Moon City Poetry Award

Claudia Putnam Wins the 2020 Moon City Poetry Award

The editors of Moon City Press would like to congratulate Claudia Putnam of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, for winning the 2020 Moon City Poetry Award competition. Claudia’s book, The Land of Stone and River, will be published later this year and she will receive the $1000 prize.

Putnam lives in Western Colorado with her husband and some pets. She is a craniosacral therapist. The Land of Stone and River will be her debut collection. A chapbook, Wild Thing in Our Known World, is available from Finishing Line. Individual poems can be found in Rattle, Spillway, Tar River, Barrow Street, and in dozens of other journals. She writes prose as well, and has received several residencies, including from Phillips Exeter academy.

Thanks to everyone who entered this year’s contest. We received more entries than every before, so many fantastic books, making our decision harder and harder each year. We will be accepting entries for the 2021 competition through July 31:

Moon City Press Submission Manager – The 2021 Moon City Poetry Award (submittable.com)

The 2021 Moon City Poetry Award

• The Moon City Poetry Award is for an original collection of poems written in English by a single author.

• Individual poems in the collection may be published in periodicals or may have appeared in a chapbook, but poems should not be previously published in full-length manuscript form.

• Open to all writers not associated with Moon City Press, its editors, or its judges, past or present. Students, faculty, alumni, and staff of Missouri State University, past or present, are also ineligible.

• Manuscripts should be at least 48 pages long. Manuscripts should be submitted here, via Submittable, https://mooncitypress.submittable.com/submit

• A $25 entry fee is due via Submittable at the time of submission; entry fees are nonrefundable.

• Simultaneous submissions are permitted, though manuscripts should be withdrawn immediately if accepted elsewhere.

• Deadline: Extended to July 31, 2021. Winners will be notified Fall 2021 and the winner will be published in 2022.

• First prize: $1,000, publication by Moon City Press (including international distribution through the University of Arkansas Press), and a standard royalty contract. Ten additional finalists will be named and considered for publication.

• For questions, please contact Editor Karen Craigo at karen.craigo@gmail.com.

Past Winners Of The Moon City Poetry Award:

2019: Bret Shepard, Place Where Presence Was

2018: Kathy Goodkin, Crybaby Bridge

2017: Clayton Adam Clark, A Finitude of Skin

2016: Kerri French, Every Room in the Body

2015: Jeannine Hall Gailey, Field Guide to the End of the World

2014: Sarah Freligh, Sad Math

All titles are available through the Store page.