Announcing the second annual
ROBIN BECKER CHAPBOOK PRIZE: Please read the complete guidelines below, and please help to spread the word!
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SEVEN KITCHENS PRESS announces the
2009 ROBIN BECKER CHAPBOOK PRIZE for an original, unpublished poetry manuscript in English by a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered or Queer writer.
Prize: $100 plus 25 copies.
Submission deadline: Postmarked between March 1 and May 15 of each year.
Eligibility: Open to all L/G/B/T/Q poets writing in English (no translations, please).
Please note the following change to this year's competition: Two manuscripts will be selected as
co-winners of the 2009 Robin Becker Prize: one by a writer with no previous book or chapbook, and the other by a writer with previous book or chapbook publication.
Please read the guidelines carefully; the complete guidelines are posted on the
Seven Kitchens site and we are not responsible for other versions of the guidelines that may be posted, in whole or in part, elsewhere.
COMPLETE GUIDELINES:
Any poet who identifies as L/G/B/T/Q is eligible to submit to the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize.
- The manuscript itself need not address L/G/B/T/Q themes, though such work is welcome.
- The final judge for this year's series is Ruth L. Schwartz.
Submit a paginated manuscript of 16-24 pages (not including front matter).
- Include two cover pages: one with the manuscript title, author name, address, e-mail and phone number; the second cover page should have the manuscript title only.
- Include a table of contents page.
- Include, if applicable, an acknowledgments page for work previously published.
- Please include, on a separate page, a brief (100-150 words) biographical note, including a statement of any previous or pending book or chapbook publication.
The author's name must not appear in the manuscript.
- All manuscripts will be blind judged, meaning all identifying material will be separated from the manuscripts as they are logged in.
- Manuscript titles and their log numbers will be posted on the web site [http:// sevenkitchens. blogspot. com] (remove spaces from URL) as they are received.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us promptly if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
- Submissions must be posted between March 1 and May 15, 2009.
- The winning manuscripts will be announced on or before August 15, 2009.
- Manuscript finalists will also be announced, and may be eligible for publication in the chapbook series.
Manuscripts will not be returned. E-mailed submission is preferred, but you may send via regular mail.
- If you are sending by mail, do not staple or bind your manuscript; please use a binder clip and mail flat in an 8.5 x 11 envelope.
- If you are sending by e-mail, please send one document in Microsoft Word format (.doc, .docx or .rtf files are ideal); you must include the words “Robin Becker Chapbook” in the subject line of your e-mail.
- Include a $12 reading fee with each manuscript you submit (multiple submissions are welcome). Checks should be made payable to Ron Mohring. Online payment may be made via PayPal to sevenkitchens at yahoo dot com.
- Each entrant will receive one copy of the winning chapbook, to be published during winter of 2009.
- Each co-winner will receive $100 and 25 copies of her or his chapbook. Additionally, the publisher will distribute ten review copies and will solicit online reviews of each chapbook.
Send your manuscript:
- by e-mail, as a Microsoft Word attachment, to: sevenkitchens at yahoo dot com; or
- by mail to Ron Mohring, Publisher; PO Box 668; Lewisburg PA 17837.
ABOUT THIS YEAR'S JUDGE:
Ruth L. Schwartz is the author of four award-winning books of poetry and a memoir: Dear Good Naked Morning, selected by Alicia Ostriker for the Autumn House Poetry Prize (Autumn House, 2004); Edgewater, selected by Jane Hirshfield as a 2001 National Poetry Series winner (HarperCollins, 2002); Singular Bodies (Anhinga Press, 2001), winner of the 2000 Anhinga Prize for Poetry; Accordion Breathing and Dancing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), winner of the 1994 Associated Writing Programs Award; and Death in Reverse: A Love Story (Michigan State University Press, 2004).
Ruth has won over a dozen national literary prizes, including two Nimrod/Pablo Neruda Awards, two Chelsea Magazine Editor's Awards, the North Carolina Writer's Network Randall Jarrell Prize, and the New Letters Prize in Poetry. She has received grants from the NEA, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Astraea Foundation. Her poems have been anthologized in The World in Us: Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave (St. Martin's Press, 2000), American Poetry: Next Generation (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2000), The New Young American Poets (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), and elsewhere.
An interview by Stacey Waite appeared in the spring 2003 issue of NIDUS and may be found here.
ABOUT THE SERIES:
This chapbook series honors Robin Becker, whose continuing accomplishments as a poet, professor, and mentor of lesbian and gay writers deserve wider acclaim. Becker serves as poetry editor for the Women's Review of Books and is a professor of English and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of six collections of poems, including Giacometti's Dog (1990), All-American Girl (1996), The Horse Fair (2000) and Domain of Perfect Affection (2006), all from the University of Pittsburgh Press, and of the chapbook Venetian Blue (Frick Art & Historical Center, 2002).
Becker's honors include individual fellowships from the Bunting Institute, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She won the 1996 Lambda Literary Award for All-American Girl, and the 1997 Virginia Faulkner Prize for Excellence in Writing from Prairie Schooner Magazine. In 1998, Becker was a visiting Scholar at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York. In 2007, she was the Sandra and Gary Sojka Visiting Poet at Bucknell University. She has served as final judge for many national poetry competitions including the Astrea Awards, the Benjamin Saltman Prize from Red Hen Press, The Idaho Prize from Lost Horse Press, the John Ciardi Prize from Bk Mk Press, and the Prairie Schooner Book Award in Poetry. Becker's column on poetry and the poetry scene, "Field Notes," appears in the Women's Review of Books.
Postcard from P-town: poetry by Steven Riel. Number Two in the Robin Becker Chapbook Series from Seven Kitchens Press, selected by Robin Becker.
