Noel Rowe Poetry Award 2015-6

The Noel Rowe Poetry Award

An award in memory of Australian poet and academic Noel Rowe in celebration of his commitment to and support of Australian poetry. This biennial award is for the publication of a first manuscript by an emerging poet of any age. In the spirit of Noel Rowe's support and mentoring of emerging writers, the winning entrant will be given the opportunity to work on their manuscript with one of the judges.

Noel Rowe (1951-2007) was an inspirational teacher of Australian Literature in the Department of English at the University of Sydney from 1986 to 2007. He was one of the first to teach creative writing courses in poetry at the University of Sydney, through which he encouraged and mentored new poets with humour, wisdom and insight.

Award guidelines

• This award is for an unpublished manuscript of between 60-90 A4 pages.
• The manuscript must not be under consideration for other manuscript awards. The manuscript must not be under consideration with any publisher.
• Entrants must have previously published at least three poems in print or online literary journals or newspapers.
• This award is for a first collection of poetry. As such, entrants should not have previously published a collection of poetry more than 40 pages in length.
• Entrants should be either Australian citizens or have been residing in Australia for at least three years.
• Entrants can be of any age.
• The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Judges reserve the right not to make the award if no manuscript received is of a high enough standard.
• Before publication, the winning entrant must be willing to work on their manuscript with the judges.
• Except for the winning and shortlisted manuscripts, we are unable to give advice on manuscripts submitted nor enter into correspondence.

Submission guidelines

• Manuscripts must be submitted as a PDF or a Word document to: nrpa@vagabondpress.net
• Entrants should use their full name and manuscript title for the file name. (example: 'YourName_ManuscriptTitle.pdf')
• Manuscripts must include a title page, contents page and pages must be numbered.
• In the body of the email include the following information
  • Name, address, DOB, phone number
  • Manuscript title
  • Short bio note (max. 150 words)
  • Publication details of three previously published poems

Submissions open February 10, 2015 and close July 1, 2015.

Shortlist announced October 1 and winner announced October 10.

Judges: Vivian Smith, Jane Gibian & Elizabeth Allen.

To read more about Noel Rowe, visit Poetry International Web.