FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize

FutureCycle Press annually conducts a juried full-length poetry book competition open to any poet writing in the English language. We offer to the winning author a $1,000 prize, publication in both print and ebook formats, and 25 copies of the printed book. We sometimes also offer publishing contracts to the top finalists. The contest is open from January 1 to April 15 each year; entries received outside of this submission window will be considered a general submission to the press.

To enter the competition, you must pay a $25 ($32 international) entry fee for each book manuscript submitted. You will receive one shipment/copy of the winning book for each entry. (Because the winner will not be published until the Fall of the same year, please be sure to notify us promptly if your mailing address changes.)

We encourage poets to read the poetry in our online anthology and check out our catalog for examples of the kinds of work we like.

 

Judges

The competition judges for 2011 include the editors of FutureCycle Press (Robert S. King, Diane Kistner, John K. Otley, Jr., J. Clayton L. Jones, Michael Diebert, Wally Swist, Steven Shields, David Chorlton). An outside panel, including poets Gary Fincke, Rachel Hadas, Joanne Lowery, and David Brendan Hopes, will help judge the top-tier (finalist) manuscrpts.

 

Manuscript Format

Manuscripts should be 48 to 70 pages in length, excluding front or back matter such as title page, dedication, biographical information, acknowledgments, or other descriptive text. Your name, full mailing address, email address, and phone number should appear on the title page.

If poems in your collection have been previously published, please include an acknowledgments page listing publishers' names and titles. When including any works to which you have legally given up book rights, you must supply written permission from the rights-holder and an appropriate "reprinted by permission" line in your acknowledgments. Also, if your manuscript is chosen for publication, we will ask you to provide a paragraph or two describing your book's content for potential readers. Although not required at the time of submission, you may include this information if you would like.

Please prepare the final manuscript in one of the following file formats: Microsoft Word (DOC), Rich Text Format (RTF), WordPerfect (WPD), or editable Acrobat (PDF). Please do not double-space the text of your poems, except between stanzas and after the title; indicate parenthetically when a stanza break is required at the end of a page. Please do not type titles in all capital letters; we prefer that titles and subtitles be styled as headings and the body as the default ("normal") body-text style. Use headers, footers, or automatic page numbering instead of manually typing this information on each page. Note: Fancy typefaces, unusual formatting, artwork, or other attention-grabbers that distract our judges from the merits of the poems themselves may decrease the chances of your manuscript being chosen.

 

How to Submit

All submissions must be made via our online submission form. Simply select the "Book Contest" type of submission and upload your file(s). Your manuscript file must be in one of the following file formats: Microsoft Word (DOC), Rich Text Format (RTF), WordPerfect (WPD), or editable Acrobat (PDF).

Include in your file a brief bio and cover letter, or you may enter this information separately in the space provided on the submission form. Be sure that you also include your contact info (email and mailing addresses, phone number).

We look forward to reading your work!