We are excited to invite you to participate in the Lexington Poetry Month Writing Challenge! This is a month-long writing marathon started by Hap Houlihan of the Morris book shop and Katerina Stoykova-Klemer of Accents Publishing to promote local poets and poetry. We are also proud to announce our collaboration with other local presses, such as Broadstone Books, Old Cove Press, the University Press of Kentucky, and Wind Publications, and other stores, including Sqecial Media, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
Who is eligible: Lexington Poetry Month is a celebration of the thriving creativity in and around our wonderful city of Lexington, Kentucky, so to participate you have to either: currently live in Lexington, have lived in Lexington, or simply love Lexington.
How does it work? Participating poets submit a new poem every day to lex.poetry.month (at) gmail.com and the poem will be posted within 24 hours on https://www.accents-publishing.com/blog/. Local, national or international celebrated writers will provide occasional writing prompts. Some of the participating poets may be asked to give interviews for the blog. To celebrate everyone’s hard work and creativity, the participating poets are invited to read from their new work at the Morris book shop at 5pm on Sunday, June 30th – the culminating event of Lexington Poetry Month!
How to sign up:
1. The sign-up period is between April 8th, 2013 (4/8/13) and May 31st, 2013 (5/31/13);
2. During the sign up period, purchase any poetry book published by a sponsoring publisher (Accents Publishing, Broadstone Books, Old Cove Press, the University Press of Kentucky, or Wind Publications) from a sponsoring bookstore (the Morris bookshop, Sqecial Media, or Joseph-Beth);
3. Send an email to lex.poetry.month (at) gmail.com with the following info: Name, Email, Which book you bought and when, 50-word bio, and 50 words or less on why you want to participate in Lexington Poetry Month.
For the list of registrants, click here.
*When one is writing under deadlines, not everything needs to see the light of day. Therefore, although you must submit a poem every day of the month, you may elect not to have it published on the blog. However, you must allow at least 10 of your poems to be published during the month. Of course, if you want all of your poems to be posted, that is most excellent.
**We reserve the right to reprint any submitted poems in an anthology or “best of” book.