I’m chairing the SFPA’s poetry contest, this year, and it opens today! First, second, and third place prizes will go to the best speculative poems in each of three length categories. All forms and styles of speculative poetry are accepted. You can read more about the contest rules on the official contest website. This year’s judge is the brilliant Nikia Chaney.

Nikia Chaney has won awards from Cave Canem, Poets and Writers, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women Writers, and more. Her work has appeared widely in venues like Iowa Review, Portland Review, New York Quarterly, and elsewhere. I was blown away by her poem, “hummingbird,” which was recently made into a musical score and film by MOTIONPOEMS. I highly recommend watching the film and reading the poem on her website!

Chaney is a founding editor of shufpoetry and Jamii Publishing, and the fourth Literary Laureate for the Inlandia Literary Arts Institute. A recent Science Fiction Poetry panelist at LOSCON, Chaney has some fascinating ideas about the intersections between experimental poetry and speculative poetry. Read more on my post kicking off the contest on the SFPA blog.