Big Sky, Small Prose Contest: And the winners are...

BIG Congratulations to Allie Mariano, winner of this year's Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest, for her 1st place piece, "Water."

Here's what our judge, Zach VandeZande, had to say:

What drew me most to "Water" was its sense of wonder in the midst of tragedy. The best fiction offers us a way to make sense of the world, as in it creates for us the real on the story's own terms, and in doing so gives us a reason to hope. "Water," with its images and with its lyrical prose, does this effortlessly, and I'm grateful for the time I got to spend with it. I think you will be too.

Allie Mariano lives in New Orleans. Her writing has appeared in Saw Palm, Day One, and in New Orleans’ Times-Picayune. She is the nonfiction editor for Midway Journal. She is working on a novel, and she’s happy to be here.

Congrats also to our awesome runners up:

"A Posture of Grace" by Kim McCrea

"Holding His Fire" by Daryl Scroggins

We'll have more info soon, but we couldn't wait to shout out the news! 

Deadline Alert! CutBank contests and regular submissions closing soon!

Our Montana prizes in fiction and CNF, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry are closing the submissions window in 1 day and nine hours from now! Finish up with the red pen, finalize those entries and get them to us before it's too late!

Regular print submissions are winding up, too. Only 2 days and 9 big hours left.

Our submissions calendar is here, with links to all the info you need, and here's our Submittable portal when you're ready to rock.

Douglas Adams may be awesome, but even he might have said, "Hey. Don't be this guy."

CutBank is the proud sponsor of a variety of contests encouraging (and rewarding) fine writing in all genres, with opportunities including the Montana Prize in Fiction, the Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry, the Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest, as well as our annual CutBank Chapbook Contest.

We're looking for work that showcases an authentic voice, an original perspective, and a willingness to push against the boundaries of form.

Meet this year's judges:

The Montana Prize in Fiction
Judged by Monica Drake

Meet Monica Drake: "I have an MFA from the University of Arizona and teach at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. My debut Novel, Clown Girl, is published by the amazing indie press, Hawthorne Books, and has won an Eric Hoffer Award as well as an IPPY. It’s been translated into Italian, and recently optioned for film by the brilliant Kristen Wiig (SNL, Bridesmaids). My most recent novel, The Stud Book, is now out (Hogarth Books, April 2013) and doing great." (From monicadrake.com)

The Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction
Judged by Sarah Gerard

Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, the novel Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times first fiction prize, and two chapbooks, most recently BFF. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Granta, The Baffler, Vice, BOMB Magazine, and other journals, as well as anthologies. She’s been supported by fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Tin House, PlatteForum, Ucross, and Pocoapoco. She writes a monthly column for Hazlitt and teaches writing in New York City.

The Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry
Judged by Sarah Vap

Sarah Vap, our Fall 2017 Distinguished Hugo Writer, is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Viability (Penguin 2016), which was selected for the National Poetry Series. Her book of hybrid poetics, End of the Sentimental Journey, inaugurated the Infidel Poetics Series with Noemi Press (2013). She is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship for poetry and has taught at Arizona State University, University of Southern California, and Drew University.

Contest Deadlines Extended!

Deadlines extended!

The Montana Prizes in fiction and nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize for poetry now open until JANUARY 31!

Visit our Submittable page for details, and give that entry another round of polish with the extra time.

Good luck--we're eager to read your work!

CutBank's Annual Chapbook Contest Opens Jan 1!

The submission window is open from Jan 1 to March 31. (And you know deadlines always come sooner than you think.)

Winner, 2016: little violences
by Raven Jackson
Purchase a copy here.

What's at stake if you drag your feet too long? Money, for one thing! Our winner receives $1000, high-quality publication of their book, and 25 contributor copies. Runners up enjoy publication and copies, as well, and every entry can look forward to a copy of CutBank 89 upon its release in spring/summer 2018.

You'll find solid info and full details on our Contests page, and while you're at it, visit our winners from last year right here.

In a nutshell:

Here's James D'Agostino, last year's winner with Weathermanic. Doesn't James look happy? You could be that happy, too!

• We're looking for 25-40 pages of original poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction by a single author. (Translations are not eligible for this award. Sorry.)
• Previously published stand-alone pieces or excerpts may be included in a manuscript, but the manuscript as a whole must be an unpublished work.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine!
• Manuscripts should be cohesive and coherent; in other words, your manuscript should resonate and make sense as a book.

