writing contests

The 844 poets, writers, and translators listed in the Grants & Awards section of the magazine in 2012 won a total of $9,595,066. In this feature we take a closer look at the winners.

Organizers of writing contests are, perhaps not suprisingly, wary of publicizing details of their budgets, but the organizers of three contest programs offered to share the numbers behind their 2011 contests as part of contributing editor Michael Bourne's “The Economics of Competition,” which serves as the centerpiece of the current issue’s special section on the risks and rewards of writing contests.

Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features CityLit Press, an independent publisher based in Baltimore that provides a venue for writers who might otherwise be ignored by larger independent or commercial publishers.

The brief, contentious, and ultimately fruitless relationship between poet Stacey Lynn Brown and the editors of Cider Press, points to an essential question that pops up often in literary publishing: Whose opinion—author's or publisher's—should matter most when it comes to finalizing the product that enters the marketplace as a book?

Two years after the demise of the Contemporary Poetry Series, the University of Georgia Press, in conjunction with Virginia Quarterly Review editor Ted Genoways, begins a new series with a traditional editorial approach.

Controversy surrounds Tupelo Press and its 2006 Dorset Prize after allegations of unfairness emerge from contest participants.

Six months after announcing that there would be no winner chosen for their First Book Award in Fiction competition, Winnow Press struggles to fulfill their uncommon promise to refund entry fees.