Quarter After Eight’s 2025 Summer Poetry Chapbook Contest, judged by Karyna McGlynn

Fueled by Bauhaus, moderately hydrated, and begging for something to make us feel the same sense of wonder we felt when we first watched Labyrinth, Quarter After Eight’s annual summer poetry chapbook contest is back. This contest is open to poetry (and things that sort of feel like poetry, sad-posts that you’ve later re-purposed into poetry, poetic collages that are primarily written language but your friends keep describing as “poetic,” poetic esoterica and/or ephemera including the screenplay you wrote where you shipped two unfortunate 90s actors together but now they’re just recurring characters in your monologue poems and you aren’t embarrassed at all etc.). 

This year we’re stoked to announce that Karyna McGlynn, author of 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse and I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl, a poet who frankly only writes bangers as far as we’re concerned, will be our guest judge. We are still thanking her in our minds and hearts. We are drinking water. We are free of sin (today).

So: what do we want this year? God, it’s so great of you to ask. We want so many things: some of which we should be able to give ourselves, some of which can never be given, and some of which we’re hoping you can give to us. 

WHAT DO WE WANT:

Poems that feel like getting drop-kicked by a Lisa Frank notebook collection through the flimsy door of the seediest motel in Laredo? We want that. Poems that tastefully invite just a little bit of brick-thru-statehouse-window roleplay? Tell us what to do, captain. Poems that make us a little worried about you but ultimately we think it’s good you’re getting all of this out? Yes, we take those. Bar-napkin love poems / sonnets about your favorite problematic movie / centos from 10 Things I Hate About You / we want to feel complete / we want to feel just a little buzzed on the margaritas / we want to read the poems of yours that sass us back and make us believe in a life after love.

HOW DO WE WANT IT:

Submissions should be 20-40 pages, should include a table of contents, and should have a title that seriously wows us. Submissions should come with an author bio that tastefully brags about your achievements (you have earned this and it’s time to be proud okay). Entry fee is $15 wet hot American dollars while they’re still the global reserve currency (and probably even after they aren’t because we cannot predict the future of finance and international diplomacy, we’re sorry). 

The contest is open to new, emerging, and established writers. We especially encourage submissions by writers from underrepresented groups. If you’re unable to cover the entry fee, reach out to quarteraftereight@ohio.edu. We have a limited number of submissions available free-of-charge.

WHEN DO WE WANT IT:

This contest opens on June 15th, 2025 and closes on September 15th at 11:59 pm EST. Submit any time in that window and you’re golden. Submit outside of that window and we will be impressed how you managed to do that.

WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU WIN:

The winner will receive a $1,000 cash award and 25 printed copies of their chapbook beautifully designed by a local Athens, Ohio artist and laid out by a local Quarter After Eight editor (me). Five finalists will be chosen by the editorial team at Quarter After Eight, and guest judge Karyna McGlynn will select a winner, as well as first and second runners up.

 

Karyna McGlynn is a writer, visual artist, and educator. She is Director of Creative Writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts, and was the 23-24 Visiting Distinguished Professor of Poetry in the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan. She is the author of three poetry collections from Sarabande Books, including 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse (2023 Lambda Literary Finalist), Hothouse (a New York Times Editor’s Choice), and I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry). McGlynn’s writing has appeared in Poetry, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, New England Review, and Kenyon Review. 

Important Details 

All entries are read without identifying information by QAE editors. Please do not include any identifying information on the manuscript itself, including in the name of your file, in the "title" field in Submittable, or in the margins. Please include a title page (listing only the title of the work) and table of contents (if applicable). Manuscripts should be paginated and in a legible font that doesn’t burn our eyes to look at for prolonged periods of time. Manuscripts should be 20-40 pages in length, not including front and back matter (table of contents, title page, etc.). You are welcome to include a brief bio or something about yourself in your cover note on Submittable. If any of your included poems have been published in other journals, please include that information (title, journal, publication date) in the form of a list in the cover letter field.

Submissions will be open from June 15, 2025 to September 15, 2025. A $15 entry fee is required upon submission.