Send us startling, compelling, and beautiful original work. We’re interested in both prose and poetry – and particularly work that straddles the lines between genres, in a fresh, powerful manuscript. Perhaps yours will overtake us quietly, gracefully defy genres, or satisfyingly subvert our expectations. Maybe it will punch us in the mouth page in and page out!

Now that 2017 is gasping for air, hang in there--2018 can be your year!

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for updates. We'll let you know when the gates are open or the deadline's approaching, so have your most amazing work ready!

CUTBANK'S 2018 GENRE CONTESTS OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!

CutBank is thrilled to announce our 2018 genre contests in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry are open for submissions from Thursday, November 9th through January 15th, 2018. 

The Montana Prize in Fiction, the Montana Prize in Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry seek to highlight work that showcases authentic voice, boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness. We are excited and privileged to have as this year's guest judges the incredible talents of Monica Drake (@Monica_Drake) for the fiction category, Sarah Gerard (@SarahNumber4) judging nonfiction, and a poetry judge to be announced soon.

One winner in each genre, as chosen by our guest judges, will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 89, our summer 2018 issue. All submissions will be considered for print publication, and all entrants receive a one-year subscription to CutBank. Visit our contest page for more info, and you can also find A-Z guidelines on our Submittable page.

Keep an eye on @cutbankonline and CutBank's Facebook page for more info on our judges and for future announcements!

Announcing: Contest Winners

The CutBank editors are pleased to announce the winners of our most recent fiction, non-fiction, and poetry prizes. The winners will be featured in our forthcoming spring issue, CutBank 87.

Congrats to our winners! 

• "When I Say I Miss the Drugs" by Zackary Medlin  (Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry, judged by Bob Hicok)
• "Ricochet" by Ruby Murray  (Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, judged by Peter Orner)
• "Saffira" by Stefani Nellen   (Montana Prize in Fiction, judged by Alexandra Kleeman)

We would also like to thank everyone who submitted their work to our genre contests: there is some fierce competition out there. It's never too early to start thinking about next year...Submissions for the 2017 prizes will be accepted November 9, 2017, through January 15, 2018.

Big Sky, Small Prose: Flash Contest Winners

Congratulations to Alysia Sawchyn, winner of the 2016 Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest! Her piece, "Riverbanks and Honeysuckle" will appear in CutBank 86. Here's what our judge, Chad Simpson, had to say:

"The narrator of 'Riverbanks and Honeysuckle' dredges the Potomac in search of something like truth, but her memory won't cooperate. What the reader gets instead is an investigation of 'overcoming and omission' that is both lyrical and poignant and seems as though it may never end."

About Alysia Sawchyn
Alysia Sawchyn currently lives in Tampa, Florida. She is the managing editor of Saw Palm, and her writing can be found in Indiana Review, Midwestern Gothic, Barrelhouse Online, and elsewhere.

Congratulations also to our two runners-up, whose work will appear in CutBank 86 as well:

"Planning to Be Amazed" by Daryl Scroggins
"At the Dog Park" by Derek Updegraff 

Chapbook Contest 2016 Winners

CutBank is proud to announce the winners of our 2016 Chapbook Contest! Congratulations to Raven Jackson, Lisa Hiton, and Wendell Mayo, whose books will be published by CutBank in 2017.  

WINNER
little violences by Raven Jackson

About the Author: 
A native of Tennessee, Raven Jackson is a poet and filmmaker currently attending New York University’s Graduate Film Program. A Cave Canem fellow and a graduate of the New School’s Writing Program, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, CALYX, Kweli, Phantom Limb, PANK, and elsewhere. She's currently in post-production on her fourth short film.

What Our Judges Say: 
"These poems take difficult subject matter as bedfellows—violence and sexuality, violence and family, sexuality and family—and wrap it all in such rich language. I mean cake-rich. Or, poisoned cake rich. You know there's something rotten at the core—that first violence—but you keep eating. Urgent, powerful, and very easy to read.... Making what is difficult to swallow in life a pleasure to consume in print is no small feat."  -Caylin Capra-Thomas

"Striking, expansive and well-contained imagery; a sense of urgency, a vibrant voice."  -Stephanie Pushaw
 

RUNNERS-UP

Variation on Testimony by Lisa Hiton

About the Author:
Lisa Hiton is a poet and filmmaker from Chicago, Illinois. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Boston University and an M.Ed. in Arts in Education from Harvard University. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Linebreak, Lambda Literary, The Paris-American, Prodigal, and Hayden’s Ferry Review among others. Her first book has been a finalist or semi-finalist for the New Issues Poetry Prize, the Brittingham & Felix Pollack Poetry Prize, the Crab Orchard Review first book prize, and the YesYes Books open reading period. She has received the AWP WC&C Scholarship, the Esther B. Kahn Scholarship from 24Pearl Street at the Fine Arts Work Center, and two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. She is a contributing interviewer at Cosmonaut’s Avenue.

