About the Prize

The winner of The Headlight Review’s 2026 Poetry Chapbook Prize Contest will receive publication (a perfectly bound book with a full color or black/white cover), an award of $500, and 25 copies of the book. 

Submission Period
January 1 - March 31, 2026

A list of finalists will be announced in May. All manuscripts will be judged anonymously. The finalists who make it through the first round will be judged by Alafia Nichole Sessions.

The winning manuscript will be published within six months after the results of the competition are announced in June of 2026. Finalist will have poems featured in an upcoming issue of The Headlight Review. 

Guidelines

Eligibility: Employees and students at Kennesaw State University, both former and current, are not eligible to enter. Entrants must be at least 18 years of age or older. 

Electronic submissions: The $18 entry fee is payable by debit/credit card via Submittable, which you may find at the “Submit Your Manuscript” button at the bottom of this page. 

For $25 you can submit your manuscript and receive copies of the 3 previous winners. 

Manuscript Submission Details

Size: Manuscripts must be between 24-36 pages, including cover page, table of contents and any acknowledgements. 

• Format: 12 pt. standard typeface, PDF only. 
• Title page should include the title of the manuscript and nothing else. No identifying name or address is permitted in the manuscript. 
• Poems that have been published elsewhere must be acknowledged. Overall, the manuscript should be original and previously unpublished. 
• Multiple submissions are acceptable. Each submission requires a separate entry fee. 
• Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please inform us immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. Entry fees are nonrefundable. 
• Language: Entries must be written in the English language. 
• Illustrations are welcome.
• Translations are ineligible. 
• Comments will not be provided to non-winning entrants. 
• Editing will not be permitted once submitted. 

Kennesaw State’s MA in Professional Writing Program (MAPW) endorses and abides by the Ethical Guidelines of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Our system for judging is transparent and blind. The first-round judges will receive and rate their choices in order, and this will create a list of finalists. The manuscript finalists will go to the finalist judge, who will then select the best among the finalists. 

Guest Judge

Alafia Nicole Sessions is a black poet, writer, and mother living in Atlanta. She currently works as an educator, actress, herbalist and birthworker. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in POETRY, Obsidian, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, Ecopoetry Anthology, Southern Humanities Review, Indiana Review, Los Angeles Review, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. 

Alafia is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Cave Canem, Yaddo, The Watering Hole, Sustainable Arts Foundation, Georgia Writers Association, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and Oak Spring Garden Foundation. She was selected by Evie Shockley as the winner of the 2023 Furious Flower Prize. Alafia was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and thrice nominated for Best New Poets. She also received the Howard Moss Residency in Poetry. Her debut manuscript, Nine Drops of Turpentine, was selected as a finalist for the 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and a semi-finalist for Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize.