Submissions to the 2022 Half Poetry Marathon Anthology are open now and will stay open through the 22nd of July! For the first time the anthology will have two different editors. Make sure you submit to the right editor.

This year’s Half Marathon Editor Cristy Watson is an award-winning author of eight novels for MG and YA readers. She loves entering writing contests and was thrilled to receive Editor’s Choice in the CV2, 2-Day Poem Contest in 2013. She also regularly participates in the Poetry Marathon in June, and she has a poem in an important and timely new anthology, ‘Worth More Standing’ (Caitlin Press; Christine Lowther, editor). She also volunteers at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference and was recently Committee Chair for Wise Words through the BC Federation of Writers. She completed a manuscript evaluation for an author through The Writers Union of Canada, as well as helping to previously judge their short fiction contest, and in the past few years, she has assisted writers of fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and poetry. You can find her here: cristywatsonauthor.wordpress.com

The following guidelines are for Half Marathoners only. Read our guidelines carefully before submitting. The anthology is only sustainable if people follow the guidelines.

All poems submitted must be written during the 2022 Half Marathon, and the writer must have completed the Half Marathon in 2022.

All poems should be completely edited and as much as possible contain no major grammatical errors. Revisions are allowed and encouraged before submitting. Please check your punctuation. All poems should be single spaced. Any extra space will probably be interpreted as a stanza break. The first word of every line should not have a capitalization unless it is intentional.

When you submit you must include in the email the following:

1. The subject line should state “Half Marathon Submissions”. (Full 24 hour marathoners: see the guidelines here.)
2. The body of the email should start with your location.
3. Then include the hour of the half marathon the poem was written in.
4. As well as a link to your poetry marathon page.
5. Two poems pasted into the body of the email. All submissions must include two poems, no more, no less.

Please follow all these guidelines. Use the above list as a checklist for your email submission and only press send once you’ve reviewed it twice.

All half marathon submissions must be made via this email address: halfmarathonsubmissions@gmail.com

DO NOT email us at the email address we use for all other communications or to the full marathon address if you are a half marathoner!

One poem will be chosen per poet to be featured within the anthology, the only exception to this is if your poems contain hate speech or are illegible.  In both cases we will reach out to you directly. Please do not query about the status of your submission.

Due to issues that happened in the past, no one is allowed to announce that their poem has been accepted for publication till September 1st, unless notified otherwise. Announcements made on the marathon groups before September 1st, will be deleted.

Thank you for following the guidelines! I know they might seem strict, but they make it possible to put together an anthology in a few months. The anthology should be published before Christmas. Last year a lot of people didn’t follow the guidelines and we experienced significant delays because of this. The anthology is only sustainable if people follow the guidelines.

After the poems are published in the anthology all rights return to you.

Digital copies will be made available for free to any contributor. Print copies will be available for a reasonable price and any money that is made from selling the anthology will go towards covering the cost of the marathon.