What Our Judges Say: 
"Confident and vivid, Variation on Testimony swings effortlessly between the abstract and the deeply personal. Every image seems newly constructed even when it's referencing the oldest tropes."  -Stephanie Pushaw

"Throughout the collection, Hiton strikes an impressive balance between tenderness and threat, between the fragmented image and fully realized scene, between what is said and what is palpably unsaid."  -Caylin Capra-Thomas
 

When the Moon Was Ours for the Taking by Wendell Mayo

About the Author:
Wendell Mayo is author of four story collections, recently The Cucumber King of Kedainiai, winner of the Subito Press Award for Innovative Fiction. He’s a recipient of an NEA fellowship and a Fulbright to Lithuania. His stories have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including CutBank, Yale Review, Harvard Review, Manoa, Missouri Review, and others. 

What Our Judges Say:
"Satisfying and emotionally evocative. This collection of four stories begins with a bang but morphs quietly, beautifully into a contemplation of one father/son relationship. Demonstrates a beautiful handle on the progression of a single character through time and shifting points of view, takes risks, and raises poignant questions of family and memory, the forces that shape us."  -Kate Barrett 

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The CutBank Chapbook Contest honors three works of startling, evocative, and beautiful new writing in prose and poetry each year. To purchase previous chapbook winners, please visit our online store.

Announcing the 2016 Contest Winners

We're thrilled to announce the winners of our 2016 genre contests, the Montana Prizes in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in poetry. We received so many quality submissions this year. Thanks to everyone for sharing their amazing work, and to our stellar guest judges. On to the winners!

The Montana Prize in Fiction, selected by Claire Vaye Watkins:

"Crick" by Terrance Manning, Jr.

Terrance Manning, Jr is a graduate from Purdue’s MFA in Creative Writing. He’s won the Iowa Review Award for Fiction, as well as the Crazyhorse Prize in Nonfiction, and recent work appears in Witness, Ninth Letter, Boulevard, Southwest Review, Hunger Mountain, and other magazines. He lives and writes in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, selected by Amanda Fortini:

"Meme" by Tracy May Faud

Tracy May Fuad is a poet and essayist of Kurdish descent born and raised in Minnesota. Her writing has appeared in Ninth Letter, BOAAT, Hayden's Ferry Review, DIALOGIST, SOFTBLOW, and Nashville Review, among others. She was in residence at the Vermont Studio Center this spring, and will begin an MFA in Poetry at Rutgers-Newark in the fall. www.tracymayfuad.com. 

The Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry, selected by Oliver De La Paz:

J.R. Toriseva

J.R. Toriseva’s work has appeared in, or is forthcoming, from The North American Review, Salt Hill, The Literary Review, The Saranac Review, The Cincinnati Review, Descant, and JACKET, among others, and included in  Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sound from City Lights. Barbed Water, chosen by Shane McCrae, will be published in 2016 as the winner of Saudade's annual poetry contest.

Each winner will receive $500 and be featured in CutBank 85.

The CutBank 2016 Chapbook Competition

Our annual chapbook contest is back! Check out the details below. Click here to submit. 

Award
Publication, $1000 cash prize, and 25 contributor copies

Eligibility
This competition is open to original English language manuscripts in the genres of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. While previously published stand-alone pieces or excerpts may be included in a manuscript, the manuscript as a whole must be an unpublished work. Translations and previously self-published collections are ineligible. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable; please note that reading fees are non-refundable, and you must withdraw the manuscript immediately via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere. Please do not include cover artwork with your submission; black and white illustrations are acceptable so long as you’ve obtained the rights. The author must not have a close personal or professional relationship with any current or previous CutBank staff members.

Reading Fee
$20. Includes consideration and a copy of CutBank 85 upon its release in spring/summer 2016. We apologize, but CutBank is not able to send issues to international addresses without additional postage from the submitter.

