Caketrain Journal and Press is proud to announce our 2007 Caketrain Chapbook Competition, the third in our now-annual series of chapbook competitons. We’re very excited for this year’s competition and the impressive manuscripts that are sure to emerge.

Each year, we bring a special guest into the selection process, a writer whose work we hold in very high regard, and this year is no exception: for 2007, we are honored and humbled to announce that Claudia Rankine will serve as our final judge. Claudia is the author of four collections of poetry: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf Press, 2004), Plot (Grove Press, 2001), The End of the Alphabet (Grove Press, 1998), and Nothing in Nature Is Private (Cleveland State University Press, 1994). She is coeditor, with Juliana Spahr, of American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language. She has taught at Barnard College, University of Georgia, and in the writing program at the University of Houston. Her accolades include an Academy of American Poets fellowship and the praises of Robert Creeley, Barbara Guest, Charles Bernstein, Lyn Hejinian, David Lehman, and many, many others.

The winner of the competition receives a $250 cash prize and 25 copies of their chapbook. The chapbook will be published in a 200-copy run on sixty-pound, acid-free text stock bound with a full-color cover. We hear we’ve put together some gorgeous books so far; to see how they’ve turned out, please check out our previous winners, Elizabeth Skurnick’s Check-In (2005) and Tom Whalen’s Dolls (2007).

Our guidelines have been slightly revised and updated this year. For the entrants’ convenience, we are now accepting competition entries in both print and electronic formats. Please follow the guidelines for your chosen format, as detailed below.

Eligibility (Print and Electronic):

This competition is open to poetry* manuscripts written in the English language. While previously-published poems may be included in the manuscript, the manuscript as a whole must be an unpublished work. Translations and previously self-published works are ineligible. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable; please note, however, that reading fees are non-refundable, and notify Caketrain as soon as possible if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Manuscript revisions will not be considered during reading period. Please do not include cover artwork or photographs with your submission. Author must not have a close personal or professional relationship with Claudia Rankine or any Caketrain Journal and Press staff member; if an author is unsure whether this policy applies to him or her, Caketrain will gladly address inquiries.

Print Format:

Print entries must be postmarked no later than October 1, 2007. Please submit 20 to 35 pages of typed poetry. Include page numbers, table of contents, and, if necessary, an acknowledgments page. Submissions should include two cover pages: one with the manuscript’s title, the other with the title, author’s name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. The author’s name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript. Please do not send original manuscripts; print manuscripts will be recycled at competition conclusion. Please submit manuscripts through the United States Postal Service. A reading fee of $20 must accompany each submission, made payable to Caketrain Journal and Press. Submissions may include an SASE for notification of competition results. If an SASE is not included, notification will be sent via e-mail. A list of winner and finalists will also be announced at www.caketrain.org. Submit print entries to Caketrain Journal and Press, Box 82588, Pittsburgh, PA 15218.

Electronic Format:

Electronic entries must be received no later than October 1, 2007. Please submit 20 to 35 pages of poetry as an e-mail attachment in either DOC, PDF, or RTF format. Include page numbers, table of contents, and, if necessary, an acknowledgments page. Submissions should include two cover pages as the first two pages of the attached document: one with the manuscript’s title, the other with the title, author’s name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. The author’s name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript. Once the manuscript has been sent, the $20 reading fee can be paid by credit card through Paypal by using this link. A reply e-mail will be sent once the manuscript is downloaded and verified as readable and functioning. Notification of contest results will sent via e-mail, and a list of winner and finalists will be announced at www.caketrain.org. Submit electronic entries to [email protected].

*A Quick Note on “Poetry”: As you probably know, we’re quite comfortable with pp/ff and other hybrid-genre/form-mutants, so imagine this word as a large and welcoming umbrella with a gathering of people and animals and things underneath, milling about, mixing drinks, etc.

Caketrain is a literary journal and press based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our interest is in bringing you, reader, the very best in contemporary creative writing, full stop. Our goals are for each issue of our journal to submerge you in a birthing tank for gelatinous language monsters, young masses of tentacular foci undulating as directed (in all, at once) by our eclectic stable of contributors; for each new book we publish to seduce and ensnare you, sometimes intangibly, always undeniably; and for you, reader, to be able to draw at least one passage from our banks that prods your mind with such precision and power that it feels as if it was written for your eyes alone. To wit and to whet, here is a snippet, a slight nip of our delicious lit mix:

Copyright 2003-2006 Caketrain Journal and Press. Rights to literature revert to their respective authors.
ISSN 1547-6839.

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