Ping Pong Free

$10.00 USD

Ping-Pong Free Press is an imprint of the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

Ping-Pong Free Press announces a prize and publication of for innovation in poetics. Writers are invited to submit poetry manuscripts of between 28-60 pages of original, unpublished poems. The winner will be selected by judge Melissa Broder. The first-place winner will receive a $500 cash prize, and 10 free copies of their book. The winning manuscript will be published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library. A list of the first, second and third place winners and runner-ups will be published on the Ping-Pong website. Your work will be carefully read because we care that you've taken the time to send all your pretties our way, and would send cookies to all your poems if we could, but hey, none of us have that kind of time.

All submissions must abide by the following competition rules and guidelines:

1. Submit through the online Submittable system.

3. Please submit manuscript in a single computer file. Use a common file format: *.doc and *.rtf preferable. Your name should not be anywhere on the manuscript. Submittable allows for a cover letter – in that cover letter, please give us your name, address, email, phone number, and the title of your manuscript. Manuscripts must be typed and paginated, between 28-60 pages in length. The first page of your packet or file must be a cover sheet. Type or print clearly your name, address, email address, phone number and anything you want to say about yourself. The first page of your manuscript should be your table of contents. Include the poems themselves (with titles) on subsequent pages, with each poem beginning a new page. No identifying personal information should appear on any pages with poems.

4. There is a non-refundable reading fee of $10 per entry, paid through Submittable. Remember that Henry Miller Memorial Library is a non-profit entity solely there to support other artists, the community, the environment and also to educate.

5. No current friends, relatives or students (within the last five years) of the judge can submit.

6. Open to writers, worldwide; poems must be written in English (no translations). No previously published works are acceptable unless acknowledged in an acknowledgment page at the beginning of your manuscript, and no works accepted for publication elsewhere. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but we must be notified immediately if any poems are accepted elsewhere. On Submittable, log in and add a note to your submission (under the “Activity” tab).

8. The winning poet and finalists will be invited to read at either the West Coast/East Coast release parties.

9. As with most things in life, failure to follow the specified guidelines will result in, well, failure in the form of an immediate rejection.

Our wondrous judge, Melissa Broder, is the author of four poetry collections: SCARECRONE, MEAT HEART, WHEN YOU SAY ONE THING BUT MEAN YOUR MOTHER, and the forthcoming LAST SEXT (Tin House, 2016).

She is also the author of the essay collection, SO SAD TODAY (Grand Central, March 2016). Which is a collection of essays from her viral Twitter account of the same name. She is also does a monthly horoscope column for Lenny Letter.

Poems appear in POETRY, The Iowa Review, Tin House, Guernica, Fence, The Missouri Review, Denver Quarterly, Washington Square Review, Redivider, Court Green, The Awl, Drunken Boat, et al. You can read the online ones HERE.

By day, she is Director of Media and Special Projects at NewHive.

Broder received her BA from Tufts University and her MFA from City College of New York.

She lives in Venice, CA.

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