What We’re Looking For:
Startling, compelling, and beautiful original work. We’re looking for a fresh, powerful manuscript. Maybe it will overtake us quietly; gracefully defy genres; satisfyingly subvert our expectations; punch us in the mouth page in and page out. We’re interested in both prose and poetry – and particularly work that straddles the lines between genres. Manuscripts should be cohesive and coherent; in other words, your manuscript should resonate and make sense as a book.

Guidelines for Electronic Submissions:
Submissions are accepted exclusively through Submittable. Entries must be received no later than midnight MST on March 31, 2016. Please submit 25 to 40 pages of typed prose in either DOC/DOCX/RTF/PDF format. For short prose, please include no more than one piece per page. Images are acceptable, but only in black and white; you must obtain reprint rights for any included images. Include page numbers, table of contents, and, if applicable, an acknowledgments page addressing where sections have been previous published. Submissions should include two cover pages as the first two pages of the document: one with the manuscript’s title, the other with the title, author’s name, address, and e-mail address. The author’s name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript. Results will be announced via e-mail and posted atwww.cutbankonline.com in late May 2016.

The Long and Short of It
The CutBank Chapbook Contest honors a book of original poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction by a single author; translations are not eligible for this award. The winning author receives a $1000 honorarium plus 25 copies of the published book. The winner will be announced by CutBank, the winning book will be featured on the CutBank website, and we’ll do our best to distribute it to regional independent bookstores. The contest will be judged by the CutBank editorial staff. Entries must be submitted between January 1 and March 31, 2016. All entries must be made through our submission manager. Manuscripts should be 25-40 pages in length of poetry (a cohesive poetry manuscript), fiction (either a short fiction collection or novella), or creative nonfiction (one long essay or a short collection of essays). Please indicate in the acknowledgements if any sections of the manuscript have been previously published, and where; the manuscript as a whole must be an unpublished work. Manuscript revisions are not permitted during the contest. Multiple entries are fine as long as each is accompanied by a submission fee (in which case you will receive an additional copy of CutBank). The author must not have a close personal or professional relationship with any current or previous CutBank staff members.

The CLMP Code of Ethics
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines -- defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.

It is truly an honor to read your work. We wish you the best of luck!

Announcing the 2016 CutBank Contests

CutBank is pleased to announce the 2016 contests for the Montana Prize in Fiction, Montana Prize in Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. We are honored and excited to have three extremely talented guest judges this year: Claire Vaye Watkins for Fiction, Amanda Fortini for Nonfiction, and Oliver de la Paz for Poetry. 

The Montana Prize in Fiction, the Montana Prize in Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry seek to highlight work that showcases authentic voice, boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness. A winner from each genre, chosen by our guest judges, will be featured in CutBank 85 and receive $500. All submissions will be considered for print publication. We look forward to reading your work!

Submissions are accepted November 9 through January 15. Submissions are accepted through our online submission manager only. The $20 contest entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank and covers the reading of a single submission in a single genre. For fiction and nonfiction, please send only a single work of no greater than 35 pages. For poetry, submit up to five poems. Please submit only once per genre, though writers are permitted to submit in multiple genres. Include a short cover letter that mentions your address (where your subscription will be sent), phone number, and email address, as well as the title of your work. Please include the author's name on the manuscript—names will be removed from the pool of submissions that goes before our contest judges. Current subscribers must submit the same $20 fee, and their CutBank subscriptions will be extended by one year. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your submission via Submittable immediately should it be accepted elsewhere. We are unable to offer refunds.

Entrants will be notified of their submission status no later than March 15, 2016. One winner in each genre, as chosen by our guest judges, will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 85, our summer 2016 issue. Winners will be required to complete a W-9 form to receive payment. All manuscripts are considered for publication in CutBank. All rights to selected manuscripts revert to the author upon publication. The author grants their permission to have their work electronically archived as part of CutBank 85 in EBSCO International's subscription-based research database. Current University of Montana students and faculty and former CutBank staff are not eligible for the awards.

About our amazing judges:

Claire Vaye Watkins' stories and essays have appeared in Granta, One Story, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Best of the West 2011, New Stories from the Southwest 2013, the New York Times and elsewhere. A recipient of fellowships from the Sewanee and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, Claire was also one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.” Her collection of short stories, Battleborn, won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. Her novel, Gold Fame Citrus, is out now from Riverhead Books. A Guggenheim Fellow, Claire is on the faculty of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. She is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.

