2015 BkMk Press Book Prize Guidelines - Deadline January 15, 2015

Are you ready to submit your contest entry for 2015?

Submit & Pay Online Here by January 15, 2015

(Please read guidlines below before submitting.)

Prize For the best book-length collections of poetry & of short fiction in English by a living author
$1,000 & Publication of Winning Book for Each Prize
Short-Fiction Book Award
The G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction
Poetry Book Award
The John Ciardi Prize for Poetry


Submissions include:


Typed manuscript on standard-sized paper, or 1 MS Word document or PDF, in English. Bound only with a clip or rubber band (no staples or permanent binding)
Poetry manuscripts: approximately 50 -110 pages, single spaced.
Short fiction collections: approximately 125- 300 pages, double spaced.
Acknowledgments on a separate page within the same document



Two separate title pages within the same document:
(click for sample)
a) title only (no author information)

b) title, author name, address, phone number, acknowledgements (if any)



Table of Contents within the same document.



SASE for notification only. No manuscripts will be returned.


Non-refundable reading fee of $25 plus printing charge for each manuscript submitted electronically (US funds)
(please include check made payable to BkMk Press
or completed credit card form for online submission)


No faxed submissions, please. Email only through online submission page
& note payment information in email.


Entrants will receive a copy of the winning book in their genre when it is published.

Simultaneous and multiple submissions are acceptable. Please notify us of acceptance elsewhere.
Manuscripts must be postmarked or submitted online no later than January 15, 2015. Manuscripts will not be returned. No refunds will be issued.

Judging will be blind at all levels. Initial judging will be done by a network of published writers and editors. The final judging will be done by a poet and a fiction writer of national reputation. 2014 winners will be announced August, 2014 and the winning entries will be published in 2015. 2015 winners will be announced August 2015 and published in 2016. These competitions are held annually.
2013 Prizes Winners:
Jane Hoogestraat of Springfield, Missouri
John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by Luis J. Rodriguez:
Evan Morgan Williams, Portland, Oregon
G.S.Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, selected by Al Young



Submit & Pay Online

Or Address To:

John Ciardi Prize for Poetry or Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction
BkMk Press
University of Missouri-Kansas City
5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110-2499

(816) 235-2558*
Fax (816) 235-2611
bkmk@umkc.edu (for questions only, no emailed manuscripts accepted)

Available to contest entrants at the special price of $10 each postage paid are the past winners of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry: The Resurrection Machine by Steve Gehrke, selected by Miller Williams; Kentucky Swami by Tim Skeen, selected by Michael Burns; Escape Artist by Terry Blackhawk, selected by Molly Peacock; Fence Line by Curtis Bauer, selected by Christopher Buckley; The Portable Famine by Rane Arroyo (selected by Robin Becker);Wayne's College of Beauty by David Swanger (selected by Colleen J. McElroy); Airs & Voices by Paula Bonnell (selected by Mark Jarman); Black Tupelo Country by Doug Ramspeck (selected by Leslie Adrienne Miller); Tongue of War by Tony Barnstone, selected by B. H. Fairchild; Mapmaking by Megan Harlan, selected by Sidney Wade; Secret Wounds By Richard Berlin, selected by Gary Young; Axis Mundi by Karen Holmberg, selected by Lorna Dee Cervantes.

Also available are the past winners of the Chandra Prize: A Bed of Nails by Ron Tanner (selected by Janet Burroway); I'll Never Leave You by H. E. Francis, selected by Diane Glancy; The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories by Billy Lombardo, selected by Gladys Swan; Necessary Lies by Kerry Neville Bakken, (selected by Hilary Masters); Love Letters from a Fat Man by Naomi Benaron, (selected by Stuart Dybek); Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein, (selected by Marly Swick); Dangerous Places by Perry Glasser, selected by Gary Gildner; Georgic by Mariko Nagai, selected by Jonis Agee; Living Arrangements by Laura Maylene Walter, selected by Robert Olen Butler; Garbage Night at the Opera by Valerie Fioravanti, selected by Jacquelyn Mitchard.