Main Street Rag's
Annual Chapbook Contest
2012 Guidelines
Deadline: May 31, 2012
Reading Fee: $17
PRIZE: Winner receives $500 and 50 copies of chapbook and a one year subscription to The Main Street Rag. All entries receive a copy of the winning manuscript and are considered for publication.
Runners-up will be offered publication as well as a one year subscription to The Main Street Rag.
Every manuscript entered will be considered for publication .
Send between 24 and 32 pages of poetry, any style/form, no more than one poem per page. Please use 12pt type using Arial or Times New Roman.
Do Not Include Dedication and/or Credits/Acknowledgements Pages in entry.
For the purpose of fairness, it is important that judges know as little about the author as possible and these pages are not relevant to the judging process. If they should accidentally slip through the registration area, the author will not be eligible to win.Include cover sheet with author’s contact information--name, address, phone number, and email address. The author's name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript.
No manuscripts will be returned, so please do not send oversized SASEs. We prefer to notify by email, but if an author wants to use an envelope, please use a business-size (#10) envelope.
For notification of receipt of manuscript, entries can include a post card, but if they include an email address, we will send a verification of receipt via email.
Do not send anything USPS Return Receipt or Signature Receipt--we won't stand in line for these items and they will eventually be returned to you (when the US Postal Service gets tired of putting cards in our box). If you need confirmation that we received it, include a reliable email address or a stamped return post card.
Although MSR frowns on simultaneous submissions for our magazine, it is acceptable for our book contests. Upon notification, however, winner must immediately withdraw his/her mss from consideration elsewhere (or from the MSR Chapbook Contest--if the manuscript has been chosen winner in another contest).
All checks should be made payable to Main Street Rag, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001.
Since our goal with our contest is to select manuscripts for publication, we no longer disqualify manuscripts that do not follow guidelines exactly. They will still be considered for publication; however, they will not be eligible to WIN the contest.
The most common reason for disqualification (in the past) has been the inclusion of acknowledgments and author's credits. We try to catch these pages and discard them before the manuscripts get to readers since we prefer to have a blind reading. Unfortunately, they sometimes get missed. Rather than lose out on an opportunity to publish a good manuscript, we've decided to continue the judging, but eliminate the possibility of a cash prize for those who do not follow the guidelines.
Email Submission Instructions
Main Street Rag does allow for email submissions, but the guidelines are even more specific, so please read them carefully before choosing this method and give yourself enough time to prepare the manuscript file properly.
All checks should be made payable to Main Street Rag, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001.
We recommend using US Postal Service Media Mail (within the US), but that takes longer to arrive, so DO NOT send it Media Mail if you are mailing it on or near the deadline. Why? because we distribute the LAST manuscripts to first round readers on June 8. Anything that has not arrived by the day before (June 7) will be excluded and the check returned in the SASE (if one has been provided--otherwise, it will be shredded).
DO NOT use clips or binding of any kind. We have THOUSANDS of clips here from years of submissions and we remove anything that comes in a binder and throw away the binder. If you want to pay for a binder and the shipping to get it here only to have it thrown away, that's your choice. It will not go to any readers in a binder of any kind.
DO NOT send anything that must be signed for (Signature Receipt or Express Mail) since it means having to stand in line to receive it (and we won't). And please don't use FED EX to send anything to our physical location since their local drivers are literacy challenged (they don't read instructions and we may not receive what you send as a result).
Contest Recommendations