Writing Competition: Goldline Press Chapbook Competition

Gold Line Press is accepting manuscripts for its 2021 contest until August 15, 2021. We invite nonfiction, fiction, and poetry that are chapbook-length as a key element of their concept. Our judges this year are Matthew Salesses in fiction, Taneum Bambrick in poetry, and Daisy Hernandez in Nonfiction. Here is a look at what we’ve published in the past, but we are open to all work that uses the chapbook length and form in innovative, emotionally resonant, and subversive ways.

Length: 20-30 pages of poetry, 7500-15000 words of prose.

Deadline: August 15, 2021

Entry Fee: $15.00

Gold Line Press is affiliated with the Literature and Creative Writing Department at the University of Southern California.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

• Multiple submissions are acceptable as long as they are submitted separately with separate entry fees.
  

• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please be sure to withdraw your submission via Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere.

• Please update any changes in contact information via your profile on Submittable.

• No revisions to submitted manuscripts will be considered. The author of the winning manuscript will work with Gold Line's editorial staff to make revisions prior to publication.

• Colleagues and current or former students of the judges — as well as current students of English or Creative Writing at the University of Southern California and recent alumni (graduating years 2018 to present) — are not eligible to submit. This year’s chapbook judges are Matthew Salesses (fiction), Taneum Bambrick (poetry), and Daisy Hernandez (Nonfiction).

• In December 2021 we will announce contest results by email, as well as on the Gold Line Press site. The winning chapbooks will be published in the fall of the following year.

• Each winner receives $500, publication of her/his/their perfect-bound chapbook with ISBN, and 50 contributor copies. Gold Line Press sends out 30 copies on behalf of winners to respected literary venues for review. Winners can purchase additional copies of their chapbooks at cost. The chapbook is cataloged in the Library of Congress and distributed through Small Press Distribution.

We seek works of prose that are purposefully planned as chapbooks: novellettes, carefully curated collections of vignettes, short stories, essays, or other projects that take the chapbook format as an instrumental element of their design. Excerpts of novels or short story/essay collections will not be considered unless they form a sustained and individual project in their foreshortened form. For poets, we also recommend that manuscripts be cohesive and self-contained in the chapbook length.

Submittable link.