The University of Nebraska Press is happy to announce that Hilda Raz will be the judge for the 2023 Backwaters Press Prize in Poetry competition. Raz is the editor of the Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series at the University of New Mexico Press and the poetry editor for ABQ (in)Print and Bosque Press. She is the author or editor of fourteen books, including her most recent book, Letter from a Place I’ve Never Been: New and Collected Poems, 1986-2020, edited by Kwame Dawes.

Submissions will be accepted April 1 through May 1. The winner will receive $2,000 and publication of their book. For more information, click here.

The 2022 winner is Laura Reece Hogan for Butterfly Nebula, which will be published this fall. The honorable mention is Henrietta Goodman for Antillia, which will be published in the spring of 2024. Both were selected by Christine Stewart-Nuñez, the 2019-2021 Poet Laureate of South Dakota.

Founded in 1997, the Backwaters Press has published award-winning books by some of America’s finest writers. The University of Nebraska Press acquired the Backwaters Press in 2018, with its impressive backlist in poetry and prose that contributes to the cultural landscape of our state and region. As a general interest imprint of UNP, the Backwaters Press continues to plant its roots firmly in the Great Plains, delighting readers with literature of enduring value and consequence. Nebraska is proud to announce that titles under the Backwaters Press imprint will be available as ebooks as well.

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