GENERAL GUIDELINES
- We only accept electronic submissions through Submittable. Any hard copy submissions we receive will be shredded and recycled.
- Multiple submissions are acceptable as long as they are submitted separately with separate entry fees.
- Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please be sure to withdraw your submission via Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- Please update any changes in contact information via your profile on Submittable.
- No revisions to submitted manuscripts will be considered. The author of the winning manuscript will have the opportunity to make revisions prior to publication.
- Friends, colleagues, and current or former students of the judges — as well as current students of English or Creative Writing at the University of Southern California and recent alumni (graduating years 2007 to present) — are not eligible to submit. This year’s chapbook judges are Dana Johnson (fiction) and Mark Irwin (poetry).
- In January 2013 we will announce contest results by email, as well as on the Gold Line Press site. The winning chapbooks will be published in spring of that year.
- Each winner receives $500, publication of her/his perfect-bound chapbook with ISBN, and 10 contributor copies. Gold Line Press sends out 30 copies on behalf of winners to respected literary venues for review. Winners can purchase additional copies of their chapbooks at cost.
We seek works of fiction that are purposefully planned as chapbooks: novellettes, carefully curated collections of vignettes or short short stories, or other projects that take the chapbook format as an instrumental element of their design. Excerpts of novels or short story collections will not be considered unless they form a sustained and individual project in their foreshortened form. For poets, we also recommend that manuscripts be cohesive and self-contained in the chapbook length.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
- Manuscripts must be 20-30 pages in length for poetry entries, and 7,500-15,000 words for fiction entries (not including the title page and table of contents).
- Manuscripts should be paginated with a table of contents at the beginning, unless the form of the book does not warrant it.
- Include a cover page with title of manuscript only. No identifying material should appear anywhere in the body of the manuscript. Your identifying information will be available to us via our submission manager when needed.
- Please do not include an acknowledgments page.
- Individual poems/short stories may have been previously published, but the work as a whole must be original and unpublished.
- The manuscript must be in English. Translations are ineligible.
- The $15 entry fee ($18 for applicants outside the US or Canada) includes a copy of the winning chapbook in your genre.
- All manuscripts must be received between AUGUST 15 and SEPTEMBER 30, 2012 via Submittable.
HOW WE READ
We use the Submittable (aka Submishmash) system for our submissions, which ensures the submitter’s anonymity during review by our editors and judge. To avoid conflicts of interest, editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they can identify the work’s author. The judge will select the winner (who will receive $500 and publication) and finalists (to be listed on our website). The judge may request to see additional manuscripts if necessary. The judge is not permitted to choose manuscripts that present a conflict of interest.
Gold Line Press, while not a member of the CLMP, abides by its Code of Ethics:
The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses’ community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our staff, editors, or judges; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines — defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
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