Submissions for the 2025Coniston Prize will be open between June 1 and August 1, 2025. The Judge will be announced before submissions open.
About
The Coniston Prize is an annual award that recognizes an exceptional group of poems by a woman writing in English. Any poet who identifies as a woman is eligible.
Past Winners & Judges
2024: Nina C. Pelaez, selected by January Gill O’Neill;
2023: Adrie Rose, selected by Ellen Bass;
2022: Amy Miller, selected by Dorianne Laux;
2021: Grace MacNair, selected by Yona Harvey;
2020: Laura Villareal, selected by Ada Limón;
2019: Quinn Lewis, selected by Kim Addonizio;
2018: Erin Malone, selected by Martha Rhodes;
2017: Emily Viggiano Saland, selected by Dorothea Lasky;
2016: Sarah Ann Winn, selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi;
2015: Alexandra Lytton Regalado, selected by Lynn Emanuel;
2014: Flower Conroy, selected by Mary Biddinger
2025 Judge: Diane Seuss
We are thrilled to share that esteemed poet Diane Seuss will judge the 2025 Coniston Prize.
Diane Seuss’s sixth collection is Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press 2024), a finalist for the National Book Award. frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press 2021) was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press 2015) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She received a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2021 John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Seuss is a chancellor for the Academy of American Poets. She was Writer in Residence in the English Department of Kalamazoo College for many years, and was also a visiting professor at Colorado College, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan. She was raised by a single mother in rural Michigan, which she continues to call home.
Guidelines
The winner of the Coniston Prize will receive $1,000, and up to 10 finalists will also be awarded $175. The winner and all finalists’ poems will be featured in the October Coniston Prize Issue.
Submissions are open June 1 - August 1. (Submissions will close at 11:59 PM ET on August 1.) We notify all entrants before October 1. The entry fee is $20.
*BIPOC poets submit free during our special submission window June 1 - June 8. If you wish to take advantage of this opportunity, please submit through the "BIPOC Poets" option in Submittable before June 8. After that time, paid submissions will continue to be open to all eligible poets. *
Submit 3-5 previously unpublished poems, totaling no more than 10 pages, in a single document through our submissions manager. You may include a cover letter and brief bio in the comments box. Multiple submissions are acceptable with additional reading fee.
This award recognizes an exceptional group of poems. We therefore suggest that you submit poems that are intentionally cohesive in some way, whether connected by subject matter, theme, voice, style, or imagery.
Please remove all identifying information from the poems themselves. All contest submissions will be read anonymously.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but we cannot refund contest fees if you have to withdraw all or part of your submission. Multiple entries are acceptable with an additional fee.
Eligibility
The Coniston Prize is awarded to women poets. Any poet who identifies as a woman is eligible.
If you know the editors or our judge personally, you should not submit your work. This includes current or former students of the editors or the judge. If such a relationship is identified, your entry will be disqualified. If you are unsure whether your relationship would make you ineligible, query us: radarpoetry (at) gmail (dot) com.
Coniston Prize entries are read and judged anonymously. If the editors, or the judge, might recognize your poems, you are not eligible to submit.
Process
Each year, the editors first read all Coniston Prize submissions without viewing any personal information (name, cover letter, or bio). From these submissions, the editors select the finalists. The finalists’ manuscripts, free of any identifying information, are then sent to the contest judge, who selects a winner.
Please click below to submit. We look forward to reading your poems!
Code of Ethics
We adhere to the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics.
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believe that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines — defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.