In collaboration with The Ivy Bookshop, the 1729 Prize is an annual contest provided by Mason Jar Press. Free to enter, with a $1,000 award.
Submit To The 1729 Book Prize in Poetry 2023
In collaboration with The Ivy Bookshop, the 1729 Prize is an annual contest provided by Mason Jar Press. Free to enter, with a $1,000 award and guaranteed publication, the Prize seeks the finest unpublished manuscripts of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
The 1729 Prize alternates yearly between Poetry and Prose. Our inaugural Prize in Poetry is currently being judged by Diane Zinna and our forthcoming Poetry Prize will be judged by Chen Chen. More details within
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About 1729 Book Prize in Poetry
The 1729 Book Prize in Poetry is a new award offered by Mason Jar Press with support from The Ivy Bookshop. Mason Jar is a Baltimore-based, nationally- and internationally-focused independent press of accessible, experimental fiction. The Prize seeks challenging, engaging works of fiction and nonfiction, utilizing a patron-based economic model—funded by the Ivy Bookshopt—that is free to all.
The Ivy is always eager to celebrate and support Baltimore's vibrant book culture, and is excited to collaborate with a press that is local in its base, national in its reach, and expansive in its sensibility.
Submission Guidelines The 1729 Book Prize in Poetry 2023
CALL
We open for prize submissions in April! Send us your book-length works of poetry from April 15, 2023 until midnight July 31, 2023. We tend to lean toward semi-experimental works with a strong literary bent. Hybrid works are welcome. 50–75 pages/poems is probably the sweet spot, but a little under or over is fine!
Again, we tend to prefer work that pushes the bounds of literary norms, but that isn’t to say we only like that. We welcome surprise. Try us (but only try us with book-length poetry). We’ll read it, and if we love it, we’ll publish it. One chosen manuscript will be published in 2024.
Submission cap: 500
WHAT WE WANT
- Collections of poetry
- Hybrid collections that are primarily poetry
- Translations of poetry (with written permission from original author)
- Poetry collections
- Experimental book-length works of poetry
WHAT WE DON'T WANT
- Novels
- Novellas
- Story collections
- Chapbooks
- Memoirs
- Auto/Biographies
- Essay collections
If you have something that you are unsure of, ask us before submitting.
Chen Chen
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Chen Chen’s second book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions), has been named a best book of 2022 by the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, NPR, and others. It is also a 2023 Notable Book according to the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), was long-listed for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry.
He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast.
Meet Our Readers:
We are a team and most of the MJP editors will dip a toe in this reading period (see masthead). In addition to our Staff Readers, we also recruit to give us more voices and different tastes. Below, read a little about our guest readers.
Abby Higgs (they/them) is a writer and professor. They are a graduate of The University of Baltimore's MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts program. Their work has appeared in The Guardian, Marie Claire, The Rumpus, and VICE, among other online and print publications. At present, they are (re)reading the works of Pablo Neruda, Wislawa Szymborska, Nikki Giovanni, Ocean Vuong, Ada Limón, and Danez Smith.
Kellie Scott-Reed is a songwriter, writer, and AEIC of Roi Faineant Press. She lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York. In spite of her cheerful disposition, she is fascinated with the dark side of humanity, and most of her written work is an investigation into her shadowy side. Her favorite poets are Rainer Maria Rilke, Jeff Tweedy, and Jericho Brown. Her favorite book of all time is Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.
CarlaJean Valluzzi (Senior Poetry Editor/Chapbook Designer at JMWW Journal) hails from the beautiful Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts, received her BFA from MassArt, and her MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. She creates {mostly} paper-based ephemera; assembles objects as well as words to suit the weather and other chaos-based phenomena. Birthdays are spent sleeping among wild ponies. Hand lettering comes naturally, and often appears on the windows and chalkboards of a local indie bookstore. A chapbook exists, You Can Not Click On This, as well as a full-length collection: Part With Never, and work will or has appeared in Espresso Ink, Artichoke Haircut, Hidden City Quarterly, the Found Poetry Review, Open Letters Monthly, The Light Ekphrastic, and elsewhere.
Ashley Elizabeth, author of you were supposed to be a friend & black has every right to be angry is a Black, queer writer and educator from Baltimore, MD. The highlight of her life was seeing Nikki Giovanni, but she also enjoys reading Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and Sandra Cisneros to name a few.
Christian Wills is an artist, poet, lyricist and 2020 University of Delaware graduate. Under the alias "Anthem", Christian has written and performed countless pieces, hosted a variety of open mic shows, and become apart of the Wilmington arts community. A few of his favorite writers are Langston Hughes, Eve L. Ewing, Robert Frost, and Phyllis Wheatley.
PRIZE AND PAYMENT
The winner will receive a $1,000 award, contributor copies, and quarterly profit-sharing. The contract will stipulate all further details.
TIMELINE
Due to the nature of contests, we will provide an outline of how we expect this to progress. Note that this is a good faith estimate and we may have to alter the time accordingly, particularly if we receive significantly more submissions than we expect. More details to come closer to the start of the contest.
July 31, 2023: Submissions close.
August 2023: First round of reading completed and status updates.
November 2023: Second round of reading completed and status updates.
December 2023: Third round of reading completed and status updates. Finalists announced.
April 1, 2024: Final round of reading completed, status updates, and Winner Announcement.
Spring, 2025: Publication.
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