cow creek chapbook prize
the 2026 contest is open!
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Submissions are now open for the 2026 Cow Creek Chapbook Prize, a national poetry chapbook contest brought to you by Pittsburg State University. We welcome work in all styles and on all subjects. As long as the poems challenge and capture the imagination, we want to read them.
The winning poet will receive a $1,000 prize and 25 author copies of their published chapbook. The contest opens February 15 and closes May 15.
guidelines:
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Submit 15-30 pages of poetry with a $15 entry fee.
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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.
this year's judge:​
linzi garcia
Linzi Garcia is an internationally published poet and the author of Cravings (Meadowlark Press, 2025) and Thank You (Spartan Press, 2018), as well as the co-author of Live a Great Story (Analog Submission Press, 2019) and While Away: Travel Poems (Spartan Press, 2022). She resides in Emporia, Kansas, where she serves as the poetry editor and publicist for Meadowlark Press. Linzi is a recipient of a NextGen Under 30 Kansas Award and Kansas Governor’s Arts Award.
our 2025 winner is
dana salvador for offerings
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Here's what our judge, Rebecca Gayle Howell, had to say about Offerings: “A prairie farm, a prairie town, family memories—a lesser book made of these would risk nostalgia. But not Offerings. These poems cut right through any idea that living close to the land is ever simple. Here are the complex truths of a girlhood spent growing up among the wheat—a deadbeat boyfriend, an unplanned pregnancy, wounded neighbors, missing neighbors, a grandma who knows more than she lets on. Cinematic, urgent, and precise, Offerings reminds us that love is work and work is love; that for all of us, ‘Harvest is coming, / and there’s so much work to be done before / the last grain truck gets driven to town.’”​​​​​​​
pre-order your copy of offerings today
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“Offerings by Dana Salvador is a tender, honest depiction of life in oft overlooked rural America through the lens of a young woman’s coming of age. Through narratives of lost limbs and misplaced innocence amid a backdrop of ‘broken, golden stalks’ of harvested corn fields hemmed by ‘narrow country roads’ and ‘cow trails,’ this collection deftly examines the dual nature of attachment: that which we love, which enables our growth and freedom of expression, can tie us to a life outgrown. Honoring the hard-earned successes of neighbors overcoming, or succumbing to, adversity and celebrating tender gestures such as that of a father who keeps his daughter’s folded poem in his breast pocket ready to share, Offerings provides voice to a shrinking population and vanishing way of life.”
—Lisa Hase-Jackson, author of Insomnia in Another Town and Flint & Fire
directors:
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Chase Dearinger
Peter Vertacnik
editorial staff:
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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.