WHAT BOOKS PRESS
With its genre-bending list of bilingual poetry, eco-fabulist science fiction, magic journalism, hybrid collaboration, and graphic narrative, WPB was founded in 2008 to assert the imperative for serious writing that reflects the diversity of literary and political cultures emerging from Los Angeles, a center for art in the globalized world, We came together with a single purpose: to create an outlet for groundbreaking fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, with extraordinary art by renowned multi-media artist Gronk on every cover. And we’re still doing it, bringing out exciting new work every year that we believe truly needs to be in this world. We remain committed to—and are always looking for—new, innovative, and underrepresented writing that challenges both formal boundaries and the pressing social and political issues of our time.
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What Books Press, an imprint of Los Angeles’s Glass Table Collective, is excited to announce a The Gronk Nicandro First Book prize, awarded in alternate years in poetry and prose for first books by California writers. The inaugural competition invites submissions of full-length poetry manuscripts.
The prize honors painter, printmaker, and performance artist, Gronk Nicandro.
Gronk, as he is most widely known, is an internationally renowned artist, especially esteemed for his murals; his stage designs for the Santa Fe Opera, the LA Opera, Latino Theater Company, and the East West Players; and his collaborations with the Kronos Quartet. He has exhibited at or curated work for many institutions, including the UCLA Hammer Museum, the UCLA Fowler Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, the San Francisco Mexican Museum, and the San Jose Museum of Art. While in residence at the University of New Mexico, he was recognized with a career retrospective. He is a founding member of ASCO, a multimedia arts collective of the 1970s.
Born in East Los Angeles, he now makes his home in downtown LA, and is passionately committed to the free circulation of art. To that end, since The Glass Table formed in 2008, Gronk has generously supplied art for all What Books books, now numbering more than fifty. The prize is named both to honor and thank him, and the winning entry will, like all our books, feature his amazing work on its cover.
Submissions will open on April 1, 2024, and close on June 30, 2024, and will be accepted via Submittable.
ELIGIBILITY
1. The award is open to California writers who have not yet published a full-length book. In addition to publication, the winning entry will receive $500 and 50 free copies of the published book.
2. All submissions must be in English; translations are not eligible unless the translation was done by the author.
3. Eligible submissions include an unpublished manuscript of poems. Prior publication of your manuscript as a whole in any format (including electronic) makes it ineligible. Prior publication of individual poems is allowed.
4. Manuscripts may also be under consideration by other publishers, but if a manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere and you wish to accept this offer, please notify the Press immediately. Manuscripts under contract elsewhere are no longer eligible for the Prize.
5. There is a $25 contest fee.
6. Authors may submit more than one manuscript as long as one manuscript or a portion thereof does not duplicate material submitted in another manuscript and each submission is submitted separately, accompanied by a separate contest fee.
FORMAT FOR ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
Submittable contest site:
During the submission period (April 1 – June 30) simply click the link above. You’ll be taken to our secure submittable.com web page where you’ll find easy-to-follow instructions:
1. Manuscripts must be single-spaced and pages must be numbered consecutively.
2. Each submission must include a list of all of the writer’s published work, if applicable, with full citations. You will be given an opportunity to enter this information into a field in Submittable.
3. Manuscripts will be judged anonymously. Therefore, the author’s name, other identifying information, and publication information must not appear within the manuscript. Only your uploaded manuscript is visible to the judges.
If you have any questions about these guidelines, please email whatbookspress@gmail.com
PRIVACY AND ANTI-DISCRIMATION STATEMENT
What Books Press will use your contact information to stay in touch with you on matters regarding the competition and WB publishing activities. Your information will not be sold or passed on to any other individual, business, entity, or agency.
What Books Press does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.
Thank you for your interest in continuing the process with What Books Press. We are excited to review your whole manuscript and will get back to you as soon as possible.
Per our prior correspondence, please do remember that we are a small group of collective members with highly limited resources, and so—in the collective spirit—are obliged to ask that writers share some of the cost of publishing their work. While we are now able to cover somewhere between 30% to 50% percent of the expense (depending on genre and length), we still ask that writers pay for the layout and design of their book. For poetry books less than 100 pp and prose less than 150, the typical cost is $750; longer works are more.
If this arrangement is acceptable to you, and if your work is accepted for publication, you will receive 25 copies of your book, submissions to reviewers, two LA-based readings, promotion at literary events, and other benefits. You will also receive 50% of all net proceeds, along with the right to keep 100% of proceeds from personal sales you make on your own. Finally, you will have the opportunity to participate in the selection of an original work of art by Gronk for your book cover. Your book will be distributed by Amazon, Ingram, and IndieBound.
Please bear in mind that this is not an offer of publication, but an invitation to continue with the next step. We look forward to reading more of your work.