Thanks for cc’ing me on the issue of entry fees for writing contests. I’m letting Doug Rutledge in on this as well because he and I have had some substantial conversation on the issue of contests and fees as well. Both of us simply exploring the subject and attempting to give thoughtful consideration to both sides of any debate. Doug is the current President of the OPA (Ohio Poetry Association). You probably know that. I’m going to make some simple statements that might seem a bit contrary to each other–some of them. I mean “If I think this, well, then, why do I think that?” I do more arguing with myself than I do with others. But I don’t wear religious brooches on a chain, I wear the question mark.
Pudding House charges $15 for the entry fee for our chapbook competition each year. It feels right-on. It’s the lowest amount of money I’m willing to do that work for. And at Pudding House an imperfect poem can even win. I’m not looking for perfect, I’m looking for artful. I am one who ends sentences with prepositions.
We make enough to publish the winner’s chapbook, give the winner prize money, and to publish additional authors’ chapbooks that got notice, some years as many as 25 or 30 of the manuscripts get published. Last year only three or four. Some of it might pay me for a bit of my time SOME YEARS and there is nothing at all wrong with that. This IS my job, my business, and they who write against the entry fees for competitions I suppose would rather see the competitions or the press fold? What else could the opponent possibly want? Editors, judges, and publishers have to get paid somehow. Pudding House is a sole proprietorship, not a nonprofit organization. We aren’t a charity and nowhere is it written that a literary venture SHOULD be.