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Open Book Review Submission Guidelines

 

  • We accept unsolicited reviews of full-length collections and chapbooks year-round for consideration for our website review series. We are looking for reviews of the work of both emerging and established writers; books and authors reviewed do not need to explicitly identify as feminist, but your review should address, at some level, how the work might be conceived as such.

  • Length: 250-1000 words. Micro-reviews of chapbooks are welcomed and encouraged.

  • We only consider previously unpublished book reviews. A book review published by Gazing Grain may be re-posted with proper acknowledgement of its first appearance at Gazing Grain Press.

  • Appropriately and correctly cite and quote in MLA format. Provide links to publisher and seller where appropriate.

  • Please include a cover letter with a bio of 50-100 words.

  • Submit via our online submission manager.

Open Cover Art Submission Guidelines

 

We accept cover art submissions to use as art for our chapbooks and miniatures year-round. Submit no more than five images as representations of your work. Feel free to include a link to your website or web gallery in the “submit” form. If you wish, include a statement in your cover letter about what feminism means to you and your work. Visual art in any medium (including photographs of three-dimensional work) and photography is accepted. Submit via our online submission manager.

Guidelines for 2018 Prose & Poetry Chapbook Contests

 

About: Our inclusive feminist chapbook contests are open to writers of all genders and sexualities, and are meant to promote socially conscious poetry, prose, and hybrid writing to a wide audience. Both poetry and prose contests are open to hybrid work, including hybrid genres and text/image hybrid. We adhere to no one “definition” of feminism—we encourage a broad and diverse range of approaches. Challenge us!

 

Contest winners will be announced in fall 2018 and published within one year of acceptance. Contest winner(s) will be invited to read at a book launch event at the New Leaves Literary Festival at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. 

 

Manuscripts are read by the staff, who will select a set of finalists to send to the judges for winner selection. Finalists may also be considered for publication in the form of miniature chapbooks and/or other literary ephemera. Submissions are only accepted via our online submission manager.

Manuscripts are read by the editors, who will select a set of finalists to send to the judge for winner selection.  One to three chapbooks will be published from this contest. 

 

Extended Reading Period: March 22 to June 15

 

Reading Fee Categories: $15 flat fee or $21 with choice of one chap (2018 winning chapbook or selection from our catalogue). Let us know your choice in the “submit” form, along with your cover letter.

 

Prize: Publication and 10% of print run. Winners will be invited to read at a book launch event at Fall for the Book or New Leaves Literary Festival at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Travel and accomodation will be paid, up to $500.00 USD. Runners-up and/or designated finalists will also be invited to receive recognition at the event(s). Contest finalists and semi-finalists will be considered for publication in the Gazing Grain Press miniature series of small limited-run, handmade artist books and ephemera. 

2018 Contest Judge

Judge Khadijah Queen is the author of five books, most recently I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books 2017). Earlier poetry collections include Conduit (Akashic / Black Goat 2008), Black Peculiar (Noemi Press 2011) and Fearful Beloved (Argos Books 2015). Her verse play Non-Sequitur (Litmus Press 2015) won the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women's Performance Writing. Reviews of her work can be found in The New Yorker, Rain Taxi, BOMB Magazine, SCOUT, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Review, Open Letters Monthly, The Volta, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, and other publications. She serves as core faculty in poetry and playwriting for the new Mile-High MFA in creative writing at Regis University, and is raising a teenager. 

Poetry Contest: Past Winners and Judges

2017: Tim Jones-Yelvington, selected by 

2016: Brianna Low, selected by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

2015: Marisa Crawford, selected by Natalie Diaz

2014: Anne Lesley Selcer, selected by Dawn Lundy Martin

2013: Meg Day, selected by Cathy Park Hong

2012: Laura Neuman, selected by Brian Teare

 

Prose Contest: Past Winners and Judges

 

2017: Hannah Leffingwell, selected by  Bhanu Kapil

2016: Nora Boydston, selected by Lily Hoang

2016: Linda Chavers, runner-up selected by Lily Hoang, published as Editors' Choice

2015: Heidi Czerwiec, selected by Amber Sparks

All Genre Contest Full Guidelines:

 

What we’re looking for: Poetry, fiction, non-fiction or hybrid work, including memoir excerpts, essays, short stories, novellas, short-shorts, flash prose, prose poetry, lyric sequence, lyric essays, drama, and anything else you have invented. You are certainly not limited to these categories. 

 

1.  This competition is open to all writers writing in English who have no affiliation with the judge, the editors, or the George Mason University MFA program.

2.  The author’s name should not appear anywhere in the manuscript itself. Include identifying information only where it is asked for in the submit form. Editors will read submissions anonymously.

3. Manuscripts must be between 15 and 25 pages (not including front and back matter), numbered accordingly. Every manuscript should include a title page, a table of contents, and an acknowledgements page, if applicable.

4. The manuscript should not have been previously published in any complete form; however, individual pieces may have been previously published. We prefer that some portion of the manuscript has not been previously published, but this is not required. We accept simultaneous submissions. Notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions are accepted, with a separate reading fee for each manuscript. Collaborations are accepted.

5. Submissions are accepted via Submittable. If Submittable is not an accessible platform for you, email us at gazinggrainpress@gmail.com and we will make arrangements for an alternate submission method.

 

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