The Terry J. Cox Poetry Prize is awarded to honor a poet’s poetry collection, while also honoring the founder’s late father who held a lifelong love of poetry.
Submissions for the 2025 Terry J. Cox Poetry Award are open from November 15, 2024 through January 31, 2025. Submit your manuscript for our 2025 prize.
The 2025 Winner Receives: Poetry publication by Regal House Publishing in 2027 in paperback and $1000 prize. The editors at Regal House Publishing will announce their longlist on March 1, 2025, and the winner will be announced on April 15, 2025.
The 2024 Terry J. Cox Poetry Winner
The 2023 Terry J. Cox Poetry Award winner
The 2022 Terry J. Cox Poetry Award winner
2021 Winner of the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award
2020 Winner of the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award
2019 Winner of the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award
Electronic Submissions
Submissions are invited only through Submittable or by post mail. We do not have the staff capacity to read or respond to manuscripts that are submitted by fax or email.
*Submission fee: $25
*Please note that, without the submission fee, we would not be able to accept contest submissions, or to offer a $1000 prize to the winner. As Regal House Publishing is a small press with limited staff capacity, contest submission fees allow us to maintain sufficient editorial resources for careful review of each and every manuscript. We understand that submission fees can be difficult to accommodate, but rest assured that because of them, your submission will be carefully read, reviewed, and considered for this prize. Thank you for your understanding.
Physical Submissions
All physical manuscripts must be mailed (or postmarked) to the below Regal House Publishing address by January 31, 2025. Please be sure to include the entry form and the $25 entry fee with your submission. Send one copy of each manuscript. Make check or money orders payable to Regal House Publishing. Do not pay by cash or credit card. Please note that the longlisted and winning poets will be listed on our website on the designated date. We do not have the resources to mail individual responses, so please check our site for contest results.
Eligibility:
Entrants must be at least 18 years of age.
Individual poems in the submitted manuscript may have been published previously in magazines, journals, anthologies, chapbooks, or self-published books, but these poems must be submitted as part of an original manuscript and the author must retain copyright of the work.
Translations and collaborative manuscripts are not eligible.
Employees and volunteers of Regal House Publishing, Pact Press, Fitzroy Books or The Regal House Initiative, their partners or spouses, their immediate families, or immediate family of the judge are not eligible.
Manuscript Format:
- Minimum of 48 pages, maximum of 100 pages of poetry
- At least 11pt. font
- The entries will have a blind reading, so please do NOT include name, address and telephone number anywhere in the body of the manuscript. DO include it in the Submittable cover letter form (or if by mail, include a separate cover letter with the above information.
- Do not send artwork or photographs.
- Paginate consecutively and include a table of contents
- Attach publications acknowledgments, if any.
- Please adhere strictly to contest dates. Neither late nor early manuscripts will be accepted.
- Contestants may submit the manuscript elsewhere simultaneously, but must notify Regal House Publishing immediately if a manuscript is accepted by another publisher.
- Once submitted, manuscripts cannot be altered. Winner will be given the opportunity to revise before publication.
- Contestants may submit more than one manuscript, but a separate entry fee and entry form must accompany each manuscript.
Suggested Guidelines for postal entries:
- Send manuscript in a plain or padded envelope. Please no boxes.
- Keep a copy of your manuscript, as manuscripts will not be returned.
- We advise that you send your manuscript by first class or priority mail.
The paper from all manuscripts will be recycled after the winner is announced. Regal House Publishing assumes no responsibility for loss of manuscripts.
Send manuscripts, postmarked between November 15 , 2024 – January 31, 2025, to:
Regal House Publishing
ATTN: Terry J. Cox Poetry Prize
806 Oberlin Rd, #12094
Raleigh, NC 27605