Submissions are now open for the 2021 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize, to be judged by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram. The annual contest is dedicated to the discovery of exceptional chapbook-length manuscripts by Black poets. The winner receives $1,000, publication by Jai-Alai Books in spring 2022, 10 copies of the chapbook, a weeklong residency at The Writer’s Room at The Betsy – South Beach, and a feature virtual reading at the O, Miami Poetry Festival. Black poets are encouraged to apply by September 15. The contest is free to enter. Complete details and submission guidelines may be found here.

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, where they teach in and direct the UMass Boston MFA in Creative Writing Program. They also direct the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Festival. Their most recent collection is Travesty Generator (Noemi Press, 2019), winner of the 2018 Noemi Press Poetry Prize and the 2020 Poetry Society of America Anna Rabinowitz Prize, and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Other works include Personal Science (Tupelo Press, 2017); a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press 2016); and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press, 2012), chosen by Claudia Rankine as the winner of the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Award. Bertram’s honors include a 2017 Harvard University Woodberry Poetry Room Creative Grant, a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, finalist nomination for the 2013 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Cave Canem, and others. Bertram holds a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Utah, among degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize was launched in 2015 with Ross Gay’s selection of Rio Cortez’s I have learned to define a field as a space between mountains. Most recently, Mahogany L. Browne selected Wale Ayinla’s To Cast a Dream for last year’s prize.