Slope Editions 19th Annual Book Prize

Judged by Samuel Ace

Submissions to this contest have closed. Thank you to all who submitted! The winner will be announced in the summer of 2020.

Submission Guidelines

Slope Editions is accepting full-length poetry manuscripts for its 19th Annual Slope Editions Book Prize Contest. This year's contest will be judged by Samuel Ace. The deadline is April 15, 2020. The winning poet will have their book of poems published in 2021 by Slope Editions and will also receive $1000 and free copies of the book in lieu of royalties. The winner will be announced in the summer of 2020. Entries will be read blind. Slope values diversity in poetry and we encourage underrepresented poets to submit. 

About the Judge:

Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author of several books, most recently Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish 2019), the newly re-issued Meet Me There: Normal Sex and Home in three days. Don’t wash., (Belladonna* Germinal Texts 2019), and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton. He is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a two-time finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series. His work has been widely anthologized and recent poems can be found in Poetry, PEN America, Best American Experimental Poetry, Vinyl, and many other journals and anthologies. He currently teaches poetry and creative writing at Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts.

Eligibility:

Any American poet writing in English is eligible, unless that person has a close personal or professional relationship with the judge and/or Slope Editions staff or an affiliation with the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Past or current students of the judge are ineligible to enter; entry fees will be returned in these cases. Any manuscript that has appeared or is forthcoming as a printed book, e-book, or chapbook will NOT be considered. Please do not include your name or any personal information anywhere on the manuscript. Manuscripts that are not blinded will not be read.

Electronic Submission Guidelines:

40 to 90 pages as formatted in standard 8 &1/2 by 11 MS Word or PDF document submitted through Submittable. Your name should not appear anywhere within your manuscript. Please include a title page with book title only, a table of contents, and an acknowledgements page with manuscript. Slope Editions is no longer accepting paper submissions. 

Entry Fee:

$25 for electronic submissions, paid via Submittable.

Deadline:

April 15, 2020

Revisions:

The winner may be able to revise their manuscript before publication. No revisions will be considered during the reading period.

Submissions to the Slope Editions Book Prize may also be considered for additional Slope Editions publications. Entrants being considered for these publications will be notified. We offer sincere thanks to all entrants and readers for supporting Slope Editions and small press poetry.