Magazine1 is proud to host the Poetry Contest for Sarasota’s PoetryLife 2026. This contest hopes to find the poems that represent what we think of as the best of the poetic form - bold language, bravery in form and content, and the immediacy that makes one's breath catch in the throat when read.
When submitting, please consider the following:
- Submission fee is $5.
- Submit only one poem per submission.
- Submissions cannot be more than two pages in length (so one poem, up to two pages in length).
- You can submit more than once, you just have to pay for each submission.
- You do not need to live in Sarasota to submit, this contest is for everyone!
- Other than that, there are no strict structures for the poem you submit, so long as it's something you're proud of, we want to read it.
The final judge of the contest will be Rick Hilles, a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Whiting Award, Camargo Fellowship, and the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship. Hilles is the author of Brother Salvage (winner of the 2005 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize) and A Map of the Lost World (2012), both with the Pitt Poetry Series. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Harper's, Kenyon Review, Literary Imagination, Narrative Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry, Ploughshares, Salmagundi, and The Southern Review. He teaches in the English Department and MFA Program at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, TN.
First prize for the contest will be a $150 dollar gift card to Bookstore1, and the winner will be invited to read the winning poem at the Poetry Life event in Sarasota, Florida. The poem will also be published in the upcoming issue of Magazine1.
Runners up will receive a $50 gift card to Bookstore1 and will be published in the upcoming issue of Magazine1.
These gift cards are usable either in person at our store in Sarasota, or in our online store.
We currently cannot offer direct monetary compensation to our contributors. However, since we are operated by a Bookstore, we will give a $40 gift card to anyone we publish, which can be used in our physical store or in our online shop.
Our guidelines for submission are as follows:
- Please wait until you receive a response for your submission before submitting again. You are free to submit multiple times, but only one submission per genre is allowed i.e. one short story of 4500 words and 3 poems totaling 10 pages of poetry.
- Please include the genre to which you are submitting in your file name.
- Only submit previously unpublished work.
- Include a biography in the appropriate place on the Submittable page. 100 words or less, please. While it’s fine to tell us where you’ve been previously published, we’d love it if you told us something about yourself instead.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but let us know if your piece is accepted elsewhere.
- Submit all written work as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
- Have standard formatting: put your page number somewhere on each page. If the submission is prose, please double-space. Use Times New Roman font, or similar.
- Please limit prose submissions to ~4500 words for a single short story or up to four pieces of flash fiction each with a maximum of 1000 words.
- Please submit a maximum of 10 pages of poetry.
- Hybrid work can bend these limitations, but please do so within reason. We won’t be able to do anything with a full manuscript, even if it’s great.
- We typically respond to submissions within four weeks. Please be patient as we are a very small team.
- This is the Tip Jar submission form. Thank you so much for your donation!
Specifics for Visual Art
- Please submit your piece as either a .png or .jpeg file.
- Please submit your piece with a DPI of 300.
- Please submit your piece with a size of 1024 x 1024 px.
- Please list the materials used in the piece.
Author's Rights
For all submissions (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual art, and hybrid), we ask for the right to display and archive work in multiple electronic formats, such as on our website and in PDF, as well as in print for special issues. We acquire First Rights to the work (i.e. the piece must not have been previously published in print or online), with all rights reverting back to the author upon publication. After publication, we greatly appreciate any reprints acknowledging that the piece was first published in Magazine1.
We currently cannot offer direct monetary compensation to our contributors. However, since we are operated by a Bookstore, we will give a $40 gift card to anyone we publish, which can be used in our physical store or in our online shop.
Our guidelines for submission are as follows:
- Please wait until you receive a response for your submission before submitting again. You are free to submit multiple times, but only one submission per genre is allowed i.e. one short story of 4500 words and 3 poems totaling 10 pages of poetry.
- Please include the genre to which you are submitting in your file name.
- Only submit previously unpublished work.
- Include a biography in the appropriate place on the Submittable page. 100 words or less, please. While it’s fine to tell us where you’ve been previously published, we’d love it if you told us something about yourself instead.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but let us know if your piece is accepted elsewhere.
- Submit all written work as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
- Have standard formatting: put your page number somewhere on each page. If the submission is prose, please double-space. Use Times New Roman font, or similar.
- Please limit prose submissions to ~4500 words for a single short story or up to four pieces of flash fiction each with a maximum of 1000 words.
- Please submit a maximum of 10 pages of poetry.
- Hybrid work can bend these limitations, but please do so within reason. We won’t be able to do anything with a full manuscript, even if it’s great.
- We typically respond to submissions within four weeks. Please be patient as we are a very small team.
- Submissions are free, but we do operate a tip jar and would love any support you are able to provide.
