For more info about Omnidawn click here

 

 

 

 

 

2012 Open Book Prize: Endi Hartigan — for details click here.

 

Three Omnidawn Postal & Online Poetry Contests:

        First/Second Book Poetry Contest—$3,000 (May 1–June 30, 2013)

        Open Book Poetry Contest—$3,000 (November 1, 2013–December 31, 2013)

        Poetry Chapbook Contest—$1,000 (February 1–March 31, 2014)

 

Essential Information for All Three Poetry Competitions

The winner of each of the three Omnidawn poetry book competitions wins a cash prize as indicated above for each contest, publication of the book with a full color cover by Omnidawn, 100 free copies of the winning book, and extensive display advertising and publicity, including prominent display ads in American Poetry Review, Poets & Writers Magazine, Rain Taxi Review of Books and other publications. For all contests, Omnidawn poetry editors seek a wide range of styles, approaches, forms, diversities, and aesthetics to send to the judge (for example: lyric, prose poems, experimental, etc). Winning books have been reviewed in Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, American Book Review, The Huffington Post, and other publications, and all winning books that have been published for at least one year have been adopted as texts for college classes. All three Omnidawn poetry book contests have very similar guidelines and submission procedures, as completely described on this web page. The requirements that are the same for all contests include the following: Postal and online poetry contest submissions are accepted for all contests. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Manuscript submissions for all contests must be original, in English, and previously unpublished, although individual poems in a manuscript are still eligible for this contest if they have been previously published in print or web magazines, journals, anthologies, or on a personal web site. Revisions are not allowed during the contests. Collaborations by more than one author and translations are not eligible. All Omnidawn poetry competitions are blind, so you can submit manuscripts that contain identifying information, but please be aware that such information will be removed from manuscripts before they are passed on to our editors who select manuscripts to be sent to the judge. If we find a serious error in your entry we will contact you to obtain a correction at no cost to you, so your error will not disqualify you. Nor will a few smaller errors in your manuscript, including spelling, punctuation, formatting, or typographic errors, reduce your chances of winning. (We fully understand that such errors sometimes occur for everyone, and that these can be easily corrected later.) The only differences between Omnidawn poetry competitions are the contest dates, the judge, the dollar amount of the prize, the reading fee, the manuscript page limit, an optional Omnidawn book offer, and for one contest only, the First/Second Poetry Book Contest, a limit on the number of previously published full-size poetry books by a submitting poet. These differences are described immediately below, under the "Current Poetry Competition" and "Upcoming Poetry Competitions" headings.

 

Current Poetry Competition

2013 First/Second Book ($3,000 & Publication)     May 1–June 30, 2013                          Judge: Donald Revell

First/Second Book poetry contest open to writers who have either never published a full-length book of poetry, or who have published only one full-length book of poetry, so that the winning book would become a poet's first or second published full-length book of poetry. Writers who have published two or more full-length books of poetry are NOT eligible. (Chapbooks do not count.) The manuscript page limit is 120 pages for this poetry book contest. (Most manuscripts we receive are 40-70 pages long.) Colleagues, students, and close friends of the judge, Donald Revell, are not eligible. Postal and online poetry contests submissions accepted. Online entries must be received and postal entries must be postmarked between May 1 and June 30, 2013 at midnight Pacific Daylight Time. Reading fee is $27. For $3 extra to cover shipping cost, entrants who provide a U.S. mailing address may choose to receive this contest's winning book or any Omnidawn book (including 4 PEN USA winning books). A complete list of all Omnidawn books is available at www.omnidawn.com/catalog.htm. The winner will be announced to our Email list and on this web page in January 2014, and we expect to publish the winning book in the fall of 2014. (Established in 2008, this was Omnidawn's first book contest.) To view details about previous winners and some reviews of their winning books below click here.

All the essential information for the First/Second Book Contest is contained in the above two paragraphs.

 

If you want to read helpful additional details below, which are virtually identical for all Omnidawn contests, and then go to the submission procedures, you can:

         Click here for helpful additional details and the postal and online poetry contest submission procedures.

OR, if you want to skip the additional details and go directly to concise submission procedures, you can either:

         Go to the POSTAL submission procedure below by clicking here.