Amanda Fortini has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, the New Republic, New York Magazine, Slate and Salon, among other publications. She is a contributing editor at Elle Magazine, where she writes about feminism, culture, and women's issues. Her essays have been widely anthologized, including in Best American Political Writing and Best of Slate, and she was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award. Last Fall, she was a William Kittredge Visiting Professor at the University of Montana. She currently divides her time between Livingston, Montana and Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Oliver de la Paz is the author of four collections of poetry, Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, and the forthcoming Post Subject: A Fable. He is also the co-editor of A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry.  A co-chair for the advisory board of Kundiman.org, he teaches in the MFA program at Western Washington University and in the Low-Residency MFA program at PLU.

Big Sky, Small Prose Winner Announced

Congratulations to Caleb Tanksersly, winner of our Big Sky, Small Prose flash prose contest! Caleb's story "Branson" will be featured in CutBank 84. 

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About Caleb Tankersly:

Caleb Tankersley’s writing appears in Cutthroat, Gargoyle, Midwestern Gothic, and other publications. His chapbook Jesus Works the Night Shift was published in 2014 by Urban Farmhouse Press. He is a PhD candidate at The University of Southern Mississippi, where he is Associate Editor for Mississippi Review.

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We are also pleased to honor two runners-up, Natalie Lund for "This Gift of Rocks" and Jane Wong for "Circles." Both will be printed in CutBank 84. 

About Natalie Lund: 

Natalie Lund is a graduate of Purdue’s MFA program and the former fiction editor of Sycamore Review. Her work has recently appeared in Literary Orphans and SmokeLong Quarterly. She lives in Texas with her dog, cat, and several uninvited arthropods. Find her at natalielund.com or @nmlund.

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About Jane Wong:

Jane Wong is the author of Overpour (Action Books, 2016). Her poems have appeared in places such as Best American Poetry 2015, Best New Poets 2012, Pleiades, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Volta, and others. She is a Kundiman fellow and has received scholarships from the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center. She lives in Seattle.

Flash Prose Contest Submissions are now open!

Big Sky, Small Prose: A CutBank Flash Prose Exclusive

CutBank Literary Magazine is seeking interesting, compelling fiction and nonfiction prose - in 750 words or fewer. Lyric essays, prose poems, short essays, vignettes - send us your best, most dazzling short form prose. Please feel free to include original photography or art.

Big Sky, Small Prose will be judged by David Gates, author of A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me (2015), The Wonders of the Invisible World (1999), Preston Falls (1998), and Jernigan (1991), a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Gates also teaches at the University of Montana and the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Contest Submission Guidelines:

• Submissions will be accepted through the Submittable submission manager. Print or email submissions will not be considered. Please include a brief cover letter, biography and contact information in the form provided - please do not include identifying information in the body of your submission.
• Submissions must be previously unpublished.
• Simultaneous submissions are certainly welcome; however, please withdraw your CutBank submission immediately via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Submissions should be double spaced, no more than 750 words.
• Submission fee of $7 includes consideration for CutBank's $500 flash prose prize and publication in CutBank 84. Two runners-up will be awarded $50 and publication in CutBank 84. All other submissions will be considered with submissions for the print edition of CutBank Literary Magazine. Submissions including photography or art will be considered for the CutBank 84 center spread.
• We will accept submissions for Big Sky, Small Prose between August 10 and September 1, 2015.

Click here to submit to Big Sky, Small Prose. 

Meet our Chapbook Contest Winners!

 

The grand prize - $1000 and publication - goes to Daniel Riddle Rodriguez for his stunning prose manuscript, The Low Village. 

Daniel Riddle Rodriguez's real name is Daniel Riddle Rodriguez.  He is a full-time student and father from San Lorenzo, California, where he lives with his son.  Previous publications include Juked, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Stream Magazine, Fourteen Hills, and The Ampersand Review.  He is thrilled to be here.

Follow him on Tumblr here.

We will also be publishing two poetry collections from our runners-up: From by Jill Osier and book of lake by Nicholas Gulig.

Jill Osier lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.  Her work includes the chapbooks Bedful of Nebraskas and Should Our Undoing Come Down Upon Us White.

Nicholas Gulig is a poet from Wisconsin. Educated in Montana and Iowa, he is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Denver. The recipient of a 2011-2012 US Fulbright Fellowship to Thailand, his first full length work, "North of Order," was published in 2015 by YesYes Books.

