with and without disabilities are welcome to submit their work."
jubilat
Based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the literary journal jubilat aims to publish not only the best in contemporary American poetry, but to place it alongside a varied selection of reprints, found pieces, lyric prose, art, and interviews with poets and other artists.
J Journal: New Writing on Justice
This literary journal, launched in 2008, is published by a well-regarded college in the CUNY system. Contributors have included Paul Mariani, Erika Dreifus, Randall Brown, Paul Hostovsky and Kathryn Howd Machan.
Hanging Loose
Important influences include the New York School and the "New American Poetry" defined by the Donald Allen anthology of that name, but the magazine is open to a wide variety of styles and themes. Star find: Sherman Alexie. Read an interview with co-editor Mark Pawlak here.
H.O.W. Journal
For each submission, they request a $5 donation that they will send to a relevant charity. H.O.W. stands for "Helping Orphans Worldwide".
Global City Review
Global City Press and Review seek to embody New York City's diversity and dynamism, with an international reach. "Edited and produced by writers, it celebrates the difficulties and possibilities of the 'global city' and other constructions of community...while honoring the subversiveness and originality of ordinary lives." Past contributors include Marilyn French, Robin Blair, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Cornelius Eady.
Ghost Town
They are looking for fearless and inventive fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. Prose should be 7,500 words maximum. They are also interested in translations, letters, cryptic found writings, illustrations, and other oddments. Reading period is September 1-February 1.
Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry & Aesthetics
Edited by prizewinning poets Philip Nikolayev and Katia Kapovich, aims at furthering communication between poets, critics and philosophers from different cultures and literary traditions.
Feminist Studies
This scholarly journal published by the University of Maryland also accepts submissions of poetry, short fiction, personal essays and artwork, with deadlines of May 1 and December 1 annually. No simultaneous submissions. "Whether work is drawn from the complex past or the shifting present, the pieces that appear in Feminist Studies address social and political issues that intimately and significantly affect women and men in the United States and around the world." Authors published in Feminist Studies since its inception in 1972 include Meena Alexander, Nicole Brossard, Jayne Cortez, Toi Derricotte, Diane Glancy, Marilyn Hacker, Lyn Hejinian, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Sharon Olds, Grace Paley, Ruth Stone, and Mitsuye Yamada.
The Fairy Tale Review
Distinguished contributors include Marina Warner, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Cate Marvin, Joyelle McSweeney and Donna Tartt.
Copper Nickel: A Journal of Art and Literature
Their submission period is August 15-April 15. They also offer an annual fiction and poetry contest. Recent contributors include Sandra Beasley, Noah Eli Gordon, Bob Hicok, Wayne Miller, Margot Schilpp, and G.C. Waldrep. This market seems most appropriate for intermediate to advanced writers.
Cider Press Review
CPR also offers a poetry manuscript contest which accepts online entries.
Cabinet
Like the 17th-century cabinet of curiosities to which its name alludes, Cabinet is as interested in the margins of culture as its center. Articles have included the history of failure in American culture; recipes for cooking imaginary animals; the fear of eating (and being eaten by) octopus; philosopher Slavoj Zizek's analysis of capitalism's current fascination with Buddhism; and the invention and artistic uses of the balloon. Cabinet is a print journal but sample articles are available online. Sold-out issues can also be downloaded from their website as a PDF (free for subscribers).
Broken Pencil
Broken Pencil reviews the best zines, books, websites, videos, and artworks from the underground and reprints the best articles from the alternative press. They also publish original fiction and interviews.
Badlands
They accept submissions of original and translated poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in English and Spanish, as well as artwork. In addition to general-interest submissions, the journal is currently seeking work by combat veterans of the US Armed Forces, for inclusion in several upcoming feature sections showcasing work by veterans. Include cover page with contact info, word and page count, title and genre of work, and brief bio (50 words). Do not include name in actual submission as works are read blind. Files should be in doc, docx or pdf format. See website for online submissions form.
Asian American Literary Review
In showcasing the work of established and emerging writers, AALR aims to incubate dialogues and, just as importantly, open those dialogues to regional, national, and international audiences of all constituencies. They select work that is, as Marianne Moore once put it, "an expression of our needs...[and] feeling, modified by the writer's moral and technical insights." Published biannually, AALR features fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, comic art, interviews, and book reviews.
Armchair/Shotgun
Unlike many journals, Armchair/Shotgun reads all submissions anonymously, without seeing the author's name or bio until the piece is accepted, in order to give newcomers an equal chance. Editors say, "We feel that good writing does not know one MFA program from another. It does not know a PhD from a high school drop-out. Good writing does not know your interstate exit or your subway stop, and it does not care what you've written before. Good writing knows only story." Visit their blog for lively reflections on the current publishing scene.
