Welcome to Winged City Chapbook Press

Winged City Press is taking a different approach to publishing chapbooks. Call us crazy, but we think the current cycle of submission deadlines and contests isn’t the only way to publish great work and support diverse voices. We are going to post prompts and ask you to submit your best response as poets (all approaches welcomed). We encourage you to respond to others work and will accept responses to your work. We’ll review the poems you post. If we are intrigued by what we read, we may ask for a few more pieces. If we like those pieces, we’ll ask for a chapbook with specific guidelines. We have no publication schedule, no deadlines. We only ask that you follow the rules:  post your poems responding ONLY to the prompts.  This is a site in which to be bold.  Think of how a soloist emerges from the choir.  Make us hear your whisper or scream.

Check us out on MySpace!

http://www.myspace.com/wingedcitypress

Add us as a  friend to keep up on the latest prompts, contests, and upcoming publications!

AWP Chapbook Contest…as if 4500 writers wasn’t enough…

…here’s just one more reason to head to Chicago February 11-14th:

Chapbook Contest During AWP!

Hey all! Winged City Press is going to be at the AWP-Chicago Book Fair. We’ll be at table 643 with New Sins Press.

Here’s the rules:
Bring a typed ms. 18-26 pages in a manila envelope and a suggested donation/reading fee of $5 to table 643 anytime until Saturday at 5pm.

Please make sure your manuscript is clearly identified and includes your email address.

We will pick a winner only from the mss given to us during the conference to be published during our 2009 cycle. Winner will receive contributor’s copies.

Can’t wait to see you and your poems in Chicago!

Prompt: Same to you , Buddy!

As Robert Byrne said – Winter is nature’s way of saying, “Up yours.”  For this prompt, discuss January (or winter) only in metaphors of color. How many comparisons can you cram into twelve lines? How many colors can you find in a winter? Which color doesn’t exist? How do you know?

Prompt: Never Never Land or Bust…

Most of us grew up on fairy tales. Some of us learned our lesson from the Grimm brothers, some of us learned about culturally acceptable body proportions and happy ever after from Mr. Walt Disney. Either way, we all have our favorite character. For this prompt, write a Dear John, Sorry Mom, or Good-bye Cruel World from your favorite hero or villain’s point of view.

Check out these blogs:

http://www.thordream.blogspot.com/

Reviews by the poet Rane Arroyo and invited guest writers–all kinds of topics.

http://perfectboundkarma.blogspot.com/

Perfect Bound Karma is an online venue dedicated to being a space to positively promote contemporary poetry. We feel there is a need to encourage and promote poets, poetry, and presses in order to help readers find emerging, established, and as yet unknown talent sans capitalism.

AWP Chapbook Contest Part 2

For those of you that don’t want to haul your manuscript to AWP (or take pity on us for hauling all of them back to Toledo), stop by the New Sins Press Table 643, make a suggested $5 dollar reading fee/donation, and receive a SECRET EMAIL ADDRESS. Email your ms. to us by midnight Sunday Feb. 15th to be considered. Can’t wait to see you in Chicago!

Prompt: Karaoke and a Killian’s . . .

I guess an O’Douls would work too . . . You can’t swing a dead cat around our town without hitting a couple (dozen) Karaoke bars. Any given night of the week you can belly up to the bar for a beer and a badly sung Barry Manilow groove. Give us your version of this honored ritual – in poem form – bonus points for working in the guys vs. girls Grease Medley.

Prompt: Mascots as Mirrors

Every town, every city has a mascot. For some it’s ordained by the city: a frog, a flying pig, or a large cow. Others are more informal: the giant fish over the gas station or the buffalo next to the pawn shop. These sentinels have watched over our daily lives, maybe for decades, generations.

Your prompt is: Imagine your mascot in a funeral scenario. We’ll leave it to you to interpret that prompt as broadly as you want. Post a pic of your mascot along with the poem, if possible.  Steal a mascot if you must for the cause of art.