About The Backwaters Press

History

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 be submitted. Some manuscripts are also invited by the press.

The Backwaters Press is recognized by the IRS as a non-profit, 501-(C)-3 organization. Verification of this status is available upon request. The total amount of any donation you may make may be deducted from your income tax as a donation to a charitable organization.