Southeast Missouri State University Press

Deadline: November 1, 2023

Reading Fee: $25

Prize: $2,000, publication, and 30 copies for the author

Manuscripts submitted to the contest will be read and judged anonymously.

Submission Guidelines

• Individual poems in the manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished.

• Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.

• Open to any poet writing in English, age 18 or older, regardless of publication history.

• Send 48-100 pages of poetry–any style or theme–with a table of contents and an acknowledgements page for any previously published poems.

• The page count doesn’t include the table of contents or acknowledgements.

• Manuscripts must be typed, each manuscript page numbered, with the following information entered in the Cover Letter field on Submittable:     
   

  
  

  • Contest title

  
  

  • Manuscript title

  
  

  • Author name

  
  

  • Address

  
  

  • Telephone number

  
  

  • Email (if available)

  
  

  • Your name and contact information must not appear anywhere else on the manuscript.

  
  

  
   
  
  
  
  
  
   

• Contestants may submit more than one manuscript, but a separate entry fee must accompany each manuscript.

• Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

• Employees and students of Southeast Missouri State University Press are not eligible.

• Failure to follow these guidelines may disqualify entry.

Winner and finalists will be announced in the winter following the contest deadline, on our website.

For further information, Carrie at upress@semo.edu.