The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize
Each year, manuscripts by emerging and established poets are screened, in accordance with CLMP guidelines, by volunteer readers associated with The Journal and The Ohio State University English Department. Poetry Editor of The Ohio State University Press, Kathy Fagan, selects semi-finalists and Marcus Jackson, Series Poetry Editor, selects one full-length manuscript for publication by Mad Creek Books, the trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. In addition to publication under a standard book contract, the winning author receives the Charles B. Wheeler prize of $2,500.
Submissions open September 1st for the annual The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize.
- Entries of at least 48 typed pages of original poetry must be submitted electronically during the month of September. The submitter’s name or other identifying information should appear only on a separate cover page and not within the document. All manuscripts will be read and judged anonymously.
- Manuscripts must be previously unpublished. Some or all of the poems in the collection may have appeared in periodicals, chapbooks, or anthologies, but these must be identified in an acknowledgments page.
- A nonrefundable handling fee of $28.00 will be charged for each entry. All entrants receive a one-year subscription to The Journal.
Please direct all inquiries to prize@thejournalmag.org
The winning entry will be announced in January.
Submit via Submittable starting September 1st: https://thejournal.submittable.com/submit
About the Judge:
Marcus Jackson’s poems have appeared in such publications as The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, and Tin House. His second full-length collection of poetry, Pardon My Heart (Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly Books), is out this year. He lives with his wife and son in Columbus, Ohio, and he teaches in the MFA programs at Ohio State and Queens University of Charlotte.
About the 2017 Winner:
Susannah Nevison is the author Lethal Theater (forthcoming from Ohio State University Press, 2019), the recipient of the Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize from OSU/The Journal, and Teratology (Persea Books, 2015), the recipient of the 2014 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. Her honors include the 2014 Patricia Aakhus Prize from Southern Indiana Review, the 2013 American Literary Review Poetry Prize, an Academy of American Poets / Larry Levis Prize, and recent Pushcart Prize nominations in both poetry and nonfiction. Her poems, criticism, and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from The New York Times, Crazyhorse, Pleiades, The National Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, 32 Poems, Ninth Letter, The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, and elsewhere. She holds a B.A. from the University of Southern California and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where she also teaches creative writing.