For this contest, a story is any short work of fiction, and an essay is any short work of nonfiction. Final judge: Tamra Badgett, assisted by Sarah Halper. Please submit as many entries as you like. All themes accepted. Entries may be published or unpublished. Length limit: 6,000 words maximum. No restriction on age of author. All countries eligible except Iran, North Korea, Crimea, Russia, or Belarus (due to US government restrictions). Fee: $25 per entry. Read the winning entries from the 33rd contest.
with the support of the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust
$1,500 prize for a single poem
Judge: TBA
Submissions Open February 1 - April 30
Guidelines
Submit 1-3 unpublished poems on any subject in any style up to a maximum of 10 pages per entry. (We enjoy long poems!)
Reading fee of $15 per entry. A limited number of complimentary entries are available to poets for whom the fee presents a hardship. Contact us at bpj@bpj.org for more information.
Submitters paying the reading fee may purchase a discounted 1-year subscription to the BPJ. (An additional shipping charge applies to international subscribers.)
Simultaneous submissions welcome. Please notify us immediately of publication elsewhere by leaving a message in Submittable.
We regret we that cannot accept entries after the deadline or changes to poems after submission.
Please no translations (though we are happy to see these during our regular reading periods).
Kindly refrain from placing your name anywhere on the attached manuscript.
The editors will consider all submissions for publication.
Finalists will be notified in late summer/early fall; the winner will be announced and published in a subsequent issue of the BPJ.
We follow the CLMP Guidelines for contests and are committed, in all we do, to the highest ethical standards. If you are a personal friend, family member, or student of any BPJ editor or of the judge, or if you are a former or current intern, staff or board member of the BPJ, please refrain from submitting.
“…every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome…”
—Adrienne Rich
Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
