cow creek chapbook prize
the 2024 contest is open
The Cow Creek Chapbook Prize is a poetry chapbook contest brought to you by Pittsburg State University. We're open to all styles and subjects. As long as the poems challenge and capture the imagination, we want to see them. The winning poet will receive $1,000 and 25 author copies. The 2024 contest opens February 15 and closes May 15.
this year's judge is traci brimhall
Traci Brimhall’s newest book, Love Prodigal, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon in 2024. She is also the author of: Come the Slumberless from the Land of Nod (Copper Canyon); Saudade (Copper Canyon); Our Lady of the Ruins (W.W. Norton), winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Believer, The New Republic, Orion, New York Times Magazine, and Best American Poetry. She’s received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Parks Service. Brimhall lives in Manhattan, KS and serves as the current Poet Laureate of Kansas.
guidelines:
Submit 15-30 pages of poetry with a $15 entry fee by May 15, 2024.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if the chapbook is accepted elsewhere.
Multiple submissions are fine, but each chapbook must be submitted separately.
It’s fine if individual poems have been previously published or if one is accepted over the course of the contest, but the arrangement of poems must be an original work.
Submissions are read blind, so please don’t include your name or other identifying information anywhere on the manuscript.
Past or present students of Pittsburg State University and individuals directly connected to the judge are not eligible to submit.
order a copy of our 2023 winner, e.d. watson's via dolorosa and advent wreath
We are now taking orders for our 2023 winner—E.D. Watson's Via Dolorosa and Advent Wreath.
From the introduction:
“In 2018, I traveled to Israel and Palestine on a religious pilgrimage even though I wasn’t sure I believed in God anymore. I told myself I was going for the food and the adventure. In preparation, I tried to educate myself about the political situation in the Holy Land, and while I thought I understood what was going on there, my education didn’t truly begin until I arrived. This is the story of that journey.”
directors:
Chase Dearinger
Peter Vertacnik
editorial staff:
Chloe Hanson
Taylor Johnson
Spencer Young
Winniebell Xinyu Zong
questions? contact us:
We subscribe to the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics. Guidelines and issues of conflict of interest can be found above. Part of that code is making our process transparent to the public. All chapbooks are initially read by the editorial staff. Exceptional chapbooks then go to a second round of readers, who narrow potential winners down to a limited number of finalists, which are sent to the guest judge for selection.