The Frost Place, a nonprofit center for poetry and the arts at Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH, in partnership with Bull City Press, invites submissions to The Sixth Annual Frost Place Chapbook Competition Sponsored by Bull City Press.

The winner’s chapbook will be published by Bull City Press in Summer 2018.  The winner will receive 10 complimentary copies (from a print run of 300), and a $250 prize.  The winner will also receive a full scholarship to attend the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, August 2018, including room and board (valued at approximately $1,550), and will give a featured reading from the chapbook at the Seminar. 

Additionally, the chapbook fellow will have the option to spend one week living and writing in The Frost Place House-Museum in September 2018 (peak fall foliage season in the White Mountains) at a time agreed upon by the fellow and the Frost Place.

The 5th Annual Frost Place Chapbook Competition’s Final Judge is Sandra Lim.

Submission Period: October 1, 2017 – January 5, 2018.

Submissions Fee: $28.00.

Submissions are only accepted online through the online submission manager.

Look for the link to our submission manager, as well as information about summer programs at The Frost Place, on the home page of The Frost Place website: www.frostplace.org.

ELIGIBILITY

The Frost Place Chapbook Competition Sponsored by Bull City Press is open to any poet writing in English.  Simultaneous submissions are permissible, but entrants are asked to notify the competition administrators through the competition website immediately if a manuscript becomes committed elsewhere. 

Please do not submit to this competition if you are close enough to the final judge, Sandra Lim, that her integrity, or the integrity of Bull City Press and The Frost Place, would be called into question should you be selected as the winner. You may query us if you have questions regarding this matter. Please query by email to frost@frostplace.org.

SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Entries must be submitted between October 1, 2017 and January 5, 2018.  All entries must be submitted to our online submissions manager.  Entries submitted by e-mail, fax, or US mail are not permitted and will be disqualified.  Submission with identification on the manuscript will be disqualified.

Entries must be accompanied by a $28.00 entry fee.  Entrants may submit multiple manuscripts, but must pay a $28.00 entry fee for each manuscript submitted.

Do not include your name on any of the pages of the manuscript file. The first page of the manuscript should include the title of the collection only.

Manuscripts should have a page count (poems only, not including title page, table of contents, acknowledgements, or other items) of 20 to 25 pages.

Manuscripts should be submitted in PDF or Microsoft Word (.doc & .docx) format only.  Manuscripts submitted in another file format are not permitted and will be disqualified. Manuscript revisions are not permitted during the competition. 

The author’s name should not appear on the manuscript.  

OUR READING PROCESS

Each manuscript is delivered to two preliminary readers as a blind submission. That is, it is stripped of identifying material. Only the manuscript, inclusive of any text notes, is sent to the readers and, if chosen as a finalist, then sent on to the final judge. Preliminary readers are asked to notify the press if the work in a submitted manuscript is familiar to them, in which case it will be reassigned as a blind submission to another reader.

Our preliminary readers for the competition are selected by Bull City Press and The Frost Place, and are poets who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. Our readers look for beautifully-crafted work, manuscripts that have a cohesive shape and feel like complete chapbooks.  They look to present a wide range of excellent work to the final judge.

In the event that the final judge chooses no manuscript for publication, all competition fees will be returned.

Final notification of the competition winner and competition finalists will be provided by e-mail to all competition entrants in March 2018.