CutBank

CutBank 105 makes a trip to Turquoise Lake! Let us know where your copy has traveled. And if you don’t have one yet, think of all the places you could take it. Or where it might take you…

Thanks Emily Harman for the fabulous photo. Check out Emily’s interview with Sean Hill in the new issue! Available at cutbankonline.org

CutBank Submissions Now Open!

General Submissions: September 15 - February 1
Big Sky, Small Prose: September 15 - October 15

Check out our website for submission guidelines. We can’t wait to read your work!

TOMORROW, September 15, submissions open for the 2026 Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest, guest judged by the marvelous Sherrie Flick.

Send us your best flash fiction, prose poetry, flash essay—whatever you want to call it so long as it’s under 750 words. Multiple micro pieces can be sent in a single submission so long as the total word count is under 750 words. For more guidelines and the link to submit, head to our website. We can’t wait to read your work!

Sherrie Flick is the author of six books, including the short story collection I Have Not Considered Consequences (Autumn House Press, 2025). She is co-editor for the Norton anthology Flash Fiction America and Senior Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her work has been performed at Symphony Space for NPR’s Selected Shorts and has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Ploughshares, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and Flash Fiction Forward. An essay from her debut essay collection Homing: Instincts of a Rustbelt Feminist (University of Nebraska Press) was listed as notable in The Best American Essays 2023. Her most recent awards include a Creative Development Grant from The Heinz Endowments and a Writing Pittsburgh fellowship from the Creative Nonfiction Foundation.

Photo credit: India Kia

Huge congrats to the 2026 CutBank Chapbook Finalists!

* [sic] by Stuart Greenhouse
* Dear Emily Dickinson & Other Lost Friends by Cindy Hunter Morgan
* My Virginity Goes to Hollywood and Other Simulations by Tom Kelly
* Want & Worry by Brooke Middlebrook
* All That is Observable by Samantha Padgett
* Erratics by Julie Shulman
* Changelings by Talia Weisz

We LOVED each of these submissions. What a difficult decision we faced this year! Thanks to all who submitted to this year’s contest—it was a truly fierce pool. We can’t wait to see what you send us next!

The 2027 CutBank Chapbook contest will open January 1
General submissions open Tuesday!

We are delighted to announce the second runner-up of the 2026 CutBank Chapbook acontest —

“Elementary”
by Millie Tullis

Tullis “paints such vivid portraits of childhood and awe while weaving in more complex feelings around religious life, queerness, and coming of age.” To say that our readers and editors were fans of this “wonderful, clear, and cutting” poetry collection is, needless to say, an understatement.

Millie Tullis (she/they) is a writer, editor, and researcher. Her debut poetry collection, *These Saints Are Stones* was published by Signature Books in 2026. Millie’s poetry has been published in *Sugar House Review, Stone Circle Review, Cimarron Review, Ninth Letter, SWWIM, Moist Poetry Journal*, and elsewhere. Raised in northern Utah, they live and work in upstate South Carolina. Learn more at millietullis.com (http://millietullis.com/).

It’s our honor to present the first runner-up of the CutBank’s 2026 Chapbook Contest —

Paper Gung Gung
by Stephanie Choi

Our readers and editors could not stop thinking about the formal daring of this project, an image-text search for lost family history reminiscent of Paisley Rekdal, Sheila O’Connor, and Mary Kim Arnold. “I fall more in love with this project every time I read it,” wrote one of our editors. “Part fiction, part poetry, part detective story, all brilliant.”

Stephanie Choi’s poems appear in *Beloit Poetry Journal, Blackbird, Copper Nickel, The Missouri Review, Waxwing*, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, *The Lengest Neoi*, was selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the 2023 Iowa Poetry Prize and published in 2024. She was the 2023-24 Poet-in-Residence at Sewanee: The University of the South and one of Poets and Writers Magazine’s Debut Poets of 2024. Her second manuscript, *Wherever Shore*, has been a finalist for Black Lawrence Press’s The Hudson Prize and EssayPress’s Open Reading Period. She is an Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University.

We are thrilled to announce the winner of CutBank’s 2026 Chapbook Contest —

The Training and Discipline of Donkeys
by Jacqueline Hughes Simon

Our readers and editors were enchanted by Jacqueline’s lyrical language and “smart, delicate, fun, and innovative use of extended metaphor.” We’d never read anything quite like it. “Painstaking!” one reader remarked, in the best possible way.

Jacqueline Hughes Simon is a poet, hand-sewn bookmaker, Letterpress operator, artist, donkey handler and large animal bodyworker. Her writing has appeared in the The Cortland Review, The Round, Tupelo Quarterly, Pacifica Literary Review, Blood Orange Review and others. She was a top 20 finalist for the 2026 Colorado Prize for her manuscript, Ranch Hand.Jacqueline received her MFA in Poetry from St. Mary’s College of California in 2021. And her certification in large animal bodywork from Northwest School of Animal Massage in 2024. Which, in her opinion, is the most interesting thing about her.

ONE WEEK until submissions open!!

Get ready to send us your hybrid risk-takers, jaw-dropping poems, unforgettable essays, funniest fictions, and art that knocks us out of our chairs

General Submissions // September 15 - February 1

Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest, judged by Sherrie Flick // September 15 - October 15

Submission guidelines on our website. Link in bio.

What fun we had this weekend at the CutBank Yard Sale!

Fabulous readings by CutBank 103 writer Phillip Schaefer and CutBank 59 writer Chris Dombrowski.

A silent auction for a gorgeous quire of poetry by James Welch, donated by Bear Scratch Press. Congrats to Sam Scott!

And raffle excitement when, after Chris Dombrowski’s winning ticket was pulled, he donated the coveted issue of CutBank 1 back and we drew again! Congrats to Paul Warmbier!

Thanks to all who made the day a success. Special shoutouts to lauren/kalani padilla for the incredible cookies, Chris Dombrowski and Philip Schaefer for sharing their work amidst the clamor of 5th St, Hillary Jo Foreman, kat kothen-hill, and the whole CutBank crew for putting this event together, and our wonderful community for coming out and celebrating with us!

CUTBANK 1 RAFFLE!

We’re extending part of our yard sale and CutBank 105 celebration to our far-flung friends. Head to the link in our bio for your chance to win a rare copy of CutBank 1! Published in 1973 and edited by William Kittredge, our inaugural issue offers stunning art and incredible writing. Don’t miss your chance to own this gorgeous piece of literary history.

The raffle will close at 2 pm MST on Saturday, September 5.

We will announce the winner on our story and contact them by email.

Beware of scammers! We will not announce the winner nor solicit payment through DM.