SKIP TO STEP FOUR IF YOU HAVE NOT NOMINATED PIECES FOR PUSHCART YET

1.  You have a little magazine or a small book press with eligible entries (see step 2) you published in the past year. How the status of ‘little magazine’ or ‘small book press’ is defined appears to be up to you, though as an esteemed publication which does not nominate Pushcart once had in its snotty FAQ, ‘even high school magazines can nominate for Pushcart’. If you’re wondering if your press or magazine is too big, I cannot help you and I wish I had your troubles, but nothing is too small. If you’re a high school student, I recommend making a ‘press’ and then nominating for Pushcart. Saturate that field, child.

   Also, you must be located on planet Earth. If your astronaut chapbook imprint is still in orbit, sit this one out. I imagine the mailing process would have been quite the logistical headache anyway.
   
   

2.  This is the hardest step! You can choose up to six eligible pieces published by your press or magazine from the current calendar year to nominate. They may be ‘any combination of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or stand-alone excerpts from novels.’ Works in translation and reprints are also considered. If you like, include a cover page indicating the story of your press or magazine. You don’t have to.

   (People with multiple websites and presses obviously nominate more, so don’t feel bad if you, a single person, at a single press, decide to take up space!)
   
   

3.  Put together a package of your chosen lovelies, and print that sh*t out. As of 2023, Pushcart does not have an electronic avenue for submission. As tempting as it may be, don’t include a copy of a magazine or book unless it only contains the pieces you want to nominate. Make a nice package of only the pieces for your Pushcart nominations.

   Along with the full text of the pieces you have chosen, include the titles, authors’ names, and the dates they were published. If the work has not been published when you are putting together your package for Pushcart (see step 4) indicate the actual publication date.
   
   

4. In order to be considered for the 2023 edition which will be published in 2024, mail your package between October 1 and December 1. If you are reading this at the time of publication, you have time but you should start putting on your coat and securing your bribe for the mailman.
   

   Mail to Pushcart Press, P.O. Box 380, Wainscott, NY 11975.

   They list a phone number too but you can’t mail via phone call. There is nothing else you need to do. Run! STOP READING THIS. RUN.
   
   

5.  You made it! You’re okay!! The package is no longer in your hands. It’s on the way to a post office box somewhere in upstate (?? citation?) New York.
   But haven’t you forgotten something? A cute little announcement to your substack subscribers and medium followers (if you run a substack or a medium you can nominate Pushcart)? An image devised in photoshop with up to six pieces and names, all authors involved tagged so they may always be called ‘Pushcart-nominated poet emeritus’ on their social media taglines and beyond? Don’t forget this! In the great lottery which is publishing, this is an easy race for the rats to run. And you don’t even run; you just get in the Cart!

*Remember, I don’t do the nominations myself, but I do social media management– we are a little press that CAN nominate, and we are ALWAYS looking to break down barriers in art spaces so that talented, unrepresented voices may have recognition– so can you!