Bass Clef Books
Cecilia ◊ Kentucky
BCB's
George Drew
Chapbook Contest
Feb. 15-June 15, 2026
Open for Submissions
$500
Grand Prize
+12 copies
Bass Clef Books wishes to create further opportunities for poets careers by offering a chapbook contest.
No AI generated junk.
Send no more than 30 pages of your best original poetry. Manuscripts should be submitted as a Word file, 12 point Courier or Times New Roman font.
Please include a cover page with the author's contact information and biography and an acknowledgments page listing previous publications.
The poet does not need previous publications.
Bass Clef Books asks for a $20 reading fee to help fund the contest, publication of the winning manuscript and promotion.
Winner receives $500 dollars and 12 copies.*
All finalists will be published by BCB.
We will accept only one entry from a poet. We attain North American First Serial Rights and reserve the right to use part of all publications to promote this press.
Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but entrants are asked to withdraw immediately if a manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Manuscript revisions are not permitted after submission unless warranted. We publish in a 5.5 X 8.5 inch format.
We ask that the manuscript does not include multiple tabulation or other nifty formatting--doing so makes publication difficult. We do not accept manuscripts that contain visual art.
Bass Clef Books may consider individual poem(s) from each submitted manuscript to be included in an anthology series which will be published at certain intervals. Publication of these poems may take up to one year.
Winner announced August 2026. Publication of book in Fall 2026.
Meet the JUDGE
In addition to Hog: A Delta Memoir (Bass Clef Books 2022), George Drew is the author of nine poetry collections, including Pastoral Habits: New and Selected Poems and The View from Jackass Hill, winner of the 2010 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, both from Texas Review Press, Fancy's Orphan, Tiger Bark Press, and Drumming Armageddon, Madville Publishing, 2020. Drew also has published a chapbook, So Many Bones: Poems of Russia. He has a new book of essays titled Just Like Oz (Madville Publishing). His biography appears in Mississippi Poets: A Literary Guide, U. of Mississippi Press, edited by Catherine Savage Brosman. In 2019, Drew collaborated with singer/songwriter Rick Kunz on a CD of original poetry and songs entitled A Triumph of Loneliness, KBW Music.
