In case you haven’t heard, we extended our publishing program! UNP acquired The Backwaters Press earlier this year and will continue it’s yearly poetry prize.

The submission period begins today and ends May 31. Guidelines for the prize series can be found here.

The Backwaters Prize in Poetry, an international poetry book competition initiated by The Backwaters Press in 1998, has produced award-winning books by some of America’s finest authors. Building upon an impressive backlist in poetry and prose that contributes to the cultural landscape of our state and region, one poetry manuscript is selected each year by a committee of preliminary judges and one final judge for inclusion in this series. The selected volume is published by the UNP.

The 2018 Backwaters Prize winner was John Sibley Williams from Portland, Oregon. His winning collection, Skin Memory, will be published in November.