         OR

         Go to the ONLINE poetry contest submission web page by clicking here, or paste the following link into your browser:     www.omnidawn.net

 

Upcoming Poetry Competitions

2013 Open Book ($3,000 & Publication)                    November 1, 2013.–December 31, 2013      Judge: Forrest Gander

Open poetry book competition for all writers with no limitations on the amount of poetry a writer has published. The manuscript page limit is 120 pages for this poetry book contest. (Most manuscripts we receive are 40-80 pages long.) Colleagues, students, and close friends of the judge, Forrest Gander, are not eligible. Postal and online poetry contest submissions accepted. Online entries must be received and postal entries must be postmarked between November 1 and December 31, 2013 at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Reading fee is $27. For $3 extra to cover shipping cost, entrants who provide a U.S. mailing address may choose to receive this contest's winning book or any Omnidawn book (including 4 PEN USA winning books). A complete list of all current Omnidawn books is available at www.omnidawn.com/catalog.htm. The winner will be announced to our Email list and on this web page in May 2014, and we expect to publish the winning book in the spring of 2015. Click here for helpful additional details and submission procedures that are virtually identical for all Omnidawn Contests.

2014 Poetry Chapbook Contest ($1,000 & Publication)     February 1–March 31, 2014            Judge: Kazim Ali

Open to all writers with no limitations on the amount of poetry a writer has published. Submissions should be 20–40 pages of poetry, not including front and back matter. (Keep in mind that this is intended to fit in a 5.5 x 7 inch published chapbook of approximately 60 pages or less, although you can submit on standard 8.5 x 11 inch pages, and we will format to fit the smaller size.) Colleagues, students, and close friends of the judge, Kazim Ali, are not eligible. Postal and online poetry contest submissions accepted. Online entries must be received and postal entries must be postmarked between February 1 and March 31, 2014 at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Reading fee is $18 for the poetry chapbook contest. For $2 extra to cover shipping cost, entrants who provide a U.S. mailing address may choose to receive this contest's winning chapbook or any Omnidawn chapbook. A complete list of all Omnidawn chapbook publishing titles is available at www.omnidawn.com/chapbook-catalog.htm. The poetry chapbook contests winner will be announced to our Email list and on this web page in August 2014, and we expect to publish the winning chapbook in December of 2014. Click here for helpful additional details and submission procedures that are virtually identical for all Omnidawn Contests.

 

Previous Poetry Competition Winners

    First/Second Book Contest  (Initiated in 2008, this was Omnidawn's first book contest.)

         This poetry contests 2013 winner will be announced in January 2014.

Robin Clarke

2012 Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: Brenda Hillman

Robin Clarke — Book Title: Lines the Quarry

Available October 2013

Robin Clarke is a poet, activist and teacher in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she has lived most of her life. She is a non-tenure-track faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Conduit, Counterpunch, Fence, In Posse Review, A Joint Called Pauline, LABOR, Lafovea, Sentence, Whiskey and Fox, and word for/word. With the poet Sten Carlson, she has co-authored a chapbook entitled Lives of the Czars.

The Finalists of the 2012 First/Second Book Competition chosen by Brenda Hillman are (in alphabetical order by last name): Jaime Brunton, Lincoln, Nebraska; Meg Day, Salt Lake City, Utah; Endi Bogue Hartigan, Portland, Oregon; Brandon Kreitler, Brooklyn, New York; and Daniel Poppick, Iowa City, Iowa

 

Kathryn Pringle

2011 Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: C.D. Wright

kathryn l. pringle — Book Title: fault tree

“a wholly original voice. There is nothing quite like it in all of contemporary poetry. fault tree represents a new kind of political poetry. A Catch-22 illogic runs through this poem; in fact it permeates the entire narrative”—Dean Rader, Huffington Post

Poet kathryn l. pringle lives in Oakland, California. She received her MFA in Poetry from San Francisco State University. She is the author of one book of poetry, RIGHT NEW BIOLOGY (Factory School) and two chapbooks, The Stills (Duration Press) and Temper and Felicity are lovers (TAXT). Her work can also be found in the anthology Conversations at the Wartime Cafe: A Decade of War (Conversations at the Wartime Cafe Press/WODV Press) and in the forthcoming anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues). She is currently writing a novel about place.

The Finalists of the 2011 First/Second Book Competition chosen by C.D. Wright (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Jill Darling, Mount Clemens, Michigan; Leora Fridman, Florence, Massachusetts; Eryn Green, Denver, Colorado; Jane Gregory, Berkeley, California; and Soham Patel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

Kelli Anne Noftle

2010 Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: Rae Armantrout

Kelli Anne Noftle — Book Title: I Was There for Your Somniloquy

“Noftle’s first book of poems…launches with a slimy sequence about sea slugs....Her surreal, luscious language evokes the sexy ooze and play of underwater invertebrates....Throughout, parasomnia (disruptive sleep behaviors) and somniloquy (sleep talking) are used as metaphors for consciousness and perhaps to shroud disturbing autobiographic details. Attempting to invoke a sleep/wake state known as hypnagogia, the poet simultaneously remembers and forgets the trauma of the primal scene....lovers of contemporary poetry may want to investigate.” —Ellen Kaufman, Library Journal, May 1, 2012

Kelli Anne Noftle is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Journal, VERSE, Blackbird, and Harvard Summer Review, among others. She lives in Los Angeles and is the singer/songwriter for her band, Miniature Soap.

