Category Archives: Contest

Any contests Accents Publishing runs, whether it’s to publish new chapbooks or book giveaways.

2014 Poetry Chapbook Contest

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Accents Publishing is happy to announce its 2014 Poetry Chapbook Contest.Two winners will be selected – one by an independent judge, Patty Paine, and one by the Senior Editor and founder of Accents Publishing, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. Each winner will have his/her submission published and will receive a $300 cash prize and 30 perfect-bound copies.

All contest entries will be considered for regular publication with Accents Publishing, as well.

We will accept submissions that are entered through Submittable or postmarked on or before April 30th. Winners will be announced in June. The contest is open to any poet writing in English. Employees of Accents or family members of judges are ineligible to participate. Simultaneous submissions will be accepted, but please notify us immediately if your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts should conform to the following guidelines:

  • 16 to 36 pages of poetry
  • Table of contents
  • Single spaced
  • Numbered pages
  • 11 pt font minimum

Your name should not appear anywhere within the manuscript. Please do not send the only copy of your work, as manuscripts will be recycled.

The entry fee is $15.00. Multiple submissions are allowed, but each requires a separate entry fee.

To enter, you may either submit your manuscript electronically through Submittable or mail a printed manuscript to Accents Publishing.

If you are submitting electronically, please follow the instructions here. You will be prompted to upload your manuscript and pay the entry fee during the submission process.

If you are submitting a printed copy through the mail, be sure to include a cover page with your name, the title of your manuscript, and your contact information (address, phone, and email). Please send your complete submission, along with a check or money order for $15.00 (payable to Accents Publishing) to:

Accents Publishing
Attn: Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
P.O. Box 910456
Lexington, KY 40591-0456
U.S.A.

Thank You and Good Luck!

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer and the team at Accents Publishing

The Season of Delicate Hunger: Enter to Win a Free Copy!

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The Season of Delicate HungerFollow this link and you can enter to win a free copy of The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry.

The Season of Delicate Hunger is a 334-page collection of contemporary Bulgarian poetry, containing 197 translations of works by 32 Bulgarian authors. All of these authors are alive, writing and actively participating in the Bulgarian poetry scene. They represent a diversity of talent, ranging in age from 72 to 21, with each at a unique stage of his or her career.

Click here to enter on Katerina’s GoodReads page!

Carnegie LGBT Writing Contest

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The Carnegie Center front lawn

The Carnegie Center front lawn

The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning is having their annual LGBT Writing Contest. The contest is open to all writers focusing on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender themes.

The Carnegie Center has been very supportive of Lexington literary arts and Accents in particular, so please show them support; even if you don’t intend on entering, help spread the word by passing this along to any writers you know who may be interested. Thanks!

(Official Announcement from the Carnegie Center)

SUBMIT YOUR WORK TO THE CARNEGIE LGBT WRITING CONTEST

The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning welcomes writers of fiction, nonfiction and poetry to submit to the 3rd annual LGBT Writing Contest. The contest seeks new writing focused on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). All writers are welcome.

The LGBT Writing Contest is supported by a generous grant from JustFundKY. One winner will be chosen in each of three categories (fiction, nonfiction & poetry) and each winner will receive a cash prize of $200. LGBT writers and writers of LGBT-themed works are welcome to submit manuscripts of fiction and nonfiction prose (up to 2,000 words per entry) or poetry (up to 5 poems per entry).There is a $10 fee per entry, payable to the Carnegie Center. Participants must be Kentucky residents.

Entries should include a cover sheet with writer’s name, address, email address and phone number. Names should NOT appear on the rest of the manuscript. Entries must be postmarked (or dropped off) by Friday, December 20, 2013, at 5 pm. Send or deliver entries to: LGBT Writing Contest, c/o Carnegie Center, 251 W. Second St., Lexington, Ky. 40507.

Silas House (Eli the Good, Coal Tattoo) and Jason Howard (A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music) will serve as a contest judges for the third year in a row. Contest winners and honorable mentions will be invited to read excerpts of their work at a public reading event at Carnegie slated for Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014 at 6 pm.

Accents Publishing 2014 Poetry Chapbook Contest

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Accents Publishing is happy to announce its 2014 Poetry Book Contest. Two winners will be selected – one by an independent judge, Patty Paine, and one by the Senior Editor and founder of Accents Publishing, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. Each winner will have his/her submission published and will receive a $300 cash prize and 30 perfect-bound copies. All contest entries will be considered for regular publication with Accents Publishing, as well.

We will accept submissions that are entered through Submittable or postmarked on or before April 30th. Winners will be announced in June. The contest is open to any poet writing in English. Employees of Accents or family members of judges are ineligible to participate. Simultaneous submissions will be accepted, but please notify us immediately if your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts should conform to the following guidelines:

  • 16 to 36 pages of poetry
  • Table of contents
  • Single spaced
  • Numbered pages
  • 11 pt font minimum

Your name should not appear anywhere within the manuscript. Please do not send the only copy of your work, as manuscripts will be recycled.

The entry fee is $15.00. Multiple submissions are allowed, but each requires a separate entry fee.

To enter, you may either submit your manuscript electronically through Submittable or mail a printed manuscript to Accents Publishing.

If you are submitting electronically, please follow the instructions here. You will be prompted to upload your manuscript and pay the entry fee during the submission process.

