BkMk Press
of the University of Missouri-Kansas City
Announces
Short-Fiction Book Award
The G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction
Poetry Book Award
The John Ciardi Prize for Poetry
Next postmark deadline (both awards): January 15, 2013
For the best book-length collections of poetry and of short fiction in English by a living author
Prize: $1,000 and publication of winning book for each prize
Submissions:
- Manuscripts must be typed on standard-sized paper, in English. Poetry manuscripts should be approximately 50 pages minimum, 110 pages maximum, single spaced. Short fiction collections should be approximately 125 pages minimum, 300 pages maximum, double spaced.
- Entries must include two title pages: one with author name, address and phone number; and one with no author information. Any acknowledgments should appear on a separate piece of paper.
- Entries must include a table of contents.
- Author's name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript.
- Please submit your manuscript in loose pages, bound only with a clip or rubber band. We prefer that you do not staple or permanently bind your manuscript. Do not submit your manuscript by fax or e-mail.
- Simultaneous and multiple submissions are acceptable. Please notify us of acceptance elsewhere.
- A SASE should be included, for notification only. Note: No manuscripts will be returned.
- A non-refundable reading fee of $25 in US funds (check made payable to BkMk Press or a completed credit card form printed from this link) must accompany each manuscript. Entrants will receive a copy of the winning book in their genre when it is published.
- Manuscripts must be postmarked no later than January 15, 2013.
Manuscripts will not be returned. No refunds will be issued.
Judging will be blind at all levels. Initial judging will be done by a network of published writers and editors. The final judging will be done by a poet and a fiction writer of national reputation. Winners will be announced in July 2013 and the winning entries will be published in 2014.
These competitions are held annually.
Address To:
John Ciardi Prize for Poetry or Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction
BkMk Press
University of Missouri-Kansas City
5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110-2499(816) 235-2558*
Fax (816) 235-2611
bkmk@umkc.eduAvailable to contest entrants at the special price of $5 each postage paid are the following titles from BkMk Press:
Stations of the Air by John Ciardi. These poems were collected after Ciardi's death in 1986.
Family of Mirrors, poems by G. S. Sharat Chandra, professor of English at UMKC who died in 2000.
Available to contest entrants at the special price of $10 each postage paid are the past winners of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry: The Resurrection Machine by Steve Gehrke, selected by Miller Williams; Kentucky Swami by Tim Skeen, selected by Michael Burns; Escape Artist by Terry Blackhawk, selected by Molly Peacock; Fence Line by Curtis Bauer, selected by Christopher Buckley; The Portable Famine by Rane Arroyo (selected by Robin Becker); Wayne's College of Beauty by David Swanger (selected by Colleen J. McElroy); Airs & Voices by Paula Bonnell (selected by Mark Jarman); Black Tupelo Country by Doug Ramspeck (selected by Leslie Adrienne Miller); Tongue of War by Tony Barnstone, selected by B. H. Fairchild; Mapmaking by Megan Harlan, selected by Sidney Wade; Secret Wounds By Richard Berlin, selected by Gary Young; and the past winners of the Chandra Prize: A Bed of Nails by Ron Tanner (selected by Janet Burroway); I'll Never Leave You by H. E. Francis, selected by Diane Glancy; The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories by Billy Lombardo, selected by Gladys Swan; Necessary Lies by Kerry Neville Bakken, (selected by Hilary Masters); Love Letters from a Fat Man by Naomi Benaron, (selected by Stuart Dybek); Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein, (selected by Marly Swick); Dangerous Places by Perry Glasser, selected by Gary Gildner; Georgic by Mariko Nagai, selected by Jonis Agee; Living Arrangements by Laura Maylene Walter, selected by Robert Olen Butler.
In 2012, watch for Ciardi Prize winner Axis Mundi by Karen Holmberg, selected by Lorna Dee Cervantes; and Chandra Prize winner Garbage Night at the Opera by Valerie Fioravanti, selected by Jacquelyn Mitchard.