Use the holiday weekend now upon us to prepare your manuscript for entry into one of this autumn's upcoming first book awards. Unpublished poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers all have an opportunity to submit debut works to competitions running from now through November 15, listed below.

For poets:
Academy of American Poets
Walt Whitman Award [2]
open from September 15 through November 15

American Poetry Review
Honickman First Book Prize [3]
open through October 31

Persea Books
Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize [4]
open through November 2

Perugia Press
Poetry Prize [5]
open through November 15

Silverfish Review Press
Gerald Cable Book Award [6]
open through October 15

Yale University Press
Yale Series of Younger Poets [7]
open from October 1 through November 15

(N.B. Poets, check out Katrina Vandenberg's article "Putting Your Poetry in Order, the Mix-Tape Strategy [8]" for one writer's advice on how to organize a manuscript.)

For fiction writers:
University of Iowa Press
Short Fiction Awards [9]
September 30

For writers in all genres:
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
Bakeless Literary Publication Prizes [10]
open from September 30 through November 1