Introducing Mid/South Sonnets

A special call for submissions

We have a lot of catching up to do over here at our Substack. The past month has been a bit of a blur as we’ve been wrapping up a lot of projects, making progress on our 2023 books, and lining up our 2024 catalog. In the meantime, we have an exciting announcement to share: our next anthology!

One of the defining characteristics of both Southern and Mid-Southern experiences involves paradox: the sense of being tethered to deep community, traditions, culture—while also resisting those boundaries or finding ways to make them our own. The places we call home can simultaneously provide a sense of belonging while forcing us to make them new again.

For our next anthology, we’d like to explore these ideas through poetic form. Mid/South Sonnets will be a shorter collection that brings together writers and themes from our eclectic region. We welcome both traditional and experimental approaches to the sonnet form. This anthology will be co-edited by C.T. Salazar and Casie Dodd.

Details:

• Reading period: January 15-March 15

• Publication Date: August 2023

• Please send all submissions to submissions@bellepointpress.com.

• You may send up to five poems for us to consider; any number up to five is fine.

• In your email, include a little information about your work and your connection to the region as well as a short author bio.

• .doc/.docx files are preferred, but you may send a PDF if formatting is a concern.

• **EDIT**: Poems may be either unpublished or published as long as authors retain the rights to reprint them.

• We will respond to all submissions by mid-April. The full lineup will be announced during National Poetry Month.

• Contributors will receive 2 copies of the anthology + 1 other Belle Point chap of their choice.

We have been so grateful to get to know C.T. over the past year through his support of the anthology and our previous interview, and we know a Southern sonnet project wouldn’t be complete without C.T.’s mark.

We’ll officially start reading submissions on January 15, so get your poems ready and help us spread the word! And keep an eye on this space in the coming weeks as we share more news about what else we’ve been up to.

Don’t forget you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as well as on Post.