The Finalists of the 2010 First/Second Book Competition chosen by Rae Armantrout (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Jane Gregory, Berkeley, California; Lily Ladewig, Brooklyn, New York; Juliana Leslie, Santa Cruz, California; John Myers, Missoula, Montana; and Rob Schlegel, Iowa City, Iowa.

 

Paul Legault

2009 Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: Ann Lauterbach

Paul Legault — Book Title: The Madeleine Poems

“It’s hard to think about the Madeleine of Paul Legault’s The Madeleine Poems without thinking about Proust’s madeleine cookie in Swan’s Way. Proust’s madeleine serves as a type of wormhole that propels the narrator through time and space to an otherwise irretrievable memory. Legault’s Madeline, however, is more of a vortex, a presence that presides over the collection, which simultaneously gathers and vaporizes the poem’s subject matter, leaving essences, memories, shadows....One finds that many of the poems and or their constituent parts serve as markers or beacons afloat on a tumultuous sea of time....Though the cookie’s presence is wormhole-like (it collapses the time and space between two disparate points into a singularity) and Legault’s Madeleine vortex, panoptic in the manner it enables one to view a cross-section of a continuous present (albeit in a manner which reorganizes and or obliterates the experience from which the poem came), the two share a similar resultant effect: to recreate a “vast structure of recollection'....While the comparison between Proust and Legault may be, at best, an intellectual exercise, it sheds light on the overall aim of The Madeleine Poems: to recreate an architecture in which mercurial experience can be reconstituted and preserved and in some cases amplified, an aim that is full of pathos, heroism, and beauty.” —Ben Mirov, Jacket2, October 20, 2011

Paul Legault was born in Ontario and raised in Tennessee. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia and a B.F.A. in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California. His poems have been published in Denver Quarterly, FIELD, Pleiades, and other journals. Currently, he is working on an English-to-English translation of the complete works of Emily Dickinson, part of which has been published as a chapbook, The Emily Dickinson Reader, vol. 1 (Try and Make, 2009). Paul lives with his husband, Orion Jenkins, in Brooklyn, NY where he works at the Academy of American Poets.

The Finalists of the 2009 First/Second Book Competition chosen by Ann Lauterbach (in alphabetical order by last name) are: James Belflower, Albany, New York; Nik DeDominic, New Orleans, Louisiana; Dot Devota, who lived abroad this summer in Beirut, Lebanon; Jean-Paul Pequeur, New York; and Zach Savich, Northampton, Massachusetts.

 

Michelle Taransky

2008 Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: Marjorie Welish

Michelle Taransky — Book Title: Barn Burned, Then

“Taransky reinvigorates the tradition of the avant-garde with this fragmentary and ingenious celebration of immanence, immediacy, and materiality over transcendence, literality, and sentimental reductivism. Barn Burned, Then isn't, by any means, and easy read; nevertheless, one can't fully understand the metaphysical contours of human speech and emotion without reading a superlative work like this one, so gird yourself for the challenge and dive courageously into the fire.” —Seth Abramson, The Huffington Post, April 1, 2012

“Taking up her cudgel and adz against conventional uses of language in poetry, she achieves a perfect splintering that generates multi-factorial images and levels of meaning and the kind of com- pound-eye truth that can be achieved only through the concentrated focus of a thousand perspective…In Barn Burned, Then, images like these are repeated and expanded in later poems into multiple permutations, with the extreme heterogeneity of materials and consequent foregrounding of language being precisely the point. Words like “mother,” “safe,” “weeds,” “frame,” “tender,” “teller,” “fold,” “bank,” “branch,” “burn,” “barn,” and “burglars” repeat in the book like talismans. Subsequent readings morph a “teller” from a person behind a bank window into one who witnesses or “tells” (or “untells”) truths and a “safe” from a noun meaning a bank vault to an ironic adjective in a world where the vagaries of a capitalist economy level bulldoze entire cultures along with their historical structures....But Barn Burned, Then is more than an elegy to the Midwestern farm- ing way of life or even an objectivist treatise on the fallibility of language. It is in the most fundamental sense also an eclogue, poetry that focuses on what is constituent and continuous in nature, on what existed before and will continue to exist after all the barns have been raised and razed....And sometimes, as Taransky shows in this remarkable and sometimes infuriating first book, it becomes possible to fathom a universe from an unflinching examination of its constellations and of each constituent star.” —Rebecca Foust, American Book Review, September—October, 2010

