DOROTHY BRUNSMAN POETRY PRIZE
Each year we award the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize ($1,000 and publication) to a writer living west of the central time zone. The contest also serves as our best pool for finding new voices. You need not enter the contest to submit to us, but our first allegiance is to manuscripts that come with a reading fee since they help to keep the press going. Like many small independent presses Bear Star is a labor of love. The editors do not make a salary from the contest.
Competition Information & Guidelines
Good Luck!
- Manuscripts will be read in September, October, and November. Postmark deadline is 30 November 2012.
- Manuscripts should be between 50 and 65 pages in length.
- All work must be original and accompanied by a $20 reading fee. Previously published poems can be included in your manuscript if you retain the copyright (this is standard).
- Writer must currently reside in the Western States (those within Mountain or Pacific time zones, plus Alaska & Hawaii). Previously unpublished writers are welcome to submit!
- Any form or subject is acceptable. Use a plain 10-12 font.
- Rights revert to author upon publication.
- Simultaneous submissions absolutely fine so long as we are apprised of changes in manuscript status.
- Please do not send your manuscript by registered mail (doing so necessitates a 40-mile roundtrip drive to the P.O., very inconvenient for us). If you want to know whether we have received your work, simply enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard.
- Winner notified on or before February 2013. Check web site for winner information or send a SASE marked “results.”
- Publication by Fall 2013 (with luck, in Summer 2013).
- Name, address, and phone number should appear on a separate cover sheet only.
- No manuscripts will be returned. They will be recycled. Please do not send your only copy. Please DO send SASE for contest results.
- Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged as they save us a trek to the mailbox. Using Submishmash—developed by writers for writers—is fast and easy. Click here to submit.
- If you are unable to submit electronically, mail submissions to:
Bear Star Press
185 Hollow Oak Dr.
Cohasset, CA 95973And since you asked...
Manuscripts are judged in-house. Depending on volume, other readers are tapped, but they are always poets too. Since it is entirely likely that entering more than once means your manuscript will be read by one or more of the same readers as before, it is probably in your best interest to rework your material a little before resubmitting. In accordance with CLMP's code of ethics, friends and former students of readers will be automatically disqualified from entering the contest.