If you are submitting a printed copy through the mail, be sure to include a cover page with your name, the title of your manuscript, and your contact information (address, phone, and email). Please send your complete submission, along with a check or money order for $15.00 (payable to Accents Publishing) to:

Accents Publishing
Attn: Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
P.O. Box 910456
Lexington, KY 40591-0456
U.S.A

Patty Paine is the author of Feral (Imaginary Friend Press), Elegy & Collapse (Finishing Line Press), and co-editor of Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry (Garnet Publishing & Ithaca Press). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts, The Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, The Journal and many other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar where she teaches writing and literature, and is assistant director of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Scotch Tape World: Book Release and Giveaway!

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Scotch Tape WorldTom C. Hunley’s Scotch Tape World is now available from Accents Publishing! As part of the launch festivities, we are giving away a free copy of the book to one lucky poet who can follow Mr. Hunley’s writing prompt and post a poem in the comments below.

Usually after I finish reading a book of poems, I try to write a poem, using the following method, which I invite you to try.

Step One:  Look closely at the book’s table of contents, and underline two-to-five word phrases that intrigue you in several of the titles.

Step Two:  Combine phrases from two or more titles from that book, creating a new title that intrigues you.  Tweak the phrases as needed.  For example, after reading Bender by Dean Young, I combined elements of two of his titles, “Scarecrow on Fire” and “Shadow on Water” to form the title “While We Were On Fire, Our Shadows Glided on Water.”

Step Three:  Underline favorite phrases or lines from at least fifteen poems in the book.

Step Four:  Write a poem using the title from step two.  Let the body of the poem be guided by that title and by the phrases and lines that you copied in step three.  For example, after underlining “flames rush in smudges / like lovers who must pass through one another” in Dean Young’s poem “The Afterlife,” I began my poem with these lines:  “The flames were not literal though they / embraced like passionate drunken lovers.”

Step Five:  Keep writing until you get stuck.  Once you get stuck, turn to the next underlined phrase or line in the book.  For example, Dean Young’s lines “I didn’t know how alone I was / until they brought out more chairs” (“Beloved Infidel”)  led me to write “I didn’t know / how alone I could feel until an airplane / put 3,000 miles between us” which led to about fourteen lines that had nothing to do with Young’s poems, lines about a couple acquaintances of mine who had passed away.  When that train of thought stopped at its station, I glanced at Young’s poem “Bivouacked & Garrisoned Capitol” and saw “April snow vanishes / like footprints” underlined, which led me to write, of one of my deceased acquaintances, “He later vanished like April snow, and I received / the funeral announcement a week too late.”

-Tom C. Hunley

Remember: post your poem in the comments below for a chance to win Tom C. Hunley’s Scotch Tape World! For the rest of you, Scotch Tape World is now available from the Accents store and the Morris Book Shop!

“Hunley’s ability to render his love and bewilderment precisely in his poems is unique and necessary.”

-Shane McCrae

Tom HunleyTom C. Hunley is an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University and the director of Steel Toe Books. Among his previous books are The Poetry Gymnasium (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012); Annoyed Grunt (Imaginary Friend Press, 2012); Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2010, Gold Invitational Series); Octopus (Logan House, 2008, Winner of the Holland Prize); Teaching Poetry Writing: A Five-Canon Approach (Multilingual Matters LTD., 2007, New Writing Viewpoints Series); My Life as a Minor Character (Pecan Grove, 2005, winner of a national chapbook contest); Still, There’s a Glimmer (WordTech Editions, 2004); and The Tongue (Wind Publications, 2004). He divides his time between Kansas and Oz.

Communion Poetry Contest Winner

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Steven LindberghUpdate July 19, 2013:
Steven Lindbergh sent us a painting and biography in verse. Due to technical difficulties, we could not post them with the original announcement.

Steven says he prefers “to spread my spirit rather than the mundane details of my life”, which is why he submitted a biography in verse. And due to last year’s battle with cancer, he decided to submit a painting instead of a photograph.

The biographical verse is directly below and under that is the original announcement (with the prize-winning poem). Please thank Steven for his great work! And we are so moved that we are able to reach such a broad range of people from all over the world. Thank you so much!

My biography began when I first birthed
Thought-breath-word to bloom
Beyond myself and the words were
Reborn when I stopping judging them
And by doing freeing them, giving
Them the way they knew
To go dripping, flowing out to
You and they are me this
Love and respect and hope and strength and faith and beauty
This fear and anger and weakness and ugliness
All the rest
My life in words is
All I am
Regardless of exhaustion, of loss, of desperation, of alienation, of cancer and
This is and they are why
I love and am
God’s servant
.                                                                   -Steven Lindbergh Continue reading →

Writing Prompt and Chapbook Giveaway w/ Nettie Farris

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CommunionThroughout Lexington Poetry Month, we had a few prompts from celebrated poets, such as Nikky Finney, Martha Gehringer, Rebecca Gayle Howell, and Maurice Manning. The best part was watching how you all used the prompts for inspiration, crafting new poems you otherwise might never have written.

With that in mind, and to celebrate the release of our newest chapbook, we have invited Nettie Farris, author of Communion, to provide today’s prompt:

“What’s your favorite letter of the alphabet?”

Think for a moment, write down a poem, and then post it in the comments section below. And best of all, whoever’s (whomever’s?) poem Nettie likes most gets a free copy of Communion courtesy of Accents Publishing.

So bust out the pens and get to it!

(The deadline for this contest is 11:59PM on this upcoming Saturday, July 13th. The winner will be announced early next week.)

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