Editor Interview: The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize

Collections of poetry

Our taste is eclectic. Loving YesYes, Sibling Rivalry, Milkweed, Copper Canyon, Tupelo, Persea, Alice James, and Oberlin College Press. Many more.

Writers who know the craft well enough to break it, surprise themselves and their readers, and challenge and re-shape the human experience.

We are a university press without a pressing need to answer to short-term market expectations. We're in this for the long haul. We also publish both established and emerging poets.

Read The Journal and read a handful if not all of the prize-winning books. You'll be glad you did, whether your submit or not.

There is no cookie-cutter submission. Submit your most polished and most urgent manuscript. In my experience you know you're nearly there when one-third of the poems have been published in respected journals.

Follow the guidelines and, if you haven't had help putting a manuscript together before, ask for guidance from fellow poets, even professional editors, before putting time and money into the submissions process.

Our submissions process is anonymous. Acknowledgments pages are fine but not necessary.

Our screeners are MFA students and associated staff. I am also lucky to have an associate editor, Pablo Tanguay, who screens every single manuscript before it is given to me or, in rare cases, a guest to judge. All manuscripts are given careful consideration.

The screening evaluation process contains three steps, the last ending with me as series editor. Once the prize-winning manuscript is announced, OSU Press and its editorial staff takes over production.

Mss are received and processed during the month of September, they are distributed to screeners in October and November, and semi-finalists are determined in December and forwarded to the judge at that time. The winner is announced each January.

As series editor I coordinate and judge submissions each year and choose a winner. I do not typically provide book editing services; OSU Press has professional editors on staff who do that job once contracts are signed and the prize-winning ms is sent forward.