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.

This 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.

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!

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!!

We and our team of readers are in the process of finalizing the 2017 chapbook contest entries and narrowing down this year’s finalists. Sorry for the delay in the process, but we are all set to announce the finalists by the end of April, after which they will be read and judged by the phenomenal Judith Vollmer.

We are honored to be spending time with your work and promise to get back to you soon! At that time, we will also be announcing the names of the poets selected for the 50/50 Anthology.

We thank you for your patience and really appreciate you being part of our vibrant community of poets.

In poetry,
Ann & Anu

Hello dear subscribers and submitters!

We hope everyone is enjoying these last few days of the holiday season and gearing up for the start of a new year.

We understand that the holidays can be extremely hectic for most of you, and a New Year’s Day deadline can be hard to meet, so in the spirit of all things new, we have extended our Chapbook Contest deadline to January 15, 2018. We hope this will give you all a chance to relax and take a deep breath, look over your submissions, and submit your best work to us! We look forward to your work, and we promise to give it our best attention!

Wish you all a very happy 2018!

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.

We’re very excited to bring to you our 2017 Chapbook Contest, all set to launch tomorrow! And we’re honored to have the amazing Judith Vollmer as the contest judge. Please click here for the guidelines. We look forward to reading your manuscripts!

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. 💜 

Calloo, callay! QuillsEdge Press is open for submissions to our first Fifty Over Fifty anthology, and we can hardly wait to read your poems and translations. Check out the guidelines here: Fifty Over Fifty Anthology and send us your work via our online submissions portal here: QuillsEdge on Submittable.

Thank you for trusting us with your work, and happy spring, dear poets!