The Backwaters Press

The Backwaters Press has won at least one Nebraska Book Award each year for Poetry and/or Cover Design since the award's inception in 2000: Matt Mason: Things We Don't Know We Don't Know Aaron Anstett: No Accident Jim Reese: These Trespasses Barbara Schmitz: How Our Dancing Has Improved Twyla Hansen: Potato Soup Shelly Clark & Marjorie Saiser: Road... Trip: Conversations With Writers Saiser, Kosmicki, Sandlin (eds.): Times of Sorrow, Times of Grace Robert Richter: Homefield: Sonata in Rural Voice Marjorie Saiser: Bones of a Very Fine Hand The Backwaters Prize, an international poetry book competition, was initiated in 1998 and ran for seven years. Contest winners were chosen by distinguished American poets including Hayden Carruth (National Book Award, National Book Circle Critics Award), Philip Levine (National Book Award, two Pulitzer Prizes), and Ted Kooser (Poet Laureate of the United States, Pulitzer Prize winner). Two winners of The Backwaters Prize were named Poets Laureate in 2008: Susan Firer (The Laugh We Make When We Fall and Milwaukee Does Strange Things to People), who was named Poet Laureate of Milwaukee, and Aaron Anstett (No Accident), who was named the Pike's Peak Area Poet Laureate. Anstett's book also won The Balcones Award from Austin College for the best book of poetry published by a small press in 2004. In addition to the Backwaters Prize, the press additionally initiated a prize for novels, The Omaha Prize. However, after two years, a decision was made by the editor to publish only poetry and poetry-related books. From 2004 to 2006, in an effort to honor the Nebraska native poet Weldon Kees, the press embarked on another ambitious project, The Weldon Kees Award, a chapbook contest that selected and published three winners each year. Inspired by the number of publishable manuscripts that were being submitted each year, Backwaters Editor, Greg Kosmicki, and Associate Editor, Rich Wyatt, decided on an "Open Submissions' policy, which continues today to be the manner in which manuscripts may ...Read More