Specifics for Visual Art
- Please submit your piece as either a .png or .jpeg file.
- Please submit your piece with a DPI of 300.
- Please submit your piece with a size of 1024 x 1024 px.
- Please list the materials used in the piece.
Author's Rights
For all submissions (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual art, and hybrid), we ask for the right to display and archive work in multiple electronic formats, such as on our website and in PDF, as well as in print for special issues. We acquire First Rights to the work (i.e. the piece must not have been previously published in print or online), with all rights reverting back to the author upon publication. After publication, we greatly appreciate any reprints acknowledging that the piece was first published in Magazine1.
We currently cannot offer direct monetary compensation to our contributors. However, since we are operated by a Bookstore, we will give a $40 gift card to anyone we publish, which can be used in our physical store or in our online shop.
If you live on the Gulf Coast of Florida (Sarasota/St. Pete/Tampa and related environs) please submit here!
Our guidelines for submission are as follows:
- Please wait until you receive a response for your submission before submitting again. You are free to submit multiple times, but only one submission per genre is allowed i.e. one short story of 4500 words and 3 poems totaling 10 pages of poetry.
- Please include the genre to which you are submitting in your file name.
- Only submit previously unpublished work.
- Include a biography in the appropriate place on the Submittable page. 100 words or less, please. While it’s fine to tell us where you’ve been previously published, we’d love it if you told us something about yourself instead.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but let us know if your piece is accepted elsewhere.
- Submit all written work as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
- Have standard formatting: put your page number somewhere on each page. If the submission is prose, please double-space. Use Times New Roman font, or similar.
- Please limit prose submissions to ~4500 words for a single short story or up to four pieces of flash fiction each with a maximum of 1000 words.
- Please submit a maximum of 10 pages of poetry.
- Hybrid work can bend these limitations, but please do so within reason. We won’t be able to do anything with a full manuscript, even if it’s great.
- We typically respond to submissions within four weeks. Please be patient as we are a very small team.
- This is the Tip Jar submission form, thank you for your donation!
Specifics for Visual Art
- Please submit your piece as either a .png or .jpeg file.
- Please submit your piece with a DPI of 300.
- Please submit your piece with a size of 1024 x 1024 px.
- Please list the materials used in the piece.
Author's Rights
For all submissions (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual art, and hybrid), we ask for the right to display and archive work in multiple electronic formats, such as on our website and in PDF, as well as in print for special issues. We acquire First Rights to the work (i.e. the piece must not have been previously published in print or online), with all rights reverting back to the author upon publication. After publication, we greatly appreciate any reprints acknowledging that the piece was first published in Magazine1.
We currently cannot offer direct monetary compensation to our contributors. However, since we are operated by a Bookstore, we will give a $40 gift card to anyone we publish, which can be used in our physical store or in our online shop.
If you live on the Gulf Coast of Florida (Sarasota/St. Pete/Tampa and related environs) please submit here!
Our guidelines for submission are as follows:
- Please wait until you receive a response for your submission before submitting again. You are free to submit multiple times, but only one submission per genre is allowed i.e. one short story of 4500 words and 3 poems totaling 10 pages of poetry.
- Please include the genre to which you are submitting in your file name.
- Only submit previously unpublished work.
- Include a biography in the appropriate place on the Submittable page. 100 words or less, please. While it’s fine to tell us where you’ve been previously published, we’d love it if you told us something about yourself instead.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but let us know if your piece is accepted elsewhere.
- Submit all written work as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
- Have standard formatting: put your page number somewhere on each page. If the submission is prose, please double-space. Use Times New Roman font, or similar.
- Please limit prose submissions to ~4500 words for a single short story or up to four pieces of flash fiction each with a maximum of 1000 words.
- Please submit a maximum of 10 pages of poetry.
- Hybrid work can bend these limitations, but please do so within reason. We won’t be able to do anything with a full manuscript, even if it’s great.
- We typically respond to submissions within four weeks. Please be patient as we are a very small team.
- Submissions are free, but we do operate a tip jar and would love any support you are able to provide.
Specifics for Visual Art
- Please submit your piece as either a .png or .jpeg file.
- Please submit your piece with a DPI of 300.
- Please submit your piece with a size of 1024 x 1024 px.
- Please list the materials used in the piece.
Author's Rights
For all submissions (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual art, and hybrid), we ask for the right to display and archive work in multiple electronic formats, such as on our website and in PDF, as well as in print for special issues. We acquire First Rights to the work (i.e. the piece must not have been previously published in print or online), with all rights reverting back to the author upon publication. After publication, we greatly appreciate any reprints acknowledging that the piece was first published in Magazine1.