Aethlon
This print journal is sponsored by the Sport Literature Association. Aethlon publishes poetry, fiction, juried scholarly and critical essays, and book reviews. Online entries preferred. No simultaneous submissions. See website for their editorial preferences.
Adanna Literary Journal
Founded in 2011 by Christine Redman-Waldeyer, Adanna accepts unpublished poetry, short stories, essays, and reviews of books and visual arts. Enter by email. Editors say, "Adanna, a name of Nigerian origin, pronounced a-DAN-a, is defined as 'her father's daughter.' This literary journal is titled Adanna because women over the centuries have been defined by men in politics, through marriage, and, most importantly, by the men who fathered them. Today women are still bound by complex roles in society, often needing to wear more than one hat or sacrifice one role so another may flourish. While this journal is dedicated to women, it is not exclusive, and it welcomes our counterparts and their thoughts about women today. Submissions to Adanna must reflect women's issues or topics, celebrate womanhood, and shout out in passion."
Modern Haiku
Publishes original poetry in Japanese forms, book reviews, and essays. Also sponsors the Robert Spiess Memorial Award ($100), annual deadline in March.
Amazon’s Magazine Store
"The Magazine Subscription Manager gives you complete control of your magazine subscriptions online. You can change your address, cancel for a pro-rated refund, report a problem to the publisher, send a gift notification, and keep track of your expiration dates. Amazon makes managing all of your magazine subscriptions easy. You can also use the Magazine Subscription Manager to manage magazines that you didn't purchase on Amazon. Just go to Magazine Subscription Manager and click on 'add a new magazine' to start the process."
How to Find the Poetry Contest that is Best for You
Targeting the right publisher for your kind of work is the key to improving your poetry contest odds and advancing your career as a writer. If you were looking for a job, you wouldn't mass-mail your resume to every listing in the classifieds, yet too many beginning writers will pick up a contest directory and do just that. Fortunately, it's possible to bring some rationality to this confusing process by following a few simple guidelines.
First, you need to read widely and perceptively enough to understand where your work fits into the diverse landscape of contemporary poetry. Decide what's most important to you about winning a contest—prize money, prestige, wide readership, editorial feedback, or making connections with other writers. Competition is a two-way street; the hundreds of contests out there are also contending for a share of your entry-fee budget. Learn to recognize the signs of a contest that's unreliable or doesn't offer good value for your money and effort.
Understand your style and experience level
Poetry is so idiosyncratic, and its practitioners so opinionated, that I hesitate to divide writers into only a few "schools" or "movements". However, for purposes of this article, I'd like to mention three broad categories of writing, which I'll call traditional/formal, narrative free verse, and experimental. It's rare to find a contest that's equally open to all three.
The best way to explain these distinctions is by example. Here are three quite different poems on spiritual themes.
Traditional/formal
In the traditional category, Judith Goldhaber's "Mea Culpa: A Crown of Sonnets" won the 2005 "In the Beginning Was the Word" Literary Arts Contest from the Lake Oswego United Church of Christ. Goldhaber writes sonnets with the ease of contemporary speech, using images from the world we live in today, not only the Shakespearean and Romantic vocabulary to which the form often tempts us. In my mind, this makes her quite an original writer, but she wouldn't be considered "experimental" because she adheres strictly to the form. Her sonnet sequence straightforwardly takes on the age-old problem of evil and free will:
...I spread my wings and fell into the sky,
beating those wings and rising towards the sun
in ecstasy. It's true, I am the one
who did this thing, and I cannot deny
I gave no thought to who might live or die.
To tell the truth, when all is said and done
I'd do it all again, and yield to none
my right to live my life as butterfly.
So, mea culpa! Guilty after all!
"I am become death, destroyer of the world,"
said Oppenheimer, as the dark cloud swirled
above the swiftly rising fireball
at Alamogordo, when he lit the fuse:
you've seen the headlines and you've heard the news.
Free verse
Nigerian poet Chris Abani's "The New Religion" represents the best of narrative free verse. Lesser examples of this form can resemble prose chopped into short lines, without any poetic techniques like metaphor or non-realist imagery. Understandable on first reading, yet rich with questions that linger, Abani's earthy phrases awaken us to smell, feel, and savor the meaning of the Incarnation:
...The body is a savage, I said.
For years I said that, the body is a savage.
