Judge: Tony Hoagland
Submission Dates: January 1 March 31, 2007 by email or regular mail
Awarding publication of a book-length collection and $1000.00
Open to any poet writing in English who is a citizen of the United States.
Finalists not chosen as the winner by the judge will be considered by the editors for publication outside of the contest. The press has a history of publishing finalists, but is under no obligation to do so.
By mail:
Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript by regular mail (USPS only).
Please include a completed Entry Form. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PAPER ENTRY FORM. (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the Entry Form.)
Your cover page must have the title of your work and all of your contact information, including your email address if you have one. A second cover page should have just the title of your work, no other contact info.
If you’d like, you may include the following: biographical data (limited to one page if
included), and an acknowledgments page listing previous publications. Please note that the
biographical info WILL be separated from the manuscript. It will NOT travel to the readers or to the judge. It is ok to submit your collection to us even if none of the poems have appeared in journals or magazines.
No more than one poem per page, please. More than one section of a poem can appear on a page, of course.
No page limit, but we recommend a length of between 45 and 80 pages of poetry. This page limit does not include your title page, notes, etc. Do not include art work.
Please use a legible font of at least 11 point.
Include an entry fee of $25 with each your submission, by check, made payable to Four Way Books. A stamped self-addressed postcard may be included to confirm receipt of manuscript. Multiple submissions may be mailed together in the same envelope, or not.
Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Material in your
manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished.
Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.
Mail material to:
Four Way Books
POB 535 Village Station
New York NY 10014
By email:
Fill out our online entry form, and follow the directions for online credit card payment on our secure site at www.fourwaybooks.com. The fee for entering the contest is $25.00.
Your entry information will be sent to us, and you will be assigned an online entry number. You will receive an email with all of the following instructions for submitting you manuscript. Once your manuscript is received, you will receive another email. Give us time to respond, please.
Email the manuscript as a single attached document to 2007prize@fourwaybooks.com.
Send the document in either Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format
Name the document your entry number (i.e. CN1032.doc or CN1032.rtf)
Please title your email with the attachment:
[YOUR ENTRY NUMBER] – LEVIS PRIZE ENTRY
Our Reading Policy
Each manuscript is delivered to our readers as a blind submission. That is, it is stripped of
identifying material. Only the manuscript, inclusive of any text notes, is sent to the readers and, if chosen as a finalist, to the judge. We do not give a list of submitters to the judge.
Our preliminary readers for the contest are selected by the director of the press and are
published poets, experienced editors, and/or poets who have received a graduate degree in
creative writing or literature. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We regularly rotate our readers. We do not use interns or students to read manuscripts.
Our readers select an average of 20-40 manuscripts as finalist selections. They look for work that is beautifully crafted—manuscripts that feel whole and well shaped. They do not try to second guess a judge’s preference. Rather, they look to present a wide range of excellent work to the judge.
Finalists are notified in May that their work will be sent to the judge. On occasion, a judge
may ask to see more work the judge may not ask for specific work by a specific writer, but may ask to see a wider sampling of strong work. If that is the case, the press reviews the submissions again and more manuscripts are sent on to the judge as finalists. Therefore, we do not inform the public of finalist selections since that list may grow after May.
The judge is instructed to notify the press of any indiscretions. If a finalist contacts the judge, that finalist will be disqualified. We ask that you do not participate in the contest if you have more than a casual relationship with the judge. We ask that the judge consider the
integrity of her/his decision, and the impact of that decision on herself/himself, the author, and the press.
If the judge does not select a winner, the press’s director and senior editor will select a finalist’s manuscript to publish. The judge has until Labor Day to choose a winner. Submitters who sent an SASE will be notified in writing, people who submitted electronically will receive e-mail notification.
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