Michelle Taransky received a BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. With her father, architect Richard Taransky, she is the coauthor of the chapbook The Plans Caution (QUEUE 2007). Her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, VOLT, How2, New American Writing, and other publications. She lives in Philadelphia, where she works at Kelly Writers House and teaches poetry at Temple University.

The Finalists of the 2008 First/Second Book Competition chosen by Marjorie Welish (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Ethan Saul Bull, Portland, Oregon; Michael Todd Edgerton, Athens, Georgia; Carol Hembree, New Orleans, Louisiana; Brandon Shimoda, Seattle, Washington; and Jordan Windholz, Bronx, New York.

     (First book contests and first/second book contests are easier for new poets because competition from poets with more published books is not allowed.)

 

       Open Poetry Book Contest

          This poetry contests 2013 winner will be announced in May 2014.

Endi Hartigan

2012 Omnidawn Open Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: Cole Swensen

Endi Hartigan — Book Title: Pool  [5 choruses]

Available February 2014

Endi Bogue Hartigan's first book, One Sun Storm (Center for Literary Publishing, 2008) was selected for the Colorado Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She published the chapbook out of the flowering ribs in 2012 in collaboration with artist Linda Hutchins, and has recently created work as part of an artist-writer collective, as well as helping curate the Spare Room poetry series. Her poems haves appeared in Verse, Chicago Review, Pleiades, VOLT, Free Verse, Peep/Show, Yew, Jack London is Dead, The Oregonian, and other publications. Endi works for the state university system, and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband Patrick and their son Jackson.

The five finalists selected by Cole Swensen (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Emily Abendroth, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Jenny Drai, Oxnard, California; Craig Dworkin, Salt Lake City, Utah; Brandon Lussier, Hartford, Connecticut; and Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer, Saint Louis, Missouri.

 

Sarah Gridley

2011 Omnidawn Open Poetry Book Contest Winner — Judge: Carl Phillips

Sarah Gridley — Book Title: Loom

“Gridley’s evocative, romantic, three-part collection weaves its own myths and phrases loosely around Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott.’…For Gridley the lady is a poet, a muse, a spirit of history, a symbol of mind itself.…Gridley places short units of spell-like verse, featuring forests and mirrors, tidal spaces…and white space where ‘the imaginary world seems promised here.’”—Publishers Weekly

“Gridley's third book of poems (after Green Is the Orator) brims with intelligent, moving poems. The title is apt, as the author weaves delightful facts and observations into a counterpane of beautiful language and ideas.…Throughout, Gridley pays close attention to the natural world and has a unique way of recording it. VERDICT: Turning on unexpected facts so that they frequently surprise and delight the reader, the poems here are full of intelligence and wonder that connect the reader to the natural world.”—Doris Lynch, Library Journal

Sarah Gridley is the author of two previous books of poetry: Weather Eye Open (2005) and Green is the Orator (2010), both from the University of California Press. She is an assistant professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.

The five finalists selected by Carl Phillips (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Anne Cecelia Holmes, Northampton, Massachusetts; Jill Darling, Mt. Clemens, Michigan; Matt Reeck, Brooklyn, New York; Nik De Dominic, New Orleans, Louisiana; Trey Moody, Lincoln, Nebraska.

 

       Poetry Chapbook Contest

          This poetry contests 2013 winner will be announced in October 2013.

Angela Hume

Omnidawn 2012 Poetry Chapbook Contest Winner — Judge: Joseph Lease

Angela Hume — Chapbook Title: The Middle

"The Middle is beautiful and powerful—Angela Hume’s line breaks are beautiful and powerful—her pages are beautiful and powerful—and all that grace animates calm outrage, ghostlier awareness ('private like a thought / for a wrist of a thigh'), keener sounds ('try looking away try looking away try looking away try looking away try looking away try')—keener ethics, too ('first / demarcate // an aesthetics of / injury')—the body is ghost—polis is eyes but police is eyes too—and polis is police ('state of pacifi / cation state of // damage state / of destroy all / ex // cess body / state of little / to no // speech // ill / state // police / state')—we have to have political poetry—we can’t be human otherwise—and what holds here is a new Objectivism—a clarity made actual in a construct of words ('inhabit that / incision // in such a way that can’t be used')—this clarity holds against and in the violence that surrounds us (Benjamin: 'something rotten in law is revealed')—Angela Hume is a necessary poet—Joseph Lease, Judge

Angela Hume lives in Oakland. She is the author of the chapbook Second Story of Your Body (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011). Her poems appear in such journals as Mrs. Maybe, Little Red Leaves, RealPoetik, eccolinguistics, Zoland Poetry, and Spinning Jenny.

