Poetry is our favorite gift!

What a joy to announce that we’ve just published the first-place winner of our most recent chapbook contest, Skin Gin by Rose Maria Woodson.

ThisSkin Gin front cover thumbnail powerful chapbook won first place in our most recent contest, judged by the esteemed Judith Vollmer, who said, “Skin Gin keeps its clear eyes on naming, claiming, and justice where no justice is yet arrived. Rose Maria Woodson’s unifying voice is striking for its range of lyrical narratives, monologs, renunciations, and radiant still lives.”

Reginald Gibbons said of this chapbook, “These fierce, even despairing, evocations of the ineradicable continuity of racial discrimination are also a call to honor and soothe wounds of body and spirit. In the spirit of Gwendolyn Brooks, Woodson writes, ‘And know that we can be greater / than gravity. Knowing / there is sky & / there is flight,’ and all must hope that ‘light travels the ravel between.’ ”

The book also includes IN TRANSITION, an anthology of poems by contest finalists. All in all, this is an absorbing, engaging read for the intersectional feminist in your life – allow us to suggest it as a phenomenal gift for yourself or a loved one! Click here to order. All orders received through December 15th are guaranteed delivery by December 25th.

Reopening for submissions SOON!

Hello, dear ones! We’re excited to tell you that we’ll be opening for submissions to our second anthology in just a few weeks – on August 1st, 2019.

It was such an honor to read everyone’s submissions to our first anthology, and the resulting book is one we’re fiercely proud of. We realized, when we were in hibernation, that this was where we wanted to focus our energies as we returned from surviving to thriving.

If you’re interested in submitting to the anthology, you can check out the guidelines here.

We’re also working to publish the chapbooks that won our most recent contest, so stay tuned for more joyful announcements from QuillsEdge!

Announcing the results of our 2017 contest!

We are absolutely thrilled to share the results of our 2017 chapbook contest with you.

Please click here to view the full announcement. Warm congrats to our honorees, and tremendous thanks to our readers and our final judge, Judith Vollmer.

We can’t wait to publish these incredible books!!

One more day!

Hello friends, just checking in with a quick reminder that there’s one more day remaining in our third annual chapbook contest! The deadline for this year’s contest, “In Transition,” is Monday, January 15th, at 11:59 PM. Full guidelines are here, or you can go straight to our Submittable page to enter your manuscript. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s already submitted.

Also, if you are one of the few remaining submitters to the anthology who haven’t heard back, your poems are still under consideration for the handful of selections that remain. You will be hearing from us very soon. Thank you SO much for your patience as we agonize over all your incredible poetry. (This is the best of tasks, this is the worst of tasks… We aren’t complaining, believe us.)

Huge appreciation to each of you for being part of our community.

Anthology update

We’ve been getting gentle inquiries from submitters to our first anthology, wondering when the heck you’ll be getting a response. Fair question – and please know that we’re so grateful for both your submission and your patience.

If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, you’ve already heard that we were extremely fortunate to receive three times the number of expected submissions. (Personally, this definitely makes the top five list of the most wonderful “problems” I’ve ever had.) It is, of course, vital to us that we give each submitted poem our full attention and consideration, so the reading process has taken longer than anticipated. We apologize for the delay, and hope everyone can understand not wanting to rush through your poems.

The good news is that we’re now moving towards finalizing our selections. We’re working hard to respond to everyone by the end of the year – while administering our third annual chapbook contest, and putting the finishing touches on Vivian Faith Prescott’s gorgeous chapbook, Our Tents Are Small Volcanoes (intensely beautiful/beautifully intense inside and out), in order to get it to our printer posthaste.

So, if you’ve submitted to the anthology, please know that we have not disappeared into the ether – we’ve disappeared into your poems, and we love it there. You’ll hear from us soon.

Again, thanks for your patience and support! We are so lucky to share this community with you.

Midnight’s inching closer!

As we enter the final hours of our call for submissions for our first anthology, we find ourselves – perhaps ironically – beyond words. So many of you have chosen to share your work with us, and we are sincerely honored. To each of you who’ve already entrusted us with your submission, thank you, truly. If you’re working feverishly to get your poems or translations in before midnight, we can’t wait to read your work! Full guidelines, and the link to our Submittable portal, are here.

One other quick note – some people have asked why we charge submission fees. As a non-profit founded in 2014, we have a very small budget and are almost entirely volunteer-run. In order to produce beautiful, high-quality books, we have to fund the printing process; hence the fees. We do offer sliding-scale fees and fee waivers to keep from creating barriers for poets who are living with financial hardship.

Whether you’ve submitted your work yet or are waiting for the chapbook contest, or are still working on poetry you want to submit in the future, please know that if you’re part of this community, you have our endless thanks. 💜💜💜

Yay! Thank you!

Just a quick post to say hello, welcome, and THANK YOU to all our new blog followers and everyone else who’s connected with us recently! We’re so glad you’ve joined our community. It’s fantastic to know we’re not alone in wanting to celebrate the powerful, vibrant, and much-needed writing of women over 50. 

And if you’ve been supporting us for years, please know we appreciate you too! We’re thrilled about what the future can hold for all of us, all of you, together. 

Sooooooo… Have you submitted your entry for the anthology yet?? Don’t forget, the reading period closes at midnight on September 22nd – guidelines here.

And if you have submitted already, we hope you’re preparing your chapbook for this year’s contest, which opens on October 1st! More details to follow… 

Write on, sisters. 💜 

One more month for submissions!

By USFWS Mountain-Prairie (Sunflowers) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We want as many submissions as there are sunflowers in this field! Hey, a gal can dream, can’t she?

Summer’s drawing to a close, but as we approach the autmnal equinox, the thought foremost in our minds here at QuillsEdge Press is that there’s only one more month for submissions to our first anthology.

It’s such a thrill every time we’re notified of a new submission, and we’ve read so much great poetry during this reading period. We’re going to miss the daily excitement! But, of course, then we get to move to another exciting phase – creating a work of beauty and power with our selected poets’ writing. What an amazing thing to get to anticipate.

If you haven’t yet sent your work in, we urge you not to delay. The reading period ends at midnight Pacific time on September 22nd. We’d be honored to consider your work for 50/50: Poems & Translations by Women Over 50.

You can read the full guidelines on our website, or if you’re ready to take the plunge, you can review them on our Submittable page before you hit “send” on your submission.

We can’t wait to read your writing!

Now in Print: Unpacking the China

We’ve just gotten the good news from our wonderful printer: Unpacking the China has shipped! If you’ve already pre-ordered this gorgeous chapbook, we will be sending your copy ASAP via media mail. Look for it to arrive in the next 2-3 weeks.

If you haven’t yet ordered your copy, why wait? You can purchase our 2015-16 contest winner securely right here, for only $12 plus shipping:


Buy Now Button

Sarah Merrow’s chapbook is elegant in both content and form; Unpacking the China would make a beautiful gift for your sister, daughter, mother, best friend, partner, or any woman in your life who deserves and appreciates great poetry. You can get a sense of the book from its cover:

unpacking-the-china_cover_final

Thank you for your support of valiant women poets and small presses!