The submission period for the Backwaters Press yearly poetry prize is now open, and ends May 1. Guidelines for the prize series can be found here. The judge for the 2023 contest is Hilda Raz. 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.

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 University of Nebraska Press.

The 2022 Backwaters Prize winner was Laura Reece Hogan of Los Angeles, California. Her winning collection, Butterfly Nebula, will be published this fall.