Brittingham/Pollak Deadline: September 15, 2026 Translation Prize Deadline: October 31, 2026
Submissions to the Wisconsin Poetry Series are now open! Any poet with an original, full-length collection is eligible for the 42nd annual Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry, judged by Paisley Rekdal. Each manuscript, accompanied by a $28 reading fee, will be considered for both prizes. Each winner will receive $1,500 and publication through the University of Wisconsin Press. At least three additional applicants will also be offered publication.
For the fifth time this year, we are also accepting submissions to the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation, judged by Jennifer Feeley and awarding $1,500 plus publication. Translators or original authors are invited to submit a full-length collection of poetry translated into English. Applicants to the translation prize will be asked to confirm they have permission for English translation and publication of the work, by its author(s) and the executor(s) of any active copyright(s). Submissions must be accompanied by a $28 reading fee.
Manuscript Requirements:
- For the Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prizes, the author's name and contact info should not appear anywhere on the document. Please assemble a single pdf including a title page, a table of contents, the manuscript poems, and (optionally) an acknowledgments page listing any magazines or journals where the submitted poems may have first appeared. Manuscripts should be 50 to 90 pages in length on 8.5" x 11" pdf pages.
- For the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation, the name of the translator and original author should appear on the title page of the document. Please assemble a single pdf including a title/author page, a table of contents, the manuscript poems, 50-to-250-word bios for each original author and translator, a project statement up to 500 words in length, and (optionally) an acknowledgments page listing any magazines or journals where the submitted translations may have first appeared. Manuscripts must include each poem in both its original language and in English translation, comprising 75 to 150 total pages in length, on 8.5" x 11" pdf pages.
This Year's Judges:
Paisley Rekdal is the author of four books of nonfiction, and seven books of poetry, most recently, West: A Translation, which won the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Utah Book Award in Poetry, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Reading the West Poetry Award, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her work has received the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, the UNT Rilke Award, and various state arts council awards. The former Utah poet laureate, she teaches at the University of Utah where she directs the American West Center.
Jennifer Feeley is a literary translator from Chinese into English and the current Poetry from Hong Kong mentor for the American Literary Translators Association Emerging Translator Mentorship Program. Her translations include Gigi L. Leung’s Everyday Movement; Xi Xi’s Mourning a Breast, Not Written Words: Selected Poetry of Xi Xi, and Carnival of Animals: Xi Xi’s Animal Poems; Tongueless by Lau Yee-Wa; Chen Jiatong’s White Fox series; and Wong Yi’s Cantonese chamber opera libretto Women Like Us. She is currently working on a new translation of Xi Xi’s My City. The recipient of the 2017 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize and a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship, she holds a PhD from Yale University.
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Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowships
Applications for the WICW Poetry and Fiction Fellowships, awarding stipends of at least $42,000 and generous health benefits, will open on November 1. The submission deadline has changed, from previous years, to January 1. Please read these instructions and eligibility requirements, before selecting your application genre below.
To be eligible, applicants must have completed or be scheduled to complete an MFA or PhD in Creative Writing by August 15 of the fellowship year. Eligible applicants may have published no more than one full-length collection or book of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction as of the January 1 deadline. Individuals who have never published a full-length collection or book remain eligible, and most of our fellowships continue to be awarded to applicants who have not yet published or signed a contract for their first book.
Successful applicants must commit to reside in the Madison area for the full duration of the Fellowship from mid-August to mid-May (holiday and other travel are of course permitted); to teach one section of undergraduate mixed-genre or single-genre creative writing each semester; to hold no other teaching, graduate study or fellowship obligations; to assist in the selection of the following year’s Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowships; and in general to participate fully in the life of the Madison writing community during the fellowship period. For more details regarding the responsibilities and privileges of our fellows, please see our main fellowships page.
Applicants should prepare the following materials before applying:
- A $50.00 Application Fee, paid online by credit card.
- A resume or curriculum vitae, concluding with the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of two recommenders.
- A writing sample consisting of either 10 pages of poetry (single-spaced and uploaded as a pdf) or up to 30 pages of fiction (double-spaced and uploaded as a pdf). Fiction applications must consist of either one short story or a novel excerpt. Your name must not appear anywhere on your manuscript, and while previously published work may be submitted, your manuscript must in no way indicate that your work has been published.
Do not include more than one genre in a single submission. You may apply in more than one of our fellowship genres, but you must upload a separate application for each, with separate application fees. If you are submitting short fiction, please do not send more than one short story. The limit is one story no matter how short that story may be. If you send more than one story, we will only read the first. If you are sending a novel excerpt you may (but need not) include a brief synopsis (one or two paragraphs) of the novel, as page one of the manuscript.
The poetry and fiction fellows will be chosen by May 1 each year, and announced on our fellows page. If you have questions concerning these fellowships that are not answered in the FAQ below, please contact Ron Kuka, Coordinator of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, at institutemail@english.wisc.edu.
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Please upload an original poetry manuscript in pdf format, no fewer than 50 and no more than 90 pages in length. Your manuscript should be formatted as specified below. Please be sure your name and contact information DO NOT APPEAR anywhere in the manuscript. You will be asked to pay a $28 entry fee, by credit card.
All submissions will be considered for both the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Winners will be announced no later than February 15, 2027, and will receive $1,500 each shortly thereafter. Winning manuscripts will be published in the late winter or spring of 2028. Four additional manuscripts will also be selected for publication by UW Press, as part of the Wisconsin Poetry Series.
Your manuscript should include the following:
- A simple title page, which should not include the name of the author.
- A table of contents, with accurate page numbers indicated.
- 50 to 90 pages of poetry, with numbered pages.
- An acknowledgments page (optional, if any of the poems have appeared previously in journals or magazines).
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Please upload a book-length collection of poetry translated into English, in pdf format. The translations submitted must be previously unpublished in book form. The manuscript must include each poem in its original language, as well as in translation, and should be no fewer than 75 and no more than 250 pages in length.
As part of your application, you will be asked to confirm that permission has been granted to the translator(s) of this book for English translation and publication of the original text, by its original author(s) and the executor(s) of any active copyright(s). Alternately, you may declare that the translator(s) hold the rights to the translations because the original text is in the public domain.
Your manuscript should be formatted as specified below. Please be sure both the name of the translator(s) and the original author(s) appear on the title page of the manuscript. You will be asked to pay a $28 entry fee, by credit card.
The winner will be announced no later than February 15, 2027, receiving $1,500 shortly thereafter. The winning manuscript will be published in the spring of 2028. Manuscripts that do not win the prize may still be considered for publication and inclusion in the Wisconsin Poetry Series.
Your manuscript should include the following:
- A simple title page, which should include the names of the original author(s) and translator(s).
- A table of contents, with accurate page numbers indicated.
- 75 to 250 pages of poetry (including both the poems in their original language, and in English translation), with numbered pages.
- A biography page, including 50-to-250-word bios for each author and translator.
- A book description that addresses the project's historical, cultural, and/or artistic significance.
- An acknowledgments page (optional, if any of the poems have appeared previously in journals or magazines).