Sudden Valley Press

Conditions of Entry

1. We will accept only one entry per person, of a manuscript of between 60 and 120 pages in length (not including front and back matter). The competition is confined to poets resident in Te Waipounamu/ the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, who have not previously published a full length collection of poetry. 
2. For the purposes of this competition, a chapbook is defined as a single publication of 24 pages or fewer, and a full collection as longer than 24 pages.
3. The competition submission window will open at 9 am on 1 November 2025 until midnight 16 January 2026. 
4. The longlisting of entries will be by made committee members of the CPC and Sudden Valley Press. Only the longlisted manuscripts will be sent to our independent final judge, Fiona Farrell. CPC/SVP committee members with connections to individual writers or manuscripts will not evaluate those individual manuscripts. 
5. A longlist of up to six manuscripts will be announced by March 1st, a shortlist of three by April 1st, and the winner announced on May 1st 2026. The announcements will be made by email to all entrants, on the Canterbury Poets’ Collective website (https://canterburypoets.org,nz), the CPC Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/cantypoet/, and on this page.
6. Poems should be in English, or if in Te Reo Maori, supplied with an English translation for each poem on the facing page. Poems may be on any topic and in any style. 
7. Individual poems may have been previously published in magazines etc, but the collection as a whole must not. Work that has previously appeared as a chapbook may be included as long as it makes up less than half the total manuscript.
8. The manuscript may not be under consideration anywhere else during the competition (from 1 November until 1 May inclusive), although individual poems may be submitted to magazines during this time. 
9. Include the official entry form, clearly writing the name of the author, their contact details, and the title of the collection. This should be the only place the author’s name appears. You may submit this as an additional pdf page, or copy and paste it into the body of your email.
10. The manuscript should be submitted as a pdf file to joanna@suddenvalleypress.com with the subject line JOC Award – [Your Name]. Other file formats will NOT be accepted. 
11. The text should be in 12 pt Times New Roman or equivalent, double spaced, and formatted with 2.5 cm margins. Pages must be numbered. Each poem must start on a new page. New pages should be started by inserting a page break, not by using multiple carriage returns. A sample MSWord .docx file can be downloaded here.
12. The title of the manuscript should appear on every page, but the name of the author must NOT. 
13. The entry fee of $30 must be paid by direct credit (internet banking). Account details are in the entry pack. To help us keep track of your entry, please put JOC Award, your surname, and an abbreviation of your manuscript’s title in the Reference fields, and note this reference on the entry form.
14. Entries cannot be edited or altered once submitted, and entry fees will not be refunded.
    No correspondence will be entered into.