Kore Press Institute Poetry Prize
We are honored to announce that Erica Hunt will be the judge for the inaugural Kore Press Institute Poetry Prize. Deadline: September 15.
A prize of $1,500, publication and promotion by Kore Press, and 20 author copies will be given for an original, unpublished full-length poetry collection by a woman or transgender poet, or a writer of marginalized gender and gender histories. Open to poets writing in English. Poets can be at any point in their career, and this may be their first, second, or mid-career book. $28 reading fee.
“Don’t writers write, intuitively, to the future all the time? It’s in the calculus of the literary trajectory to incline towards a future dialogic; the writer assumes a kind of blindfold, writing to be in dialog with a reader, a reader through whom a part of the meaning/effect is fulfilled.”—Erica Hunt
Submit on submittable, here.
Read about and order your copy of Letters to the Future, here.
About the Judge: Erica Hunt is a poet, essayist, and author of Local History (Roof Books, 1993) and Arcade (Kelsey St. Press, 1996), Piece Logic (Carolina Wren Press, 2002), Time Slips Right Before Your Eyes (Belladonna*, 2015), & A Day and Its Approximates (Chax Press, 2013). She is co-editor, along with Dawn Lundy Martin, of the anthology Letters to the Future: Black Women / Radical Writing (Kore Press 2018).
Her poems and non-fiction have appeared in BOMB, Boundary 2, Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetics Journal, Tripwire, Recluse, In the American Tree and Conjunctions. Essays on poetics, feminism, and politics have been collected in Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women and The Politics of Poetic Form, The World, and other anthologies. Hunt has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Fund for Poetry, and the Djerassi Foundation and is a past fellow of Duke University/University of Capetown Program in Public Policy. Past writer in residence in the Contemporary Poetics/Creative Writing program at the University of Pennsylvania, and at Bard College’s MFA program, Hunt has taught at Wesleyan University and was a repeat faculty member at Cave Canem Retreat, a workshop for Black writers from 2004 to 2015.
OUR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Kore Press Institute only accepts submissions via submittable. We do not accept submissions via fax, e-mail or post. Submissions must be written in English. No art work please, unless the work is integral to the project and does not exceed the max file size.
The prize is accepting Submissions through September 15, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
A reading fee for each manuscript submitted is $28. Authors may submit multiple manuscripts. Each requires a reading fee. Some scholarships are available. Contact Tina@KorePress.Org for information.
Manuscripts must be 48-100 pages of poetry.
All manuscripts receive serious, careful attention. This takes time. We aim to make decisions and announcements by the end of the year, but sometimes the volume of manuscripts and reader schedules cause delays.
Translations and previously published work will not be considered.
We accept simultaneous submissions but please let us know immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. You can do this by withdrawing your submission via submittable.
Do not put your name anywhere on your manuscript. All identifying information should be in the cover letter along with the manuscript title, your name, address, email address, and phone number.
Finalists and winner are contacted via submittable, email, and announced on the website, in the newsletter, on social media, and in Poets & Writers.
Past Kore Press poetry contest judges include: Tracie Morris, Robin Coste Lewis, Joy Harjo, Nikkey Finney, Bhanu Kapil, Claudia Rankine, Patricia Smith, Eavan Boland, Marilyn Chin, Sonia Sanchez, Harryette Mullen, Carolyn Forche and Jane Miller.
Past winners include: July Westhale, Zayne Turner, Monica Ong, Jen McClanaghan, Elline Lipkin, Laura Newbern, Sandra Lim, Michelle Chan Brown, Deborah Fries, Heather Cousins, Jennifer Barber, Holly Iglesias, Spring Ulmer.
Kore Press Reading Policy
Our preliminary readers are a diverse group selected by the Publisher, Advisory Board, and Kore artists. They are paid for their work, and are published writers or experienced editors. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We rotate our readers so writers who wish to re-submit to the Poetry Prize can be assured that their manuscript(s) will receive fresh “reads.” The Poetry Prize is judged by Eric Hunt, and she will choose the winner and the finalists..
Kore Press Institute follows the CLMP CONTEST CODE OF ETHICS
In keeping with the CLMP‘s contest code of ethics, we’d like to inform you of the following:
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.