As if this safety of the mind were virtue
not cowardice. For years I have snubbed
the dark rub of it, said, I am better, lord,
I am better, but sometimes, in an unguarded
moment of sun I remember the cow-dung-scent
of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat
and the screaming grass.
But this distance I keep is not divine
for what was Christ if not God's desire
to smell his own armpit?
Experimental
At the experimental end of the spectrum, we have Christian Hawkey's "Night Without Thieves", an excerpt from his collection The Book of Funnels (Wave Books), which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. This poem doesn't have a narrative line that one could summarize, instead using more subtle tactics to hint at gospel concerns—the offbeat use of Biblical rhetoric ("yea unto those..."), and the promise of liberation from our fears and our narrowly rational ways of thinking:
The day is going to come—it will come—put on your nightgown,
put on your fur. And yea unto those who go unclothed,
unshod, without fear, fingering the corners
of bright countertops
and calmly, absentmindedly, toeing the edges of clouds
drifting in a puddle. Put on your deep-sea gear,
your flippers, and walk to the end
of the driveway.
It will come. Be not afraid to chase large animals.
Who publishes what
The most prestigious and lucrative contests are typically run by university-affiliated literary journals and presses. These publishers want to see that entrants are familiar with developments in contemporary poetry, and that their work has a modern feel to it. Ambiguity, irony and restraint are favored over Romantic sentiment and epic pomposity, and innovation may command higher marks than accessibility. For amateur writers whose poetic education ended with the classics in high school, this will require some catching up.
Outside the culture of academia, some small presses have a more populist flavor, seeking work that is complex enough to be satisfying, yet speaks in the voices of ordinary people. Standouts here include Perugia Press, Pearl Editions, Main Street Rag, and Steel Toe Books. My impression is that British contests are less "academic" in their tastes than American ones.
Traditional formal poetry tends to be segregated in journals specifically devoted to that aesthetic. Some publishers that appreciate classic verse include Waywiser Press, The New Criterion, Measure, and The Lyric. Contests run by local and amateur writers' groups may also be more open to old-fashioned styles and themes.
Researching the tastes of different literary journals has never been easier, thanks to the Internet. I do encourage people to support their favorite journals by buying a subscription, but I recognize that it's not practical to buy every magazine where you might submit your work. Subscribe to poem-a-day websites like Poetry Daily or Verse Daily, which reprint samples from the best independent and university-run small presses.
Know your priorities
Why do you want to win a poetry contest? (If the answer is "To become rich and famous," you're working in the wrong genre.) Different contests have different strengths. Here are some examples of the tradeoffs you might consider.
Let's say you're shopping around a poetry book manuscript. Wherever you're published, you'll have to do most of the marketing yourself. If you're a professor who can assign the book to your class, or you're hooked in to the local poetry community and could easily set up readings at cafes, libraries and bookstores in your area, you might not mind a smaller cash prize in exchange for more free copies of your winning book. Twenty copies is average, 50+ is above-average. Two well-regarded, long-running contests offering 50+ copies include Main Street Rag's Annual Poetry Book Award and the Gerald Cable Book Award.
On the other hand, if hand-selling your books is more of a challenge, you'd be better off entering a contest with a larger prize that you can spend on marketing efforts, such as postcard mailings and online advertising. Some major literary publishers, such as Tupelo Press and Kore Press, offer above-average publicity for their writers through their email newsletters, but keep in mind that they're extremely competitive.
Many contests for single poems will publish other entrants besides the top winner. This can be quite a perk if the contest is sponsored by a prestigious journal. New Millennium Writings and Atlanta Review are among the top-tier literary periodicals that publish a good number of finalists from their contests.
Web publication and other benefits
Web publication may not have quite as much cachet as an appearance in an established print journal, but I believe that the gap will close in the next few years as economics force more periodicals to go virtual. Online publication also offers the potential to reach a larger audience. Whereas most printed poetry journals report a circulation of a few thousand at most, an online poem can be distributed more widely, for free, with a link in your email newsletter, website, blog, or Facebook page. (Serious authors should have at least one of the above.)
Some contests invite winners and runners-up to read at an award ceremony. These can be wonderful opportunities for networking and book sales, not to mention the thrill of connecting with a live audience. Writing can be a lonely vocation. Coming face-to-face with appreciative readers is one way to recharge your creativity. Look for contests sponsored by writers' groups in your area, where you could make useful long-term contacts. Here, the tradeoff is sometimes lower prize money and prestige, in exchange for a more solid local fan base.
