bpNichol Chapbook Award – 2022 Call for Submissions opens

The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2021), and the poet(s) must be Canadian.

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible, as long as the translator is Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada. Chapbooks by two or more poets who are Canadian or permanent residents of Canada are also eligible.

Please include the Submission Form with your entry.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile, a brief CV of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, email address, and telephone number) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The opening date for receipt of submissions is February 17, 2022, and they will be accepted until May 31, 2022. If submission confirmation has not been received by email by June 30, 2022, please send a query to Gary Barwin at himself@garybarwin.com.

Please send submissions to:
Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
c/o 180 Dufferin St. Hamilton ON L8S 3N7

The cash prize to the author has been generously donated by an anonymous donor. The prize to the publisher has been generously donated by writers Karl Jirgens and Michael Dean. All chapbooks submitted are archived at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award, but member-publishers forgo the prize money.