Michigan Writers Publications

Please include a cover letter with your name, address, e-mail address, phone number, submission title, and a short bio. Contact information should be included with each submission, even if you are sending multiple submissions at the same time. Do NOT mail hard copies.

Current and back issues are available in local and regional bookstores. These retailers include:

• Horizon Books, Traverse City and Petoskey
• Dog Ears Books, Northport
• Bookmark, Mt. Pleasant
• Leelanau Books,  Leland
• Cottage Books, Glen Arbor
• Between the Covers, Harbor Springs
• Brilliant Books, Suttons Bay
• Everybody Reads, Lansing
• The Bookman, Grand Haven

The latest issue of the journal, shown below, included the work of Fleda Brown, Benjamin Busch, Conrad Hilberry, John Mauk, Mennifer Metsker, Tim Nielsen, Jack Ridl, Melissa Seitz, Holly Wren Spaulding, Duncan Sprattmoran, and others.

Michigan Writers Cooperative Press

Chapbook Contest Submission Guidelines

Each year, the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press (MWCP) publishes winners of its chapbook contest. The purpose of the press is to help writers publish their first book in a literary genre. Poetry, short-story collections, and works of creative nonfiction will be considered. Selection is based on literary merit not genre. In past years, MWCP has published up to three winners. Readers specializing in each genre carefully consider and jury each eligible submission.

We are pleased to announce final judges for this year’s contest: Thomas Lynch (poetry), Lia Purpura (creative nonfiction), and Patricia Ann McNair (fiction). These esteemed authors will make final decisions and provide testimonials for each of the winning entries. Testimonials can be used on the back cover of the chapbooks and in other promotional materials.

As participants in the Cooperative Press, authors are expected to participate in the initial editing, public readings, book signings, and other activities necessary to successfully promote their books. They will also be required to share the design and printing costs—which depends on the number of books the author orders. MWCP pays for half of the initial print run, up to 100 copies.

The Chapbook Contest is open to all members of Michigan Writers, Inc. who hitherto have not been the sole or a primary author of a published literary book published by any type of press, including the MWCP. This means, for example, if you have authored a textbook on auto mechanics and want to publish in a literary genre, you may submit a manuscript to MWCP. However, if you previously published in a literary genre, i.e., a book of poetry with a commercial press, you are not eligible to enter the Chapbook Contest.

Not Eligible:

• You were one of two coauthors of an essay collection published by a juried press.
• You have a book of poems, short stories, or essays published by a juried, cooperative, commercial, or university press.
• You have won a chapbook contest sponsored by a cooperative or independent press or a publishing house.
• You had a novel or memoir published by a press.
• You are a director or the spouse or child of a MWCP or Michigan Writers, Inc. director.
• You are an adjudicator or volunteer for MWCP or the Michigan Writers, Inc.
• You have served on the Michigan Writers, Inc. board within twelve months of the contest posting.

Eligible:

• You were one of a multitude of authors who contributed to an edited collection of essays.
• You were the editor of an essay collection published by a juried press.
• You have had one or more poems published in a regional or national literary journal.
• You have had one or more short stories published in a regional or national literary journal.
• You have a textbook published.
• You have never had anything published.
• You have self-published a book in a literary genre.

Writers wishing to submit manuscripts for consideration must be members of Michigan Writers, Inc. If you wish to join or if your membership has lapsed, please send $40 for annual dues to:

Michigan Writers

P.O. Box 1505

Traverse City, MI 49685

Manuscripts will be accepted electronically through December 15, 2011, and must conform to the length available in a 40-page, 5.5 x 8.5-inch publication—roughly 10,000 words for prose or sixteen to twenty-three poems. Manuscripts longer than specified will not be read. Participants may submit only one manuscript per contest cycle. All work should be in a final draft form, thoughtfully revised, and carefully proofread.

Please attend to the following guidelines:

• Email submissions to mwcooppress@gmail.com
  
• Include your name and contact information in the body of the email.
• Attach your manuscript as a Word file or RTF.
• Submit prose in double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman text. (Poems need not be double-spaced.)
• Because the manuscripts will be read blind—readers will not know your name—please include two title pages: one with your name, the genre of the work, and contact information; and a second with only the title.
• Include the title of the manuscript (but not your name) at the top of each page.
• Number all pages.

If you have questions about whether your manuscript meets the above criteria, or if you have any other questions regarding the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press, please contact us: mwcooppress@gmail.com

Michigan Writers, Inc. will accept manuscripts until December 15, 2011. Publication decisions will be made by March 2012. Authors selected for publication are expected to participate in editorial revision, sign a contract with Michigan Writers, Inc., and provide a final digital copy of the manuscript. (If any portion of a submitted work has been published, authors must affirm that they hold clear copyrights to the material.)

Michigan Writers, Inc. reserves the right not to publish chapbooks during the annual MWCP cycle if there are no manuscripts judged suitable for publication.

Calendar of Events

Dec 15:                          Deadline for submission 
Dec 16 – Jan 15:            MW Chapbook Committee judging

Jan 15 – Feb 15:            Final Judging 

Feb 16:                          Winners notified and announced

Feb -- March:                 Editorial meetings; design/layout
March:                            Revisions due
April:                               Books to the printer.

TBA:                               Public reading event/ book launch

Announcing the 2011 Michigan Writers Chapbook Winners -

Denise Baker, for her collection of poems, Eat the Apple.

Joan Schmeichel, for Kisses for Laura, a short fiction.

Michigan Writers Cooperative Press hosted a reading and book signing to celebrate the winning manuscripts on June 19, 2011, at the Writing House on the campus of Interlochen Arts Academy.

Established in 2006, the Michigan Writers Cooperative press seeks to recognize emerging writers with connections to the Great Lakes State by publishing limited edition chapbooks of poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction. Past winners have gone on to receive fellowships, residencies, and to have full-length collections accepted for publication at other presses. This year’s winners were selected by two rounds of blind review. Final judges were Pulitzer Prize winning poet Stephen Dunn and widely acclaimed fiction writer, essayist, and Director of the Rainier Writing Workshop, Judith Kitchen. The chapbooks can be purchased at local bookstores in lower Northern Michigan.

~ About the Winning Authors ~

Denise Baker has served as Managing Editor of Dunes Review since 2008.  Her poetry has appeared in Bitter Oleander, Dunes Review, Whisper in the Woods and Branches.  She served as Assistant Editor of Whisper in the Woods nature journal from 2005 to 2008; Managing Editor of Monitor, Indiana’s environmental magazine, from 1990 to 2006; and as Editor of Labyrinth literary journal published by Indiana University’s Honors Division from 1986 to 1989.  Her environmental, outdoors and health writing has appeared in countless magazines, ghostwritten books and web sites.  She serves as Advancement Director at the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay with her husband Andy Knott, who is Executive Director. 

Joan Schmeichel and her husband Neill live in Kewadin, Michigan, where they moved permanently upon retirement. Previous to that, Joan was a development officer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has written numerous stories over the years, mainly for her own pleasure. “The Depression years left a deep impression on me,” Joan acknowledges, “(and) although Kisses for Laura takes place several years before my time . . . the circumstances were much the same.”  Joan has been published by D.C. Heath & Company in My Best Bear Hug, a children’s reader.