driftwood

The 2023 Adrift Chapbook Contest

Results 

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We are excited to announce that Stafanie Kirby's Fruitful has been chosen by Carolyn Hembree as this year's winner of the Adrift Chapbook Contest! Here is a wonderful blurb from Carolyn about the  collection: 

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"Stefanie Kirby's Fruitful is a remarkable lyric sequence about raising children during a
pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage. If Chekhov advised that fraught subject matter
be written 'somewhat colder,' then these expertly-crafted poems must have been
written at absolute zero in Kelvin. The effect is a kind of creeping dread that increases
with every line we read. A singular imagination, Kirby creates a new world, a world of
intimate pain where 'a wolf made of bees, the fur a soft buzz,' follows the speaker
whose 'milk rings itself like an ocean" and whose 'womb stacks / itself into cold, / neat
cubes on / the linoleum.' This poetry just contains the unbearable—though contain it
must—for 'to go under again would be to drown.'"

​                                                                                                       - Carolyn Hembree

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We also want to give a huge thank you to our finalists. Their work wowed us, and it was an honor to read their poems.

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• Luisa Caycedo-Kimura's Queridas tias

• Christopher Smith's Twenty-One Covers of a House on Fire 

• Robert Laidler's Epistle

• Beth Gordon's The Flat Circle

• Geoff Anderson's Immortal Once

• Emily Duffy's Miradouros

• Melinda Freudenberger's Dog Woman

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Finally, we thank everyone who submitted to this contest. We love being able to share chapbooks with our readers, and it is an honor to receive so much amazing work. 

Timeline

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• Submissions are open from March 1st 2023 until July 31st 2023.

• Finalists and winner will be announced by Driftwood editors in November 2023.

• The winning chapbook(s) will be published in 2024.

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Guidelines

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• Poetry only. Prose poetry, experimental poetry, and poetry with a visual component (color images accepted) are all welcome.

• 15-40 pages of poetry (this does not include title, section break, or acknowledgement pages). We won't turn you away if you are a few pages over or under, but please stay close to that limit.

• A standard, 12-point font is preferred. 

• Poems may have been published individually, but not as a collection.

• Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please let us know immediately if the collection has been accepted elsewhere.

• Submit works written in English only, no translations.

• Please submit your manuscript in a .doc, .docx, or PDF format.

• We read submissions blindly, so please do not include your name, email, or any identifying characteristics on the manuscript itself.

• Base submission cost is $13 USD. 

Awards

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• The winner will receive $750 dollars and 20 copies of their chapbook.

• A print run of the winning chapbook will be sold on our website, through affiliate bookstores, and will be nationally and internationally distributed by Ingram. 

• The winner will also have the opportunity to be interviewed about their work; the interview will be published in the chapbook following the poems.

• The managing poetry editor may offer a runner-up full publication. If a runner-up is chosen, they will be awarded $350, 20 contributor copies, and the same level of marketing and distribution. 

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Past Contest Winners

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           [2022 Contest]           

           [2021 Contest]

[2020 Contest]

[2019 Contest]

[2018 Contest]

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