Starting Aug. 1, the Sundog Poetry Book Award will be open to submissions from all Vermont poets who have not published more than one full-length collection.

Final judge, Shanta Lee Gander of Brattleboro, will select the winning manuscript and write an introduction for the book. The winning poet will receive a cash prize of $500, 50 copies of the book, and assistance with promotion through a featured book launch and a handful of readings scheduled throughout the state.

Gander is the author of “GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak in Woke Tongues,” winner of the 2021 Vermont Book Award and the 2020 Diode Press full-length book prize. Her forthcoming collection, “Black Metamorphoses” (Etruscan Press, 2023), is what Gander describes as a 2000+ year-old phone line opened to Ovid as well as an interrogation of the Greek mythos while creating her own new language in this work. She was the 2020 recipient of the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts as well as the 2020 gubernatorial appointee to the Vermont Humanities Council’s board of directors. She has a Master of Fine Arts in creative non-fiction and poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Hartford, and an undergraduate degree in Women, Gender and Sexuality from Trinity College.

First-readers include Vermont poets Sue Burton, Lucas Farrell and Diana Whitney, as well as two members of the Sundog Poetry board. Sundog Poetry Center has a long-term partnership with Brattleboro publisher Green Writers Press, run by publisher and poet Dede Cummings. Green Writers Press will design, print and distribute the book nationwide. For more information, visit the Sundog Poetry website, sundogpoetry.org/sundog-book-award.

Manuscripts should be between 48 and 64 pages. Proof of Vermont residency will be requested along with a $20 application fee online via Submittable. Poets with demonstrated financial need can contact the managing director to request a fee waiver, at sundogpoetry@gmail.com. Submissions for this book award will close Sept. 30.