The Mission

Since 2015, the Winter Tangerine Awards has honored emerging writers that envision new possibilities on the page and forge avenues of empathy through their literary work. In this context, we define an ‘emerging writer’ as one who has not published a full-length collection of poetry or prose, or a novel. We believe reading fees are exclusionary by nature, so entries are always free. We offer a $250 award to the winners and $50 to each of the finalists.

This year, the WT Awards will be judged by Tiana Clark in poetry and Kiese Laymon in prose.

The WT Awards have been judged by Ocean Vuong, Jaquira Diaz, Aracelis Girmay, Chris Abani, Randa Jarrar, and Kaveh Akbar. You can read the past winners here.
 

What We're Excited By

We seek electric work; renderings of awe and joy, archival of memory and resilience.

Tiana Clark, poetry judge: I’m drawn to risk and surprise in poems. I admire poets toggling grief and gratitude, poets that breathe new life and vision inside the nostrils of dead language. I’m looking for a duende-drenched poem that will rearrange my cells, flood my blood and afternoon. I want to be haunted by striking and specific imagery, but I also love the dream world, the gauzy, and abstract landscapes that drip intensely with mood. I want to gasp at your line breaks and attention to aesthetics. I love quiet poems and mic-dropping poems, but both poems must have resonance. I love poems that are invested in a type of emotional truth that articulates a type of freedom that I often don’t feel in my own daily life. I’m invested in a type of transformation and protest on the page. I love little poems and long poems, but again both poems must have resonance. I want to swerve and feel throttled by some type of volta/pivot/arc. I love all forms, broken forms, hybrid forms, and the psychology of forms. Most poems I cherish bring me back to the page, a new draft bubbling from the wild yeast of prosody and proximity. With all that said, I just want to be able to throw your poem across the room because it’s so damn good. I want to be mad and glad and sad at you for a few minutes, because your poem is so damn good.

The Prize

Results announced in January 2020. Award winners and finalists will be published in Winter Tangerine Issue 6, published in early 2020.

The two award winners will each receive copies of Honeysuckle Press’ 2019 catalog and a check for $250.

All finalists receive our kudos & $50.

The Boring, but Necessary Stuff

• Entries will be accepted of unpublished poetry and prose from writers who have not yet published a collection of poems, a collection of short stories or a novel. Writers who have published chapbooks or who have self-published novels or collections may enter. Pieces are considered unpublished if they have not appeared on the internet or in print.

• Writers may submit up to four poems (totaling no more than eight pages), and/or two pieces of prose (totaling no more than twelve pages). Writers may submit one entry in both categories.

• All work submitted for the Winter Tangerine Awards will be considered for publication in Winter Tangerine. Contributors to Winter Tangerine are paid $50.

• Your submission should be Times New Roman or Garamond, size 12. Please title your submission in Submittable as the actual title of your piece(s), not “Winter Tangerine submission” or variations of that. Please put no more than one poem on each page.

• Please include an artist statement on the first page of your submission. Use this space to show how your identity helps shapes your work. It should be no longer than two paragraphs. This statement will not be included in publication -- it's for us to have an extra lens when viewing your work. Literature does not exist in a vacuum; identity is an important shaping factor in any artist's work. Please do not include your name or specifically identifying information in this statement. 

• You may not submit work to Winter Tangerine that has been entered in the WT Awards. You may submit other work to Winter Tangerine while we adjudicate the Awards but any double-entries will be rejected.

• The submission portal will be open from February 1st to July 1st.

• Submissions will be accepted through Submittable, only. Any submission sent through email will be deleted unread.

• No specifically identifying information (full name, email address, phone number, etc) is allowed in the document uploaded to Submittable or in the title of your submission.

• Simultaneous submissions are allowed but not preferable. 

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Good luck! We look forward to your work.

Artwork featured is The Prophetess by Stephanie Inagaki