The Finalists of the 2012 Chapbook Competition chosen by Joseph Lease (in alphabetical order by last name) are: John Cross, Pasadena, California; C. Violet Eaton, Fayetteville, Arkansas; HL Hazuka, San Francisco, California; Sara Peck, Charleston, South Carolina, and Matthias Regan, Chicago, Illinois.

Evan Harrison

Omnidawn 2011 Poetry Chapbook Contest Winner — Judge: Ben Lerner

Evan Harrison — Chapbook Title: Sham City

"Banishing poets from the well-ordered city did not prevent the creation of fictions: 'Sham City' is the capitol of fictitious capital, a no place of evaporating value where things sue for 'damages resulting from sundown' and where 'the night is good for it,' able to pay us back. 'I began to sweat amid the cheering,' Harrison writes, maybe because, in a country where an entire village drowns 'in the sweet contents / of its privatized wells,' it’s hard work to keep it real. And beautiful work. And weird."—Ben Lerner, Judge

Evan Harrison lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 2011, he received an MA in creative writing from The Center for Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi. His poems have appeared in alice blue, Bat City Review, CutBank, DIAGRAM, Hayden's Ferry Review and otoliths.

The Finalists of the 2011 Chapbook Competition chosen by Ben Lerner (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Brian Foley, Northampton, Massachusetts; Hugo Garcia Manriquez, Oakland, California; Nicholas Gulig, Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Megan Pruiett, San Francisco, California; and M. A. Vizolyi, Brooklyn, New York.

Zack Savich

Omnidawn 2010 Poetry Chapbook Contest Winner — Judge: Elizabeth Robinson

Zack Savich — Chapbook Title: The Man Who Lost His Head

“Zach Savich’s The Man Who Lost His Head wrestles with the irrational rationality of life as we dimly perceive it. Yet these poems elicit, like the ambiguity of life itself, our most fervent and strange fidelities. There’s such a thing as a willed poetic ignorance: it forms its own epistemological haven, and these poems live in that locale. Thus the poet can ask ‘Does dark mean blank?’ and, in the very asking, expand the horizon of possibility (that is, knowing) by which we recognize the interchangeability of absence and desire. In that dark, we grope into and through the rudiments of our own longing, ‘melted to its presences.’ When Savich writes ‘I suppose I do believe in nothing,’ his words resound as a positive statement of belief.”-Elizabeth Robinson, Judge

Zach Savich is the author of Full Catastrophe Living, winner of the 2008 Iowa Poetry Prize, Annulments, winner of the 2010 Colorado Prize for Poetry. and The Firestorm, from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. His book The Orchard Green and Every Color will be published by Omnidawn in 2016.

The Finalists of the 2010 Chapbook Competition chosen by Elizabeth Robinson (in alphabetical order by last name) are: Jackie Clark, Jersey City, New Jersey; Robin Powlesland, Taos, New Mexico; Kate Schapira, Providence, Rhode Island; Shannon Tharp, Seattle, Washington; Erin Wilson, Berkeley, California

 

 

Additional Details for All Omnidawn Poetry Competitions

We suggest you read at least the bold type in the directions below. Reading the non-bold type is optional.

The additional details below apply to the current Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest or the upcoming Open Poetry Book contest, so if you are only interested in these contests you do not need to read the remainder of this paragraph. If you are interested in the upcoming Poetry Chapbook Contest there will be a difference in the reading fees and optional book offer as follows: For the current First/Second Poetry Book Contest or the upcoming Open Poetry Book Contest the reading fee is $27, and if you have or can provide a U.S. mailing address, for an additional $3 for shipping cost (a total of $30) you can choose to receive the winning book or any Omnidawn book of your choice. For the upcoming Poetry Chapbook Contest the reading fee will be $18, and if you have or can provide a U.S. mailing address, for an additional $2 for shipping cost (a total of $20) you can choose to receive the winning chapbook or any Omnidawn chapbook of your choice. All other details below are identical for all three Omnidawn poetry contests.

