Founded in 2013 by David Starkey, Gunpowder Press is located in Santa Barbara, California. Our name is a nod to our city's namesake, Saint Barbara, the patron saint of gunpowder.
The press hosts several annual prizes including the annual Barry Spacks Poetry Prize for a full-length manuscript of original poetry. The Alta California Chapbook Prize, edited by Emma Trelles, publishes winning chapbooks by latinx poets in bilingual editions. The Dryden-Vreeland Prize is a book prize for poets working in K-12 education. Poets published by Gunpowder Press include Aaron Baker, Todd Copeland, Meghan Dunn, Michelle Bonczek Evory, David Allen Case, Nan Cohen, Meghan Dunn, Glenn Freeman, Catherine Abbey Hodges, Gabriel Ibarra, Florencia Milito, Kurt Olsson, Jim Peterson, Catherine Esposito Prescott, Peg Quinn, Nicolas Reiner, Crystal AC Salas, Barry Spacks, and Chryss Yost.
The press also publishes thematic anthologies of poems by central California coast poets in the Shoreline Voices Project series which have featured dozens of established and emerging poets. Two Shoreline Voices anthologies are available online: While You Wait, edited by Laure-Anne Bosselaar; and Big Enough for Words, edited by David Starkey, Chryss Yost, and George Yatchisin.
Gunpowder Press also publishes an online poetry journal, Anacapa Review.
Anacapa Review considers poems in any style. You may submit up to 3 poems per submission. When selecting which poems to submit, please keep in mind that Anacapa Review is an online publication, and viewers may be reading your poems on a range of devices; concrete poems or poems with very long line may display differently for some readers.
Accepted poems will appear one month after the deadline for a given issue. Accepted submissions made through May 31 will appear in issue 2.4, the July/August 2024 issue. We make decisions on all submissions each month--no poems are held back for future issues. In short, you will hear from us promptly, and if your work is accepted, it will be published soon afterwards.
In submitting your work you agree that the poems submitted have not been previously published online or in print. We consider simultaneous submissions with the understanding that if your poems are accepted elsewhere you will promptly notify Anacapa Review by either withdrawing your entire submission in Submittable, or, if not all of the poems have been accepted elsewhere, by indicating in Submittable Messages which poems are still available.
Anacapa Review also hopes to publish poetry-related prose, such as book reviews, interviews, and reflections. If you have an idea for something you think might be a good fit for Anacapa Review, we invite you to email us at editors@anacapareview.com.
Previously published in Anacapa Review? Thank you! Your poems are what make Anacapa Review successful. Please wait one year before submitting again—diversity of voices is important to us.
Need to withdrawn one of your poems? Congratulations on having your work published elsewhere! Please use the Submittable messaging feature to let us know which poem(s) you'd like to withdraw, and we will keep the others in our consideration.
The Barry Spacks Poetry Prize is awarded annually for an unpublished book-length manuscript of 48-100 pages. The Spacks Prize honors the first poet laureate of Santa Barbara and his legacy of clear yet challenging work. Submissions are accepted between January 1 and April 30. The prize includes $1000 and publication by Gunpowder Press with 20 author copies.
How to Submit: Entry fee is $20. $25 includes entry and copy of the winning book ($15 cover price). Word .doc or .docx preferred. Please include a table of contents and a page which acknowledges previous publication of individual poems. Entrant's names will be removed from manuscripts presented to the final judge. Winners will be selected by the editors of Gunpowder Press. Due to our desire to respect international copyright, submissions are accepted from poets living within the United States only.
Previous Spacks Prize Winners:
- The 2023 Spacks Prize was awarded to Kellam Ayres for her manuscript In the Cathedral of My Undoing, selected by Gary Soto.
- The 2022 Spacks Prize was awarded to Catherine Esposito Prescott for Accidental Garden, selected by Danusha Laméris.
- The 2021 Spacks Prize was awarded to Todd Copeland for Like All Light, selected by Lynne Thompson.
- The 2020 Spacks Prize was awarded to Meghan Dunn for Curriculum, selected by Jessica Jacobs. Peg Quinn's Mother Lode was also selected for publication as an Editors' Choice.
- The 2019 Spacks Prize was awarded to Glenn Freeman for Drinking with O'Hara, selected by Stephen Dunn.
- The 2018 Prize was awarded to Michelle Bonczek Evory for The Ghosts of Lost Animals, selected by final judge Lee Herrick.
- The 2017 Prize was awarded to Aaron Baker for Posthumous Noon, selected by final judge Jane Hirshfield.
- The 2016 Prize was awarded to Kurt Olsson for Burning Down Disneyland, selected by final judge Thomas Lux.
- The inaugural Spacks Prize was awarded to Catherine Abbey Hodges in 2015 for Instead of Sadness, selected by final judge Dan Gerber.
About Gunpowder Press: Founded in 2013 by David Starkey and co-edited by David Starkey and Chryss Yost, Gunpowder Press is an independent poetry press located in Santa Barbara, California.