As 2016 comes to a close, our staff is eagerly looking to 2017—and new submissions periods! In order to facilitate a timely response, we will open separately for each genre. Additionally, Milkweed Editions participates in three annual poetry prizes—two of which offer $10,000 purses: the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, the National Poetry Series, and (in collaboration with Copper Nickel) the Jake Adam York Prize. For complete guidelines and access to our Submittable page, hop over to our submissions page: milkweed.org/submissions.

One Friday afternoon this past May, I received an email from Martha Collins. She asked me to consider a manuscript by a young poet named Max Ritvo. Jean Valentine had selected his work for a chapbook competition, Martha explained, and Lucie Brock-Broido had selected some of the poems in the manuscript for publication in the Boston Review. Martha added only that there was some urgency, as an illness had thrust this young man into what would become the final stage of his life.