Thank you to all the wonderful poets who sent in manuscripts to the Press this past September while our poetry submission window was open. After removing ineligible authors, those who were not Canadian, there are 87 manuscripts to evaluate – a tremendous response!
I have been doing a first pass of all the submissions with support from our University of Alberta English and Film Studies Department PhD student interns, from which we will develop a longlist of around fifteen manuscripts. These will go to our internal editorial committee and from there six will be shortlisted for our external poetry jury.
The process will take time and by mid-December we plan to notify those poets chosen for the shortlist. A final decision on the three manuscripts the Press will publish will be made by our jury by the end of February.
The quality of work this year is high and I’m buoyed by the creative imagery, lyricism, and singularity of vision on display in the work I have already looked at. There are so many talented poets in this country and I wish we could publish all of you. Please bear with us as we work to create the shortlist over the coming months.
Appreciation in advance to everyone for their patience throughout this process and for letting me know if another press scoops up your manuscript – it can happen!
Again, thank you for sharing your work with University of Alberta Press.
