This contest is currently closed.

The Hudson Prize

Each year Black Lawrence Press will award The Hudson Prize for an unpublished collection of poems or prose. The prize is open to new, emerging, and established writers. The winner of this contest will receive book publication, a $1,000 cash award, and ten copies of the book. Prizes awarded on publication.

Entry Period: January 1 - March 31 How to submit ›

How to Submit

Black Lawrence Press accepts submissions and payment of the entry fee ($28) exclusively through our online submission manager, Submittable. We are not able to accept submissions via email or postal mail.

Beginning with the 2014 Hudson Prize competition, all entries will be read blind by our panel of editors. Manuscripts should include a title page (listing only the title of the work), table of contents, and when appropriate, an acknowledgments page. Manuscripts should be paginated and formatted in an easy-to-read font such as Garamond or Times New Roman. Manuscripts should be 45-95 pages in length (poetry) or 120-280 pages in length (prose), not including front and back matter (table of contents, title page, etc.). Identifying information for the author should not be included anywhere on the manuscript itself. You are welcome to include a brief bio or something about yourself in your cover note on Submittable, which will only be made accessible to the editorial panel after the group of Semi-Finalist and Finalist manuscripts has been chosen.

Manuscripts containing individual stories, essays, or poems that have been previously published online or in print are absolutely eligible–please simply note previously published work on an acknowledgments page. On the other hand, if your manuscript has been previously published as a collection (including publication with a press, self-publication, online/digital publication, and publication in a small, limited-edition print run), then the manuscript is not eligible.

  • Simultaneous submissions are acceptable and encouraged, but please notify us by withdrawing your manuscript on Submittable immediately if it is accepted for publication elsewhere.
  • Multiple submissions (the submission of more than one manuscript to the contest) are permitted.
  • Collaborative collections are welcome.
  • Hybrid/multi-genre submissions are also welcome; please enter under the submission category that best fits your work.

Need help with our submissions manager?
Visit http://help.submittable.com

We look forward to reading your work!

2022 Winner

JoeAnn Hart

for Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival

JoeAnn Hart is the author of the memoir Stamford ’76: A True Story of Murder, Corruption, Race, and Feminism in the 1970s (University of Iowa Press). Her novels are Float (Ashland Creek Press) a dark comedy about plastics in the ocean, and Addled (Little, Brown) a social satire. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in a wide range of literary publications, including the Future Tense column of Slate.com, the anthology Among Animals 3, the anthology Fire & Water: Stories From the Anthropocene, Orion, The Hopper, Prairie Schooner, The Sonora Review, Terrain.org, the anthology Black Lives Have Always Mattered, and others. Her work often explores the relationship between humans and their environments. She lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts with her husband and a mixed bag of rescue livestock. Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival is her first story collection.

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