MVP Project 2012
The Many Voices Project is the distinguished annual competition (since 1981) to find new and emerging writers. (An emerging writer has not published more than two books of creative writing with a commercial, university, or national small press.)Our 2011 submission period is September 15 - November 1 (postmark), 2012. This year, there is a $25 entry fee to enter this book-length competition; there is also a required entry form, available HERE. Both the Prose Prize and the Poetry Prize this year are national prizes. The two winning manuscripts will be published in Fall 2014; each author receives a $1,000 honorarium and a standard book contract. All of our books are distributed nationally by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
The finalist judges for prose and poetry have not been announced.
Recent judges include Jack Driscoll, John Dufresne, Leif Enger, Alice Friman, Richard Hoffman, Ann Hood, Michael Hettich, Debra Marquart, David Mason, Antonya Nelson, Jay Parini, Ron Rindo, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Charles Simic, Joyce Sutphen, and Tim Seibles.
2012 MVP Submission Guidelines:
General
• Submit between Sept. 15 and Nov. 1, 2012.
• Submissions MUST include an entry form, available HERE.
• Include a $25 entry fee for each manuscript, made out to New Rivers Press.
• Include a self-addressed, stamped postcard for confirmation of receipt of ms. (optional)
• Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for result notification. (optional)
• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but notify NRP immediately of acceptance elsewhere. (If you fail to give such notification and your manuscript is selected, your signature on the entry form gives NRP permission to proceed with publication.)
• You may acknowledge individual poems, stories, and other pieces published in magazines, anthologies, or elsewhere, but such acknowledgments or your name can not appear in the manuscript itself, since judging is blind.
• Notify NRP in writing of address or telephone number changes.
• MSS. will be recycled.
Manuscript Preparation
• Send complete manuscript in a plain manila folder. We do not accept electronic submissions for the MVP Competition.
• Manuscript must be word processed on 8.5" x 11" paper, one-sided.
• Manuscript pages must be numbered.
• Include a cover sheet with name, address, and manuscript title.
• DO NOT include your name, address or acknowledgments on the manuscript pages; the judging is blind.
Poetry Specs
• Any eligible writer writing in English is eligible.
• Manuscript length: 50-80 pages.
• Single-spaced.
• No more than one poem per page.
Prose & Creative Nonfiction Specs
• Any eligible writer writing in English is eligible.
• Manuscript length: short stories and novellas (or a combination thereof), or personal essays: 100-200 pages. Novels and memoirs: up to 400 pages.
• Double-spaced.
Mailing Address
Submit your manuscript, entry form, and entry fee to:
Links:
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New Rivers Press was founded in 1968 by C. W. "Bill" Truesdale and has published more than 340 titles. In 2001, after Truesdale's death, Alan Davis and Wayne Gudmundson were instrumental in reviving and relocating it to MSUM, where its dual mission is to publish literary work of every character, with an emphasis on new and emerging writers, and to provide learning opportunities, including a Certificate in Publishing, for students in partnership with MSUM. The press honors Truesdale's progressive spirit by publishing work with a strong sense of place that speaks to our troubled times with satyagraha (the truthforce), empathy, and aesthetic courage.
New Books October 2011
The Animals Beyond Us, poems
Michael Hettich
"His poems are finely observed, precisely felt, and they bring magic to the domestic life, the real magic of language that has power to transform a world." ~John Dufresne, author
Dissolve, poems
Holaday Mason
"I love Mason's instructive intensity and will, her grace and ability to translate desire into something scary yet gorgeous." ~David Dodd Lee, author
Downriver People, fiction
Bea Exner Liu
"Americans should read, and ponder, this humane memoir of an American life in a China now massively, but not unrecognizably, transformed." ~Robert A. Knapp
Girl Held in Home, fiction
Elizabeth Searle
"...Elizabeth Searle uses her signature zany brilliance to turn suburbia, adultery, parenting, politics, and even terrorism into something new and insightful." ~Ann Hood, author
Hotel Utopia, poems
Robert Miltner
"[This] is a book of angles. These poems come from one bend in the mind, then another, from one tilt in the heart, then another. Whether the content is personal, mystical, or political, the voice is deliciously agile." ~Tim Seibles, author
The Muse of Ocean Parkway and Other Stories, short story collection
Jacob Lampart
"Not since The Magic Barrel have I read a short story collection that delivers such lacerating wit and tempered realism." ~C. Michael Curtis, editor