Chapbook Contest Winner

We're so excited to announce the winner of our annual Chapbook contest! The top prize goes to Daniel Riddle Rodriguez, who blew us all away with his prose submission, Low Village. 

We'll also be publishing the fantastic poetry manuscripts of our two runners-up:

From by Jill Osier

book of lake by Nicholas Gulig

We received a record amount of submissions this year and were amazed by the quality of the work. Here are our finalists and semi-finalists for each genre:

Poetry Finalists

Elkopocalypse by Adrian Kien

The Math of Gifts that are Not Wages by Heidi Nilsson

Tent City by Kate Partridge

Fail Casing the Namemachine by Victoria Sanz

Her Aversion by Alison Strub

Poetry Semi-finalists

Dead Year by Anne Cecelia Holmes

Contestant by Emily Koehn

Heard Among the Windbreak by Cal Freeman

Then-Wife by Kate Colby

Some Birds by John Bonanni

Prose Finalists

Sons and Other Strangers by Nina Boutsikaris

Adventures in Property Management by Chelsea Werner-Jatzke

Fly Back at Me (A Fragmented Childhood) by Bernard Grant

Repast: Essays on Food, History, and Self by Vivian Wagner

Three Artists in Arrested Time: Tiempo Detenido by Gail Wilson Kenna

Prose Semi-finalists

Delusions of Grandeur (Not Delusions, I’m Fucking Grand): Notes from the Desk of John Wayne by Kayla Miller

The Apprentice by Sandra Worsham

subterranean by Anthony DeGregorio

We by Laura Distelheim

What is Reflected by Susan Rukeyser

We'll feature more information about our winners in the coming weeks. You're going to love these books!

New Chapbooks!

Our newest chapbooks are now for sale!

Chapbooks by the winner and runners up of the 2014 CutBank Chapbook Contest have arrived!  We are thrilled to announce the publication of the following three books:

Winner of the 2014 CutBank Chapbook Contest:

"Chthonic" by John James 

Praise for Chthonic:

“In poetry of highest lyric order, music is its own mind. Such a mind doubts even as it believes, listens even as it sees. That mind forms on the page: what we read, it sings; and what it sings, we see. John James is writing such poems. I want to call them synesthesiac, so attuned are they to the ways in which the wonder of one sense trespasses into the working of another. But what all here interpenetrates is more than just sensory. He knows the heart is but a synesthesia of the mind; he knows the opposite holds just as true. He shows, poem by poem, that the immediacy of life’s moment—be it the domestic world of wife and child, be it the unspooling landscape, be it the literature of the past—reveals when pressed gently upon that entrance into the penetralium where behind time’s veils all that has been continues be-ing, and the intimate and the ancient, love nervous and word relict, twine together into these poems whose power is in making no claim toward the beauty they so abundantly reveal. He does as that first singer did, Caedmon, who sang because he was told he must do so—a song of praise, of animals and life, of land and blood and time. Such work is wholly personal and completely anonymous, embedded in the very life and limb whose limits it also astonishingly resists.               —Dan Beachy-Quick

“A brilliant offering full of loss and intimacies, Chthonic is a chapbook that begs a closer look into the strange darkness of ourselves. Stark landscapes, a piercing exactitude, and a merciful wisdom fill this book that walks ‘a thin wire of grief.’ An unflinching observer, John James writes with a patient honesty and a lyric beauty that will leave you ringing.”             —Ada Limón

 Runner up from 2014 CutBank Chapbook Contest - Poetry

"I Am Trying to Show You My Matchbook Collection" by Andie Francis

 Runner up from 2014 CutBank Chapbook Contest - Prose

"How I See the Humans" by Gretchen VanWormer

Contest submissions now open!

CutBank is now taking submissions for the Montana Prize in Fiction, Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. Take a look at our contest submission guidelines and send us your best work! In the meantime, check out this list of articles about the lives of the literati, culled from the New Yorker archives.

Or this blog post about the relationship between reality and fiction, from the New York Review of Books.

Finish up with this humorous take on how to write a sentence from the New Yorker.

CONTESTS OPEN SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1

2015 CutBank Contests

CutBank sponsors a variety of contests, including the Montana Prize in Fiction, Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry, as well as our annual CutBank Chapbook Contest. Submission dates vary so please see details below. Please send only your best work. With all three of these awards, we’re looking for work that showcases an authentic voice, an original perspective, and a willingness to push against the boundaries of form. All entries must be submitted electronically.

