Submissions

In summer we host an open submission period during the month of July. An award of $1,000 and publication may be given for a chosen collection of prose poems or flash fiction by an American writer.

Should you want to submit your manuscript for consideration, follow these guidelines:

• Submit a hard-copy manuscript, which can include some lineated pieces, of at least 48 pages, with one poem per page.
• The manuscript must be postmarked between July 1 and 31. Manuscripts received before or after this open period may not be read.
• Please include a cover letter with all of your contact information, especially your email address.
• We do not return manuscripts sent to us without a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
• During the open submission period, we do not accept initial electronic submissions or query samples.
• We only accept submissions by American writers.
• As this is not a contest but an open submission period, manuscripts are not read anonymously. There is no submission fee.
• If applicable, include an acknowledgments page letting us know where your poems have been published. We are happy to accept manuscripts that include poems that have been published by established literary magazines and journals, but we are not interested in reprinting books that have been previously self-published, either online or in print.
• We accept manuscripts which mix prose poems with free verse, with the hope that the contrasting poetic forms might help cast light on the subtle (and not-so-subtle) differences between prose and verse, but we look for manuscripts that are primarily non-lineated, meaning at least half of the poems do not employ line breaks.
• Please mail your entire manuscript to:

  Marie Alexander Poetry Series
  Prose Poetry/Flash Fiction Reading
  Attention: Professor Nickole Brown, Editor
  English Department
  University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  2801 South University Avenue
  Little Rock, AR 72204

• Upon receipt of your manuscript, we will send you an email to let you know it has arrived safely.
• Be patient with our final decision. You can expect to hear back by the following January.

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The Marie Alexander Series will not have an open reading during the summer of 2013. We had tremendous luck with the manuscripts in 2012 and now have our publication schedule booked for the next few years. You can expect us to re-open the reading period in the summer of 2014.

That said, there are still opportunities to submit your work—we are putting together an anthology, as yet untitled, composed of what we call Flash Sequences. We hope you’ll consider sending something along.

Below are those guidelines:

• A flash sequence is an accumulation of two or more prose pieces, with each segment not to exceed 500 words.
• Writers may submit more than one flash sequence; however, each writer's total submission may not exceed 10 pages (double-spaced, 12-point type, one-inch margins).
• We encourage submissions of every sort; rather than try to define the form, we hope each writer will use whatever organizing principle seems best in any particular case: fiction, nonfiction, prose-poetry, whatever.
• Email pdf files of submission and cover letter to Wesley Fairman at anthology@mariealexanderseries.com.
• Please use "Anthology Submission" as the subject line.
• Make sure author's name and email is on all attached documents.
• Previously published material is okay as long as author holds the copyright.
• We will accept submissions from January 1 until June 1, 2013.

Some Thoughts on the Prose Sequence

On the surface, it makes sense to ask of a sequence that each part should be able to stand alone, as an integral object. Otherwise, the question arises, how does such a sequence differ from a short story simply broken up into parts?

For the sequence to be successful, it must itself function as a poem—that is, as a piece of art surrounded by the frame of silence. And who can ask of a poem that each section stand alone? Who can say of a sonnet: the octet must stand on its own, the sestet as well? We ask only that the entire poem be a piece on its own, entire, pristine and self-reliant.

Some sequences are indeed composed of integral sections, but in some others the sections can't be isolated without each piece losing its integrity, the whole in this case being more than simply the sum of its parts. In a way, this second sort of sequence is even more complex than what at first seems the ideal, a whole composed of standalone pieces.

However the pieces are organized, they create a rudimentary montage: narrative, syllogistic, or following some other scheme. We aim to include as many examples of this as possible.

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For questions, email: editor@mariealexanderseries.com

Before submitting, it's always a good idea to become familiar with the work we've published. Please enjoy a sample of work from books we've published. (pdf file)