The Academy of American Poets provides state-by-state listings of events, literary journals, writing programs, poetry organizations, and more. The National Federation of State Poetry Societies also has a links directory, though it may not be as up-to-date. Visit the "Literary Societies and Associations" page in the Resources section at Winning Writers to find more specialized groups.
Avoid low-quality contests
Once your poem is published, it's ineligible for most contests. Only send your work to publications where you'd be proud to have it appear.
A contest's prize structure can clue you in about the sponsor's level of professionalism. I generally advise writers not to enter a contest whose fee is more than 10% of the top prize. I'm also not a fan of contests where the prize is a percentage of fees received. Without a guaranteed minimum prize, you're bearing too much of the risk that the sponsor won't adequately publicize the contest. I've seen some good small presses get in trouble because they relied on next year's fees to fund last year's obligations, instead of putting aside the prize money at the start.
Consider the look and feel of the contest's website. Avoid sites with multiple typos, grammatical errors, and cheesy clip art. Are the names of past winners hard to find? Don't let someone publish your book if they're going to let it fall into obscurity. A site with a lot of outdated information might indicate that the publisher doesn't devote a lot of attention to their business; lacks the technical skill to promote your work effectively online; or would be hard to reach once you had a contract with them. This is especially a problem for poetry book and chapbook contests. A technically savvy, responsive publisher is worth much more than a prestigious but elusive one.
Don't be dejected if rejected
Finally, let me say that I have mixed feelings about contests as validation for one's writing abilities. I remember how ecstatic I was to win my very first poetry award (an Honorable Mention from Cricket Magazine, at age 12)—I don't think any subsequent prize has given me a greater rush! Some of our poetry contest winners at Winning Writers, whose work has never appeared in print before, tell us that now they feel like a "real writer." So I wouldn't want to minimize the joy of debut publication, or the ego boost that can help an emerging poet make a serious commitment to her writing.
However, you're going to get a lot more rejection than validation, and internalizing others' opinions of your worth will lead to writers' block or fearful, unoriginal writing. Don't be "tossed about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4:14). Become a good enough reader of your own work to know when it's successful on your terms, and remember that even Shakespeare and Dickens don't suit every taste. The more innovative you are, the more passionate your critics and your fans will be.
Keep these guidelines in mind and you're sure to spend your time and entry fees more wisely!
Copyright 2009 by Jendi Reiter. Reprinted with permission from Utmost Christian Writers. This article first appeared in their "Poet's Classroom" series for June 2009.
Shaping Your Manuscript
Mr. Levine reads 4,000 fiction and poetry manuscripts each year for Tupelo Press, one of America's most acclaimed independent literary publishers. He shares his advice on what editors like to see.
- Use 11 or 12 point Times Roman or other clean serif (Garamond or Palatino, for example), nothing smaller or larger.
- Beware the frontispiece poem (that poem of yours that you might have elected to place before your numbered pages, or before your table of contents). This practice draws far too much attention to a single poem and, in my experience, the selected poem more often than not (80% of the time?) turns out to be one of the weakest poems in the collection.
- When ordering poems in your manuscript, pay no attention to which poems have been published (and where), and which poems not. At the conclusion of contests, I often (call me perverse) go back and look at the acknowledgment pages. I find that most poets place an inordinate (and mistaken) reliance on their publishing history in ordering poems, assuming that because such-and-such a journal took a poem it must be better than the poems not taken, or that a poem taken by Poetry or The Paris Review must be better than one taken by a lesser known print or online publication. I am almost always amazed—amazed—by which poems have been taken and which not (and by whom). Believe in all your poems, and order them according to your sense of where they belong. Period.
- When organizing the manuscript, think about each poem according to: mood / tone; dominant images, characters/speaker, setting/season; chronology, and whatever other categories you deem important to your own work. However you organize your collection, keep in mind that you are creating a book, and you cannot really know how the poems interact with each other unless you've done this work.
- Make sure the poems that begin your collection establish the voice and credibility of the manuscript. They should introduce the questions, issues, characters, images, sources of conflict/tension, etc., that concern you and that will be explored in the book. Think about the trajectory of the manuscript: you want to set the reader off on a journey, a path toward some (even if undisclosed) destination.
- Find an effective title: from the title of a significant poem in your collection, or from a line in your poem, or (perhaps to create some tension or mystery) it may not appear in your collection at all. That said, create about 20 contrasting titles and live with each for a while. Print out a title page for each possibility and look at them early and often. Obviously, you'll have ample opportunity to re-title your work after it's accepted by a publisher, but so many titles (of even terrific manuscripts) are so ill-thought out or just plain bad that I find I have to get over that initial reaction in order to give a collection its due.
