Two Sylvias Press Poetry Book Contest For Women Over 50

$1000 prize and they'll publish your poetry book or chapbook and send you twenty free copies.

Just a short post to share a find. If you write poetry, you already know it’s a slog to get your work into the world. And if you write poetry on a site like Medium, you know it pays peanuts because the read-times are short.

Two Sylvias Press is an independent press located in the Seattle area. They’ve been in business since 2010 and publish poetry, memoir, essays, books on the craft of writing, and creativity tools.

Why two Sylvias? They’re inspired by the literary talent of Sylvia Plath and the editorial and business sense of Sylvia Beach, who is known for her Paris bookstore, Shakespeare and Company.

They’ve been running a poetry book contest every year since 2015. Winner of the contest gets a thousand dollars and they’ll publish your book (or chapbook) and send you twenty free copies.

Fair warning, there is a $24 reading fee, so you should know that up front. If I had a book of poetry, I’d happily pay that much to have an established publisher read my work because time is a finite resource, but that’s a decision only you can make.

Deadline for submissions is Dec. 31, so when New Years bells ring, the doors close for the year. You can read the submission guide here.

They’re also on Substack offering weekly submission opportunities for poetry and a bunch of other stuff geared towards building a career as a poet, so if poetry is your thing, maybe worth checking them out.

If you know any women over 50 who write poetry, pass it on. And if you know other great resources for poets, feel welcome to add them in the comments.

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