Contest currently closed. Submissions are open June 1-August 31.

Nine Syllables Press is delighted to announce our second annual chapbook contest. torrin a. greathouse will be the final judge for 2024. The winner will be awarded $500 and author’s copies. The chapbook will be published within a year. Winners will be announced by February, 2025.

Submissions are open June 1-August 31, 2024, using our Submittable. There is a $10 submission fee. Please read the guidelines below carefully before sending us your work.

Who can submit?

Trans and nonbinary poets of all genders, and cis women poets can submit their chapbook to the Nine Syllables Press chapbook contest. We especially encourage trans/LGBTQIA++ poets and BIPOC poets to submit their work. Poets can have previously published collections of poetry, but the manuscript you submit cannot have been previously published. Individual poems from the collection may have been published elsewhere. Poets outside the US are also welcome to submit.

9SP complies with the CLMP Code of Ethics in the administration of this contest. The judge will select a manuscript in an anonymous review process and will not award the prize to any writer whose personal relationship to the judge poses a conflict of interest. Current students at Smith College are not eligible to submit, and those with a personal relationship with the final judge are not eligible to submit.

What to submit?

Send us an original, unpublished poetry collection of 20-40 pages.

How to format it?

Do NOT include your name, acknowledgements, or any identifying details (address, social media handles, etc) anywhere in your manuscript. If your name appears in a poem, such as a ghazal, please redact it with a [ ].

Please use a standard typeface such as Times New Roman or Garamond, size 12.

Include a table of contents at the beginning. This does not count towards your page count.

Please include page numbers on all pages.

AI generated work policy:

We do not accept manuscripts which have been generated using AI (ChatGPT or similar software). Do not submit AI-generated work.

What if my manuscript is 19 pages long? Or 42?

20-40 pages is a guideline, but this is a chapbook contest, not a full-length or a micro. We will consider manuscripts close to 20-40 pages, a few pages more or less will not disqualify you.

Who reads the manuscripts?

Students at Smith College who are enrolled in the courses The Chapbook in Practice: Design and/or The Chapbook in Practice: Submissions & Publishing are involved in Nine Syllables Press, participate in reading submissions anonymously, learning how to design the interior and exterior of chapbooks, and creating marketing for our books. The final selections from the students are passed on to the final judge, who chooses the winner.

We are very excited about this opportunity for students to engage in the hands-on experience of running a small press.