Montana Prize in Fiction

Judged by Susan Steinberg

The Montana Prize in Fiction seeks to highlight work that showcases an authentic voice, a boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness. The winner, chosen by Susan Steinberg, will be featured in CutBank 83 and receive $500. All submissions will be considered for print publication. We look forward to reading your work!

Submissions are accepted November 1 through January 15. Submissions are accepted through our online submission manager only. The $20 contest entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank and covers the reading of a single submission in a single genre. Please send only a single work of no greater than 35 pages. Please submit only once per genre, though writers are permitted to submit in multiple genres.

 Include a short cover letter that mentions your address (where your subscription will be sent), phone number, and email address, as well as the title of your work. Please include the author’s name on the manuscript—names will be removed from the pool of submissions that goes before our contest judges. Current subscribers must submit the same $20 fee, and their CutBank subscriptions will be extended by one year. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your submission via Submittable immediately should it be accepted elsewhere. We are unable to offer refunds.

Entrants will be notified of their submission status no later than March 15, 2015. One winner in each genre, as chosen by our guest judges, will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 83, our summer 2015 issue. Winners will be required to complete a W-9 form to receive payment. All manuscripts are considered for publication in CutBank. All rights to selected manuscripts revert to the author upon publication. The author grants their permission to have their work electronically archived as part of CutBank 83 in EBSCO International’s subscription-based research database. Current University of Montana students and faculty and former CutBank staff are not eligible for the awards.

Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction

Judged by Will Boast

The Montana Prize in Nonfiction seeks to highlight work that showcases an authentic voice, a boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness. The winner, chosen by Will Boast, will be featured in CutBank 83 and will receive $500. All submissions will be considered for print publication. We look forward to reading your work!

Submissions are accepted November 1 through January 15. Submissions are accepted through our online submission manager only. The $20 contest entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank and covers the reading of a single submission in a single genre. Please send only a single work of no greater than 35 pages. Please submit only once per genre, though writers are permitted to submit in multiple genres.

 Include a short cover letter that mentions your address (where your subscription will be sent), phone number, and email address, as well as the title of your work. Please include the author’s name on the manuscript—names will be removed from the pool of submissions that goes before our contest judges. Current subscribers must submit the same $20 fee, and their CutBank subscriptions will be extended by one year. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your submission via Submittable immediately should it be accepted elsewhere. We are unable to offer refunds.

Entrants will be notified of their submission status no later than March 15, 2015. One winner in each genre, as chosen by our guest judges, will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 83, our summer 2015 issue. Winners will be required to complete a W-9 form to receive payment. All manuscripts are considered for publication in CutBank. All rights to selected manuscripts revert to the author upon publication. The author grants their permission to have their work electronically archived as part of CutBank 83 in EBSCO International’s subscription-based research database. Current University of Montana students and faculty and former CutBank staff are not eligible for the awards.

Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry

Judged by Matt Rasmussen

The Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry seeks to highlight work that showcases an authentic voice, a boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness. The winner, chosen by Matt Rasmussen, will be featured in CutBank 83 and receive $500. All submissions will be considered for print publication. We look forward to reading your work!

Submissions are accepted November 1 through January 15. Submissions are accepted through our online submission manager only. The $20 contest entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank and covers the reading of a single submission in a single genre. Submit up to five poems. Please submit only once per genre, though writers are permitted to submit in multiple genres.

 Please include a short cover letter that mentions your address (where your subscription will be sent), phone number, and email address, as well as the title of your work. Please include the author’s name on the manuscript—names will be removed from the pool of submissions that goes before our contest judges. Current subscribers must submit the same $20 fee, and their CutBank subscriptions will be extended by one year. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your submission via Submittable immediately should it be accepted elsewhere (to withdraw a single poem, email us at editor.cutbank[at]gmail[dot]com). We are unable to offer refunds.

Entrants will be notified of their submission status no later than March 15, 2015. One winner will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 83, our summer 2015 issue. Winners will be required to complete a W-9 form to receive payment. All manuscripts are considered for publication in CutBank. All rights to selected manuscripts revert to the author upon publication. The author grants their permission to have their work electronically archived as part of CutBank 83 in EBSCO International’s subscription-based research database. Current University of Montana students and faculty and former CutBank staff are not eligible for the awards.