PUB: Accents Publishing

2011 International Poetry Book Contest

(Click here to download the submission form)

Accents Publishing is excited to announce its 2011 International Poetry Book Contest. Two winners will be selected – one by an independent judge, Lisa Williams, and one by the Senior Editor and founder of Accents Publishing, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. Each winner will have his/her submission published and will receive a $500 cash prize. Additionally, the winners will be invited for a featured reading at a book premiere celebration event. All contest entries will be considered for regular publication with Accents Publishing, as well.

The entry fee is $20.00. Multiple submissions are allowed, as long as each one is accompanied by a separate entry fee and submission form. Winning books may be pre-ordered at the time of submission for $10.00 each.

A complete submission should include the following:
  • A completed submission form
  • Your manuscript, including:
    • An acknowledgement page, if necessary
    • Two title pages – one with name and contact information, one without
  • Your biography or CV
  • A check or a confirmation of payment via Paypal (see below) covering the $20 entry fee, plus any optional book preorders

Please do not include a SASE, as notification will be made by email only.

We will accept submissions between March 1st and July 31st. Winners will be announced in August. The contest is open to any poet writing in English. Employees of Accents or family members of judges are ineligible to participate. Simultaneous submissions will be accepted, but please notify us immediately if your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts should conform to the following guidelines:
  • 60 to 120 pages of poetry
  • Table of contents
  • Single spaced
  • Numbered pages
  • 11 pt font minimum

Your name should not appear anywhere within the manuscript. Please do not send the only copy of your work, as manuscripts will be recycled.

Entries should be mailed to:

Accents Publishing
c/o Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
P.O. Box 910456
Lexington, KY 40591-0456
U.S.A

Contest Entry and Book Preorder
Entry Fee Only $20.00 With Preorder of Judge's Selected Book $30.00 With Preorder of Editor's Choice Book $30.00 With Preorder of Both Winning Books $40.00


Lisa Williams is the author of Woman Reading to the Sea (W.W. Norton, 2008), which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize (selected by Joyce Carol Oates), and The Hammered Dulcimer (Utah State University Press, 1998), which won the May Swenson Poetry Award (selected by John Hollander). Her poems have been published in Orion, Measure, Raritan, The New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, Quadrant (Australia), The Dark Horse (Scotland) and other magazines, as well as in the anthologies Best American Poetry 2009, Best American Erotic Poems: 1800-Present, Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds (edited by Billy Collins), and American Poetry: Next Generation. Williams was the recipient of a 2004 Rome Prize in Literature for her poetry, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship awarded by the Kentucky Arts Council. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, she is NEH Associate professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Centre College.