SFPA Poetry Contest

Other SF Poetry Contests & Awards 2024 winning poems! here

Our contest is intended to raise funds for SFPA, as well as to draw more attention to speculative poetry and reward writers of good speculative poems. An eligibility survey was taken following the 2015 contest.

Contest Update:

The 2024 Contest winners have now been announced. Congratulations to the winners!

The 2025 SFPA Speculative Poetry Contest will open for entries on June 1, 2025. The deadline will be August 31.

Contest Rules: The SFPA speculative poetry contest is open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes will be awarded for best unpublished poem in 3 categories: Dwarf (poems 1–10 lines [prose poems 0–100 words]); Short (11–49 lines [prose poems 101–499 words]); Long (50 lines and more [prose 500 words and up]). Line count does not include title or stanza breaks. All sub-genres of speculative poetry allowed in any form. Entries are read blind; friends/family/students of the judge may not enter.

Prizes: In each category (Dwarf, Short, Long): $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, $25 Third Prize. Publication on the SFPA website for first through third places.

2025 Judge: Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall Gailey is a poet with MS who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She's the author of seven books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Field Guide to the End of the World, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and the SFPA's Elgin Award and in 2023 Flare, and Corona from BOA Editions, a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a non-fiction guide to help poets publicize their books. Her work has been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and The Best Horror of the Year. She holds a B.S. in Biology and an M.A. in English from University of Cincinnati, and an MFA from Pacific University. Her poetry has appeared in journals like The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry; her personal essays have appeared on Salon.com and The Rumpus. Her web site is www.webbish6.com. Twitter, BlueSky and Instagram: @webbish6.

2025 Contest Chair: James Machell

James Machell is a British writer, born in London and matured in Seoul. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and the outreach manager for Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, for which he gets to interview his favourite writers and artists, including P. Djèlí Clark, Ken Liu, and Samuel R. Delany. He is also a judge for the Latin Programme Poetry Prize. Find him on X @JamesRJMachell or YouTube, where his channel’s name is Fell Purpose.

Submission guidelines:

• The 2025 contest will open June 1. The deadline will be August 31. A submission link will be provided below when the contest is open.
• Unpublished poems only. Per SFPA's Statement on AI, the submission of AI generated poetry is prohibited.
• Author retains all rights, except that first through third place winners will be published on our website.
• Enter as many poems as you like, but an entry fee of $3 per poem must be paid via PayPal at entry (credit card can be used without a PayPal account, and those unable to use PayPal may mail a check). Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but must be immediately withdrawn if accepted elsewhere.
• Entries will be read anonymously. Please do not include any identifying information in the file (file name can be anything); enter your name only in the form. The form can take a submission with multiple poems in the same category (dwarf, short, or long). Use a separate documents to submit poems from different categories. .rtf preferred.

Confirmation of receipt of your submission should follow within 3 days.
Announcement of winners will be posted on the SFPA website.