Spring is the time for a new look at your full-length or chapbook-length manuscript-in-process. Join Joan Houlihan and Stephen Motika for the April 21-24 classic on Zoom.
Why Colrain? Because Colrain is the original manuscript conference (est. 2006), and the proven leader in excellence of program design and pedagogy, honest and useful editorial feedback, depth of experience and integrity of faculty, and, most importantly, results.
Nearly 300 Colrain manuscripts have been taken, including many with awards such as: The Perugia Press Prize, New Issues Poetry Prize, Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, The Bakeless Prize, FutureCycle Press Poetry Book Prize, John Ciardi Prize from BkMk Press, McGovern Prize from Ashland Press, Editor’s Choice Akron Poetry Prize from University of Akron Press, Gerald Cable First Book Award, T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize from Truman State University, Orphic Prize from Dream Horse Press, Levis Prize from Four Way Books, Wick Prize from Kent State Press, Four Way Book Intro Prize, Beatrice Hawley Prize from Alice James Booksm, Emily Dickinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, Marsh Hawk Press Prize, Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize from Persea Books, Nightboat Books Poetry Prize, May Swenson Poetry Award, University of New Mexico Press WILLA Literary Award…and many more!
List of manuscripts published and prizes awarded here.
To apply, send 3-4 poems and a brief bio to: conferences@colrainpoetry.com
Joan Houlihan is the author of six books of poetry, most recently, It Isn’t a Ghost if it Lives in Your Chest , winner of the 2021 Julia Ward Howe award. Her poetry has been anthologized in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press) and The Book of Irish-American Poetry-Eighteenth Century to Present (University of Notre Dame Press). She teaches in the Lesley University Low-Residency MFA Program and at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Houlihan is founder and director of the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.
Stephen Motika, poet and publisher, is the author of Western Practice, published by Alice James Books in 2012. He is also the author of two chapbooks, Arrival and At Mono (2007) and In the Madrones (2011), and editor of Tiresias: The Collected Poems of Leland Hickman (2009). His articles and poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, At Length, BOMB, The Brooklyn Review, Eleven Eleven, Maggy, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Poets.org, Vanitas, among other publications. A 2010-2011 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Resident, he has taught at Naropa University and in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine. He is the former program director at Poets House and current publisher and director of Nightboat Books.