- Other considerations:
a) don't send in a photocopy that's been copied so many, many times that it has inherited smudges or the type has faded;
b) send a cover letter if you like, but never a resume, and if you do send a cover letter, make sure it's addressed to the intended press and not some other press (you'd be surprised!), and don't address your cover letter to the contest judge (you'd be surprised!), and don't say you're in the process of a complete revision and will be sending the revised manuscript in a week or two (you'd be surprised!);
c) don't include dedications and thanks on a contest manuscript (plenty of time for that later);
d) be judicious about epigraphs—mostly they're just so much hardware unless a poem clearly addresses the words or theme of the epigraph.
Manuscript Tips
Literary contest judges read hundreds of manuscripts each year. A professional-looking submission makes your work look good. By contrast, a surprising number of contestants ignore the rules, spoiling their chances. Here are formatting tips from Jendi Reiter, editor of Literary Contest Insider and final judge of the Winning Writers contests.
FONTS AND PAPER
Manuscripts should be typed or printed on white 8.5x11" paper. Use a common, legible font such as Courier New or Times New Roman. A good type size is 12-point. If a different size is needed to fit within a contest's page limit, don't go lower than 11-point or higher than 13-point. Legibility will suffer and the judge will think you're playing games.
Most contests expect poetry to be single-spaced. If double-spacing is preferred, the rules will say so. Fancy paper and flowery fonts are a waste of time and money, and can annoy judges who find them hard to read. Gimmicks suggest you are an amateur.
FRONT MATTER
The term "front matter" refers to the cover page, title page, table of contents, and the acknowledgments page where you list the publication credits for poems in the manuscript. Some contests will specify whether the page limit includes the pages devoted to front matter. When in doubt, assume that it does.
COVER PAGES [sample] AND TITLE PAGES [sample]
The cover page should contain the following information, centered on the page:
Author's name
Author's address, phone number, and email address
You can put "Copyright 2015 Your Name" in the lower left-hand corner. This is not required. Your work enjoys basic copyright protection at creation.
Underline the title. Both the title and the author's name should be in a larger font than you would use for text in the manuscript. A good size is 24-point type for the title, and 18-point type for your name.
Often, a contest will ask you to submit a manuscript with both a cover page and a title page. This conceals the author's identity from the judges until they've chosen a winner. The cover page, which has your name and address, is filed by the contest coordinator. The title page stays with the manuscript. This page has just the manuscript title on it. You can also put "Copyright 2005" but leave out your name.
TABLE OF CONTENTS [sample]
The table of contents should use the same font and size as the poems. It should list the poem titles on the left of the page, with a line of dots matching each poem to the number of the page where it starts. For untitled poems, put the first line or first few words instead of a title. If your manuscript is divided into sections, the table of contents should also list the page where each new section begins. Most word-processing programs will generate a table of contents for you, or you can do it by hand. Always include a table of contents, even when the rules don't request one.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS [sample]
Place your acknowledgments page after the table of contents or at the end of the manuscript. Set it in the same font and size as your poems. Some contests prefer you to submit this page as a separate sheet. Others may ask you to omit it. This page lists the poems in your manuscript that have been published and where they appeared. It's not necessary to list the dates or issue numbers of the poetry magazines that published your work, but you may do so if you have room.
You can include your manuscript title on the acknowledgments page, but leave out your name and address.
TEXT [sample]
Put each poem on its own page. Placement on the page (centered, left-justified, or scattered around) depends on the style of your work. I prefer left-justified over centered, since that's the way most poems are printed in books and magazines. Number every page. Your word-processing program will do this automatically if you activate its page-numbering function.
COVER LETTER [sample]
Your cover letter should use a common, legible font such as Courier New or Times New Roman. I suggest the 12-point size. Standard white paper is fine.
State the following at a minimum: "Enclosed is my manuscript, [title], which I am submitting to the [name of contest]. I have enclosed the entry fee and a SASE for your response."
You can also include the names of magazines where your work has appeared and books that you've had published.
Some contests prefer that you complete their entry form rather than submit a cover letter.
WHAT'S A SASE?
A SASE is a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope. (British contests call it a SAE.) Use an ordinary letter-sized envelope for notification of winners, or a 10x13" envelope with adequate return postage if the contest guidelines say that manuscripts will be returned.
We suggest buying a small postal scale at an office supply store such as Office Depot. You'll save money by not putting too much postage on your packages. Current US postal rates are available at http://www.usps.com/.
Good luck!
