From my mailbox this morning:

Dear Fellow Poet,

The editors of The Backwaters Press are pleased to invite you to submit your best poems for consideration in an anthology of contemporary Nebraska poetry tentatively titled Nebraska Presence: The State of Poetry. This collection will afford readers across the state and the nation a view of Nebraska”s richly diverse poetic voices at twenty-first century”s inception.

Authors may submit up to ten pages of poetry. Please include a brief (no more than 100-word) biography and publication acknowledgements with your submission. Editors will select a total of three pages from the ten submitted for each poet chosen to be represented in the anthology.

To be eligible for inclusion in Nebraska Presence, poets must have work published in at least one major publication, or have published at least one chapbook by a non-vanity press.

The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2006. Final selections will be made by December 31, 2006. We expect the anthology’s arrival in the fall of 2007 in time for the Nebraska Book Festival.

All submissions must be on paper and must be mailed to:

Mary K. Stillwell, Editor
Nebraska Presence
908 Elmwood Avenue.
Lincoln, NE 68510-3320

Please send a SASE for returns if desired.

After selection, electronic copies of the poems will be requested in order to facilitate production.

Sincerely,
The Editors,

Denise Banker
Greg Kosmicki
Mary K. Stillwell