Flume Press Chapbook Contest Guidelines

Submission period: August 25th — October 10th 

We're thrilled to announce this year's guest judge, Emily Lee Luan, author of 回 /Return, a winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and I Watch the Boughs, selected for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared inThe Best American Poetry 2021, American Poetry Review, Lithub, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Adelphi University and on the teaching faculty of Adelphi's low-residency MFA.

We invite you to submit chapbook manuscripts in poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, and hybrid forms. Chapbooks, in their relative brevity, function more like concept albums or curated collections in which the manuscript shows intentionality, whether through themes, forms, and/or narrative. We’re interested in manuscripts that invite surprise, invention, and genre bending. Collaborations are welcome. Inclusion of art or images will be considered, yet the writing should be the primary focus.

Guidelines:

Poetry: Submit between 18-25 pages

Prose: Up to 25 pages of prose (flash, long-form, novella, or a blend of genres), Please include a list of acknowledgements

• Your name and contact information should not appear anywhere in the manuscript
• Include a brief Cover Letter in the Submittable form
• A $15 entry fee must be paid at the time of submission. This money goes directly toward printing costs. We source environmentally responsible materials wherever possible.
• Manuscripts should be submitted in PDF or Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx) formats only. We recommend PDF formatting if you want to ensure that your page breaks, indentations, and other manuscript formats are as you intend.

All manuscripts will be read by the Flume Press editors. At least ten finalists will be sent to the contest judge, Emily Lee Luan. The winner will receive $300, plus ten copies of the chapbook. Our books are handmade, so the print run will be limited.

We only accept submissions through Submittable. Work sent by any other means will not be read. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know immediately if your manuscript has been accepted elsewhere.

Results will be announced in January 2027.

For students or those with financial limitation, please use this form for a no-fee submission in any writing genre. Refer to the guidelines below for specific submission details:

Fiction and Nonfiction:

One essay or story of up to 2500 double-spaced words (.doc, .docx, or .rtf format) may be submitted by an individual author per publishing period. Do not include any identifying information within the document.

Do not send previously published work (either online or print).

Include a short biographical statement highlighting literary, academic, and artistic achievement, interest or affiliation.

If you have been published recently by Watershed Review, please wait 6 months before submitting again.

Poetry:

Up to 4 poems, single-spaced, may be submitted by an individual author per publishing period. Please submit all poems in one file (.doc, .docx, .rtf) without any identifying information within the document.

Please list the poem titles in the "Title" section of this form (ex: The Fire Season, Former Ratio...")

Do not send previously published (either online or print) work.

Include a short biographical statement highlighting literary, academic, and artistic achievement, interest or affiliation.

If you have been published recently by Watershed Review, please wait 6 months before submitting again.

Up to 4 poems, single-spaced, may be submitted by an individual author per publishing period. Please submit all poems in one file (.doc, .docx, .rtf) without any identifying information within the document.

Please list the poem titles in the "Title" section of this form (ex: The Fire Season, Former Ratio...")

Do not send previously published (either online or print) work.

Include a short biographical statement highlighting literary, academic, and artistic achievement, interest or affiliation.

If you have been published recently by Watershed Review, please wait 6 months before submitting again.

One essay of up to 2500 double-spaced words (.doc, .docx, or .rtf format) may be submitted by an individual author per publishing period. Do not include any identifying information within the document.

We will consider personal essays, lyric essays, literary journalism, memoir, or hybrid prose.

Do not send previously published work (either online or print).

Include a short biographical statement highlighting literary, academic, and artistic achievement, interest or affiliation.

If you have been published recently by Watershed Review, please wait 6 months before submitting again.

One story of up to 2500 words double-spaced (.doc, .docx, or .rtf format) may be submitted by an individual author per publishing period. Do not include any identifying information within the document.

Only send previously unpublished work (either online or print).

Include a short biographical statement highlighting literary, academic, and artistic achievement, interest or affiliation.

If you have been published recently by Watershed Review, please wait 6 months before submitting again.