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ENVIRONS 2024 PRIZE

Environs celebrates contemporary environmental writing that highlights the vulnerabilities of our world and our identities as we relate to the places we inhabit and the earth itself.

The prize will alternate between prose and poetry. This year we are looking for poetry submissions.


Prize Information:
First Place: $1000, publication on website, and interview in Issue 10.2
Second Place: $300 and publication on website
Third Place: $100 and publication on website

The winner and finalists will be announced in summer 2024, and each will have the opportunity to read at a hybrid event in Portland, Maine.

Environs 2024 Guest Judge
Dr. Craig Santos Perez

This year we are joined by Dr. Craig Santos Perez, a poet, scholar, editor, publisher, essayist, critic, book reviewer, artist, environmentalist, and political activist. His poetry has received multiple awards, including the 2023 National Book Award, a 2015 American Book Award, and the 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry.

Craig Santos Perez is the author of two spoken word poetry albums, Undercurrent (2011) and Crosscurrent (2017), and five books of poetry: from unincorporated territory [hacha] (2008), from unincorporated territory [saina] (2010), from unincorporated territory [guma’] (2014), from unincorporated territory [lukao] (2017), and Habitat Threshold (2020). His work has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Spanish.

Submission Guidelines

Contest fee: $10 (email environs@mainereview.com if this is a barrier)

Submissions are open April 1–30 2024

Friends, family members, and students of the judge should refrain from submitting.


General Guidelines:
  • We accept submissions only through Submittable. Submissions must be previously unpublished in print and online.
  • We encourage simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw your submission immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. If only part of a submission must be withdrawn, please notify us using Submittable’s “message” function.
  • We encourage submissions from writers of all backgrounds, including but not limited to LGBTQIA+ writers, BIPOC writers, female-identifying writers, unpublished writers, writers with disabilities, and economically marginalized writers.
  • You can submit to Environs even if you have another active submission with us. However, please do not submit more than one Environs submission. We cannot refund multiple Environs submissions.
  • We will not publish work that normalizes hatred of any marginalized group or individual, though submitted work may thoughtfully consider subjects of discrimination.
Formatting Guidelines:
  • 12-point Times New Roman font
  • Single-spaced (or as you would like your poem to appear online)
  • Maximum 3 poems

Submit Here!

Maine Review Editorial Staff

Tatiana Dolgushina, Environs Editor

Tatiana Dolgushina (she/her) is a Soviet immigrant, born in Soviet Russia and raised in Ukraine, Argentina, Chile, and the United States. This multilingual and multicultural identity is central to her work. A graduate of the Oregon State MFA, her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, Hobart Pulp, Crab Creek Review, CALYX, the other side of hope, TAB, Collateral, New Farmer’s Almanac, and elsewhere. Her work has also been a semi-finalist or honorable mention in several poetry prizes. She is working on her first book of poetry titled when war makes a child. IG: tatiana_dolgushina_ Email: tatiana@mainereview.com

Chelsea Jackson, Managing Editor

Chelsea Jackson (they/she) is a writer, editor, consultant, and the author of the forthcoming collection All Things Holy and Heathen (April Gloaming, April 2024). Their work asks hard questions, interrogates inherited social narratives, and blurs the lines between human, animal, and natural world. Chelsea has an MFA in Poetry from Drew University and is published in Passengers Journal, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, Hearth and Coffin Literary Journal, and Beyond Queer Words, among other publications. After moving around for more than a decade, they recently returned to their home state of Virginia and now live in Richmond with their partner and cuddly pitbull. You can connect with them at chelsea-jackson.com, via social media @sea_c_j, or via email at chelsea@mainereview.com.

AJ Bermudez, Editor

AJ (she/her) is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the 2022 Iowa Short Fiction Award and a 2023 Lambda Award Finalist. Her work focuses on intersections of queerness, decolonization, and evolution, with an emphasis on ecological and anthropological convergences. She currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Miami. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, Boulevard, The Masters Review, Creative Nonfiction, Story, and elsewhere. More of her work can be found at amandajbermudez.com. You can reach her at aj@mainereview.com.