 

The Most Important Requirements

Note that if we find any significant problem with your manuscript (your manuscript file is incomplete or won’t open, important information is missing, or any other significant problem) we will contact you so that you have every opportunity to correct the issue at no charge to you. Smaller errors or deficiencies in your manuscript, including spelling, punctuation, formatting, typographical errors, or coffee stains will not disqualify you from the competition, nor will a few small errors reduce your chances of winning. (We fully understand that such errors sometimes occur for everyone, and that these can be easily corrected later.) The only really critical requirements are to:

  1. Check the eligibility requirements (described in the top paragraph of this web page and the paragraph for each contest in the "Current Poetry Competition" or "Upcoming Poetry Competitions" sections, also at the top of this web page).
  2. Make sure that you are fully satisfied with your manuscript (because revisions are not allowed during the contest).
  3. Submit your entry by the deadline.
  4. When submitting make sure that you have provided correct contact information. (If you like, you can provide alternate contact info such as additional phone numbers, Email addresses, and postal addresses. For online entries these can be added to the "Comments" field. For postal entries these can be added to the title page along with your primary contact information.)
  5. If you provide an Email address (optional for postal entries, required for online entries) we will send you an Email to confirm we have received your entry, and for entries submitted online we will also check your contact information and your manuscript file and send you the last few lines of your manuscript so you know your manuscript has been received completely, and so you can resolve the problem at no cost to you if it has not. Additional details about these verification Emails are contained below in item number 13 of the online submission procedure and item number 6 of the postal submission procedure.

 

Guidelines

  1. Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to other publishers or contests, including other Omnidawn contests, are acceptable but please notify us with an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com if your manuscript has been accepted elsewhere.
  2. Multiple submissions to this contest are acceptable, but each manuscript must be submitted separately, with a separate entry fee.
  3. While submission must be in English and translations are not acceptable, it is perfectly acceptable to use some words from other languages occasionally in poems.
  4. We prefer manuscripts that have been paginated.
  5. No revisions to submitted manuscripts will be allowed during the contest. However, the winning poet will have time to revise the manuscript after acceptance.
  6. We will announce contest results via advertising, on our websites, and via Email, including display advertisements in the print publications of American Poetry Review, Poets & Writers Magazine, Rain Taxi Review of Books, and other publications, and announcements on this web page (www.omnidawn.com/contest) and on Omnidawn's web magazine, OmniVerse (www.omniverse.us). If you provide us with an Email address as part of your contact information we will also send you an Email notification of the contest winner and finalists.
  7. The winning poet will receive a standard book publishing contract. The prize money ($3,000 for the Open Book Prize and First/Second Book Prize, or $1,000 for the Chapbook Prize), is mailed in full upon signing of the contract at the same time the winner is announced. The prize money covers the royalties on the first 1,500 copies, with royalties of twenty percent of Omnidawn's net receipts for sales of the book thereafter.

 

How We Judge: Identifying Info is Removed, Then Manuscripts are Read by Two Editors

Any identifying information, including acknowledgements, will be removed from all manuscripts before they are sent to the editors who choose the semi-finalists to be sent to the judge. (If your name is an integral part of your poetry, please contact us for guidelines on replacing it with a pseudonym.) All manuscripts will be given a number to associate them with the contact information of their submitters. The Omnidawn staff members who remove the identifying information are NOT involved in the reading or selection of manuscripts.

All manuscripts will then be read by at least two different editors. Only Omnidawn's Senior Poetry Editor and Poetry Editors will read submissions, and these editors will not have access to the identities of the submitters. For the sake of avoiding any conflict of interest, if an editor believes that he/she recognizes the work of a colleague, student, or friend, then that manuscript is given to another editor. The editors will select the semi-finalists to be sent to the judge. The judge will then select the winner and five finalists. If the judge wishes to see additional manuscripts, she or he may request them; the judge is not, however, permitted to request specific manuscripts. Colleagues, students, and close friends of the judge are not eligible to compete. Past or present Omnidawn staff and interns are also not eligible to compete. The judge is not allowed to choose manuscripts that present a conflict of interest.

Omnidawn abides by The CLMP 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.

 

Two Submission Options

Option 1: Submit on our secure web site. (Most submissions are via our online poetry competition web site. This is usually the easiest way to submit.)

Option 2: Submit via postal mail.

Procedures for each of these options are listed in detail below.

 

Option 1: Procedure to submit on our secure online poetry competition web site.

We suggest you read at least the bold type in the directions below. Reading the non-bold type is optional.

