The 2024 The Polk Street Review book launch on Zoom was held on Leap Day evening, 29 February, and it was so much fun! Thank you to all our supporters and sponsors, the folks who presented at the book launch, and all the talented creatives who submitted their wonderful pieces to this year’s book!
We can’t wait for you to enjoy all the marvelous prose, poetry, song lyrics, and artwork images in the book! We had a wonderful array of submissions this year, most of which were inspired by this year’s optional theme, Awareness. Our book launch included a a look at all the images that were submitted this year, our Awards announcements, and some wonderful presentations of a handful of pieces from the book, with a little Q&A at the end. It was a great hour and a half! The video is on our YouTube channel‘s 2024 The Polk Street Review Playlist.
You can purchase books here:
Congratulations to the 2024 awards winners!
| Award | Title | Creator |
| 3rd Images | Different Side of Nature #2 | Saranna M. |
| 2nd Images | Sunflower | M.M. Mehlan |
| 1st Images | After The Storm | Tim Baker |
| 3rd Prose | The Great Egg Explosion of 1959 | Bonita Cox Searle |
| 2nd Prose | Mini Van | George W. Wolfe |
| 1st Prose | Everything Here … is Served with Vegetables and Beer | M.M. Mehlan |
| 3rd Poetry | Web | Ken Conklin |
| 2nd Poetry | To the Great Blue Heron at the Edge of the Pond | Bonita Cox Searle |
| 1st Poetry | Unscathed | Ramzi Albert Rihani |
| Special Award | The Wound | Michael E. Strosahl |
| Award of Merit | Awakening to Awareness | Shannon Daniels |
You can purchase TPSR publications direct from our printer, https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/4cearts or from Amazon.
Basic TPSR Information:
DEADLINE for annual TPSR submissions: 01 November
Click the link below to download the submission form:
01 November is the annual deadline for in-book Advertising Space buys and submissions of poetry, song lyrics, prose, recipes, and artwork images.
Please read the following to help guide you in preparing your Ads and/or submissions, so that they will best display in the printed publication.
The Polk Street Review is published as a 6×9 full-color paperback with standard page margins that allow a print area of approximately 4.5 x 6.5 inches. We print all images centered as wide/tall as possible, all prose is flush-left, and all poetry is centered, unless you requested we keep your original poetic formatting (ie, flush-left; indents, etc.). Our publication policy is to maintain authors’ voices as best we can with little editing:
- we may edit prose pieces for clarity, grammar, punctuation, and blank lines (blank lines for dramatic pause work well when reading aloud, but are not conducive to the print area in 6×9 books)
- long lines in poems, which may fit a standard 8×10 page width, may break in the print area in places not intended by the author
All that said, we strive to respect and honor your work in our publications.
Use the following formatting requirements for ALL YOUR FILES (ie, images and poetry/prose submissions).
- hi-res PNG or JPG images only
- Format Required for Image file names: YourName_ArtworkTitle.jpg (or .png)
- WORD doc/docx or Google docs only; do not send PDFs (except Submission Form).
- You may use ONE Word/Google doc for all written submissions; please use “page break” between EACH piece, and make sure each piece is titled with your name UNDER the title.
- Format Required for arts bio, prose, poetry, song lyric file names: YourName_Title.doc (or .docx)
- Format Required for text of prose, poetry, song lyrics:
- put “by Author Name” under titles,
- use Times New Roman 12pt, single-spaced, left-aligned (unless a poem has a visual shape).
- our default page alignment for poetry/song lyrics is CENTERED, so if you don’t want your poem/song lyric centered, please type “keep formatting” at the bottom of the poem
- If you would like to send in audio or visual recordings of songs along with your written lyrics document, please submit MP3 or MP4 files; format the files names YourName_SongTitle.mp3/mp4
- Do not use ALL CAPS for titles of poems, prose, or song lyrics.
- Do not underline titles of poems, prose, or song lyrics.
- All submissions must be your own original work; collaborations are welcome.
To submit your creative work to any of our opportunities, please follow file formatting guidelines above, and then use one of the following to submit your files:
• EMAIL Submission Form with your submission files & brief bio (3rd-person) to info@cearts.org
• use WeTransfer (free version) to send all files (submission form, Word docs, 3rd-person bio) to info@cearts.org
• share them in one Google Folder to infog@cearts.org (NOTE: the lowercase “g” in the “infog” part of our address).
Pre-Orders of the book, Patron donations, and Advertising Space buys help us cover project costs.
Pre-order copies of the book via Square: link updated with each edition each year, so check the main TPSR page for information on the next edition available for pre-ordering.
Patron donations can be made with PayPal and Square:
In the book, we would love to thank YOU for your Patron donations and/or share YOUR Ad!
Download the TPSR Advertising & Patron Form and send it to info@cearts.org by 01 November.
TPSR-Advertising-Patron-FormDownload
You can pay for Ad Space buys securely here: https://cearts.square.site/product/advertising-in-tpsr/21?cs=true or use the PayPalMe link and enter your Ad Space purchase amount: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/my/profile