DEADLINE EXTENDED!

Passager is a nonprofit journal and book press that publishes authors over 50. Writers must be age 50 or older at the time of publication to submit.

The Passager Poetry Contest will begin accepting entries on February 15, 2025. Entries should be submitted by midnight EDT on April 30, 2025. Please include:

• Up to 5 poems (40-line maximum for each)
• A $20 reading fee, which includes a one-year subscription to Passager (2 issues)*
• A cover letter with brief bio

Include your name and contact info on each page. Please upload your submission in one document. No previously published work or AI generated/assisted writing. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

Winner receives $1000, publication and a featured interview. Honorable mentions will be published.

* * * Additional requirement:

Passager has always been about welcoming new voices and giving readers a broad range of the best work by older writers. We wish we could afford to print all the poems and prose we love. Since we can't, we often (reluctantly!) must make hard choices. 

So, if you have had work in a recent issue of Passager, please read on. 

You may submit to the Poetry Contest without interruption each year. However, if your poem has appeared in the forthcoming 2025 Winter Issue (78) or 2024 Poetry Contest Issue (77), you will only be eligible to win the prize and become the new Passager Poet. You are not eligible for Honorable Mention (the publication of a single poem). * * *

If you have a question that wasn't answered here, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions About Submitting page before writing to Rosanne at editors@passagerbooks.com.

All poets will be notified of a decision by June 15, 2025.

Thank you for sending us your work!

*Due to increases in shipping and conversion fees, submissions outside the United States will receive digital issues of Passager with the reading fee.