  1. If you have any questions send an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com or telephone our toll free number (800) 792-4957. Normally, if we can’t take your call immediately, we can usually call you back within 30 minutes.
  2. You will find the button to direct you to the submissions web page at the end of this procedure.
  3. Since you provide contact information on our web site, a page within your manuscript with contact information is OPTIONAL. We prefer that you not include a bio, acknowledgements page, cover letter, or headers or footers that include your name, but you will not be disqualified for including such info. Please note that all identifying information, including acknowledgements, will be removed from the copy of the manuscript file that is sent to Omnidawn editors who read manuscripts and to the judge.
  4. You will be able to upload your manuscript on the submissions page. Manuscripts must be sent in one file, not multiple files. Manuscripts must be in PDF, RTF, or Microsoft Word .DOC or .DOCX format only. Files without a .pdf, rtf, .doc, or .docx extension cannot be uploaded. Most word processing programs can save files as .RTF (Rich Text Format) by going to FILE—SAVE AS, and then choosing RTF (Rich Text Format) in the FORMAT drop-down box.
  5. If your manuscript is too large to upload, please contact us. The default limit is 1 MB (one megabyte), but we can temporarily adjust the size limitations to allow your file to be uploaded.
  6. If you HAVE previously entered an Omnidawn contest, either online or via postal mail, you probably already have an account, and you will not be able to create another account using the same Email address. However, you will be able to logon to that account using that Email address. When you go to the secure online submissions page you can log in using the box on the upper left by entering your Email address and your password. If you don’t have your password, click “need help” below the login button, and you can have a new password sent to your Email address, or you can Email or phone us and we can give you a new password. Once you are logged in you can click “submit your work” in the new box on your left, which will take you to a secure web page to submit a new manuscript and enter credit card information. (Contact information is retained in our database, but credit card numbers are not.)
  7. If you HAVE NOT previously entered an Omnidawn contest, when you go to our secure online submission page, you will be asked to enter your credit card billing and contact information, the title of your manuscript, and an 8-12 character password of your choice. (Contact information is retained in our database, but credit card numbers are not.)
  8. If you use a pen name, or if the poet’s name differs from the name on the credit card, or if you are submitting for someone else, please list the pen name or poet’s name in the writer name field, and put your credit card billing name and information in the other fields. 
  9. For this book competition, in the “genre” field you can use the up-down arrow keys to choose one of three options:
    (1) You can choose to pay just the reading fee of $27 to receive NO Omnidawn book. (This is the default, so if you do not use the drop-down arrow keys for this field, this is the choice you will make.)
    Or, if you have a U.S mailing address (or can provide a U.S. mailing address in the comments field), you can choose to pay $30 ($3 extra for shipping cost) to receive:
    (2) This contest's winning book, or
    (3) Any currently available Omnidawn book of your choice. If you choose this option, be sure to enter the name of the book you have chosen in the “comments” field at the bottom of the online submissions page. A complete list of all current Omnidawn books is available at www.omnidawn.com/catalog.htm. If you choose a book from our catalog, you should receive it within two weeks after your entry has been received. If you forget to specify a book in the “comments” field, we will send you an Email to request your choice of book. You can also send an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com to let us know your choice, or if you want to change your selection from the winning book to your choice of book, or vice versa.
  10. Please DO use the “comments” field at the bottom of the online submissions page to tell us where you learned about this Omnidawn contest to the best of your recollection, to provide any other information you would like us to know such as alternate phone numbers, Email addresses, or mailing addresses, and to provide feedback about your experience submitting to this contest. We are always trying to simplify and improve the submissions process, so your feedback will be very helpful to us. Note that any personal publication history is irrelevant here because these comments will only be read by staff who are NOT involved in the selection process.
  11. If you want to submit additional work, update your contact info or password, or view your submissions you can login at the end of this process or in the future using the Email address and password you entered so that you will not need to complete contact information again. Note that the "status" field of your entry will first indicate "received," and then later, often after the contest has closed, will change to "1st forward," "2nd forward," etc. as your manuscript is forwarded between readers, but this does not indicate anything more than that it is being read by various editors.
  12. If when you click “Continue” your credit card is NOT accepted (usually because of a typo) your contact information and manuscript still will have been uploaded to our database so that we have everything we need except your payment. You can resolve this issue in one of two ways. (If this happens we will also send you the following instructions in an Email):
    (A) Mail a check for the reading fee to the address at the bottom of this web page. Please write your email address and the title of your manuscript on your check (or money order, which is also acceptable). We will send you an email confirming that your manuscript has been entered into the contest when your check arrives.
    OR
    (B) Enter your credit card info again by going to www.omnidawn.net and using the box on the left to log in using the email address and password you just entered. A screen will appear displaying the contact info you have entered with a record showing the entry you just submitted. In the second field of that record click on the words “pay now” and a secure screen will appear so that you can enter your credit card information again. If successful you will receive an immediate notification of success and an email stating that your submission has been entered into the contest. If your credit card still does not work you can still use option (A) above by mailing a check.
  13. When you have successfully finished submitting your entry online you will immediately receive an automatic Email confirmation from our Submission Manager program, and within three days a staff member will also open your account, check your contact info, open your manuscript file, and send you a second email which contains the last lines of your manuscript so you know your entry has been completely received, and so you can resolve the problem at no cost to you if it has not. If you do not receive the first automatic Email immediately after you submit, or the second Email containing the last few lines of your manuscript within three days of submitting, something may be wrong, and we strongly suggest you contact us by sending an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com or by telephoning our toll free number, (800) 792-4957.

         To go to the ONLINE poetry contest submission web page and its concise procedures click here, or paste the following link into your browser:     www.omnidawn.net

 

Option 2: Procedure to submit via postal mail

We suggest you read at least the bold type in the directions below. Reading the non-bold type is optional.

If you have any questions send an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com or telephone our toll free number (800) 792-4957. Normally, if we can’t take your call immediately, we can usually call you back within 30 minutes.

Please DO NOT send Fed Ex, UPS, or signature required US Post Office envelopes. The post office often has difficulty obtaining a signature at our offices, and there is a high likelihood such envelopes will be returned to you.

Note that if you send a cover letter, acknowledgements, or bio these will be removed before your manuscript is read.

Please enclose the following:

1. One title page with your name, contact information, and where you learned about our contest (to the best of your recollection). Please include your mailing address, phone number, and Email address if you have one. (Alternate contact info, such as additional phone numbers, Email addresses, or mailing addresses can also be added here if you like.) This title page with contact info can be at the front or, so you don’t have to repaginate, at the back of your manuscript

2. One title page with manuscript title only and nothing else.

3. Your poetry manuscript.

4. For this book contest, include a check or money order made out to Omnidawn for the reading fee of either $27 or $30.

Enclose $27 if you choose to receive NO book

OR,

if you have a U.S mailing address (or can provide a U.S. mailing address), you can enclose $30 ($3 extra for shipping cost) to receive your choice of any currently available Omnidawn book. If you choose to pay $30 to receive a book, please use the title page that has your contact info to write your choice of book or to write “send this contests winning book.” A complete list of all current Omnidawn books is available at www.omnidawn.com/catalog.htm. If you choose a book from our catalog, you should receive it within two weeks after your entry is received at Omnidawn. If you pay the extra $3 and forget to specify your choice of book we will send you an Email to ask your choice of book, or you can also send an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com to let us know your choice.

5. All manuscripts will be deleted or recycled at the end of the contest. For entries sent by postal mail, please do NOT send an SASE for return of the manuscript.

6. If you provide an Email address with your contact info, within a ten days of receiving your entry we will send you an Email to confirm we have received it, so if you mailed your entry via either United States First Class mail or Priority Mail you should receive this verification Email within two weeks of mailing your manuscript. If you have provided us with an Email address and you do not receive this confirmation Email within two weeks, something may be wrong, and we strongly suggest you contact us by sending an Email to submissions@omnidawn.com or by telephoning our toll free number, (800) 792-4957. (Note that if you choose to submit online our turnaround time is much faster, and we will send you two Email notifications of receipt, one automatic Email sent immediately after you submit online, and a second Email from a member of our staff within 3 days after you submit, with the last lines of your manuscript so you know your manuscript has been received completely, and so you can fix the problem at no cost to you if it has not.)

7. (Optional) A self-addressed stamped postcard and/or a standard sized SASE. You may, if you choose, include a self-addressed stamped postcard, and we will mail this back to you to verify that your manuscript has been received. You may also enclose a standard size SASE and we will use this to send you information on the winner and finalists when these are determined. If you include an Email address a postcard and/or SASE is usually unnecessary, since you will receive an Email notification of the receipt of your entry and an Email notification of the winners and finalists when they are chosen.

 

Send postal submissions via First Class or Priority Mail to:

Omnidawn First/Second Poetry Book Contest
Omnidawn Publishing
1632 Elm Avenue
Richmond, CA 94805-1614

 

                        © Copyright Omnidawn, 2011, 2013