Open green double doors leading to a scenic view of a large body of water, cliffs, and mountain in the distance, in a rustic kitchen with green cabinetry, copper pots hanging on the wall, shelves with dishes, and potted plants.

PERFECTING THE MANUSCRIPT

We have been offering our manuscript conferences for ten years.

Over 100 books of poetry have been published by conference participants,

many in the last three years!

2026 Manuscript Conference Dates:

November 20th - 23rd, 2026
December 11th - 14th, 2026

Our Wildly Popular  Zoom-Based Poetry Manuscript Conference from Tupelo Press

Tupelo’s online conference model offers an intimate group of poets the chance to meet with faculty in small groups and build a writing community with one another. 

During each conference, faculty Jeffrey Levine and Kristina Marie Darling lead the manuscript sections and offer additional craft talks.

Your faculty are two of the most experienced editors, mentors, poets, publisher, and spirit guides in the country: Jeffrey Levine, Publisher & Artistic Director of Tupelo Press, Kristina Marie Darling, Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press and Tupelo Quarterly. (See bios below.)

Together, we will generate real-time, immediately applicable feedback on your manuscript, including comments on individual poems and substantive guidance toward final revision, poem ordering, and manuscript titling. You will be guided through both the art and craft of making your manuscript not just cohere, but sing.

Using Zoom (no app need, just click a link), we will meet as a group for Q&A sessions, poetry readings, and “happy hours” to socialize, in addition to the important, daily, break-out sessions where manuscript reviews will take place. Unlike the process at other manuscript conferences, the Tupelo faculty will have read your entire manuscript. Over the four days of the conference, we will make individually tailored suggestions about where to send your manuscript, as well as the placement of individual poems in magazines and journals. We will also share strategies for how to build an audience before formally submitting your book to publishers.

FAQs and Detailed Schedule Below

Fee $950  

Register

 FAQ & Schedule

    • Poets who have published a significant number of individual poems and/or chapbook(s), but who have not yet assembled their work into a full-length manuscript; AND/OR

    • Poets who have already assembled a full-length manuscript of individual poems, a number of which have been published;

    • Poets who have published books, and who have a new manuscript;

    • Poets who have submitted their manuscript a number of times, and who want to learn new ways to improve the work and increase the likelihood of publication.

    • Soon after registering, you will receive a set of expertly designed, pre-conference exercises geared toward deepening your understanding of what goes into the making – and remaking – of your poetry manuscript;

    • Upon receipt, each manuscript will receive a thorough reading by  Jeffrey Levine and Kristina Marie Darling.

    • Poets choosing to purchase a full manuscript review at a reduced cost (details below) will have their manuscript reviewed by Jeffrey Levine. 

    • Poets paying for the full manuscript review (at the reduced conference rate) can use what they learn at the conference and submit a manuscript up to three months after the conference.

    • All poems and manuscripts must be submitted and shared electronically, as .docx documents.

    • We will meet online, but face-to-face via Zoom, an easy-to-use platform that’s gotten a lot of positive attention and use during our months of sheltering and teaching from home. There’s nothing to install. Just click on the emailed link you get from us five minutes before each meeting; 

    • You will need a good WiFi connection and a dependable computer;

    • For some sessions, we will meet as a full group: the Friday introduction and social hour; daily introductory remarks; participant and faculty poetry readings; panels and Q&A sessions; and the final wrap-up: real world strategizing about how, when and where to send not only your manuscripts, but packets of poems.

    • On Saturday and Sunday, you will also meet in small groups for intensive conferencing with each faculty; every participant will have time with each of the three faculty.

    • See detailed, four-day schedule below.

  • (NOTE: All times are EST, geared toward accommodating most time zones; all meetings are synchronous, via Zoom):

    Friday: 3 pm introduction, with BYO wine and cheese, and a full orientation and overview of what’s in store for the weekend.

    Friday: 5 pm optional poetry reading by faculty and participants

    Saturday and Sunday: Morning sessions will run from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, and afternoon sessions will run from 3:00 pm to 5:30 pm. 

    NOTE: There will be several built-in breaks, including generous time for lunch and snacks. You will have assignments to work on in the off-hours.

    Monday morning:10 am: overview of publishing nuts and bolts with tailored advice on where, when, and how to submit individual packets of poems and entire manuscripts, along with proprietary information about how to “improve the odds.” 11:30 am: Farewell.

  • Each four-day conference will:
    Convene Friday at 3pm,
    Meet daily Saturday and Sunday for workshops from10:00 to 1pm, and from 3pm to 5:30 pm.
    Conclude Monday at 11:30am.

    Fees are $950

  • Limited to 12 participants, divided into two, intimate groups.

  • Participants may sign up separately with Jeffrey Levine for an intensive, poem by poem review and post conference annotation of your full-length or chapbook manuscript.   Cost: $400 for chapbook-length manuscripts, (up to 26 pages) $800 for full-length manuscripts, (up to 54 pages) manuscripts.

Meet the Team

Jeffrey Levine, a man smiling and holding a book, standing in a room with a blurred background.
A woman smiling outdoors on a sunny day with trees and buildings in the background.

Jeffrey Levine
Publisher & Artistic Director

Jeffrey Levine, founder and Artistic Director of Tupelo Press, is the author of four books of poetry: Rumor of Cortez, nominated for a 2006 Los Angeles Times Literary Award in Poetry, Mortal, Everlasting, which won the 2002 Transcontinental Poetry Prize, and At the Kinnegad Home for the Bewildered, Salmon Press, 2019. He is principal translator from the Spanish of Pablo Neruda’s epic work of poetry, Canto General. His poems have garnered 23 Pushcart nominations and have been featured in more than a dozen anthologies. His blog posts – particular those on creating the poetry manuscript—boast over 25,000 reads. He is well known for his exacting and insightful manuscript reviews – now numbering nearly 1,000 – 320 of which have led directly to published books. An accomplished musician, Levine is a concert clarinetist (former principal clarinet of the Buffalo Philharmonic & the New York City Opera Orchestra), he is also a studio guitarist and jazz pianist.

Kristina Marie Darling
Editor-in-Chief

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of more than thirty books, with recent titles published by Bloomsbury, Persea, Dzanc, and Penguin Canada.  A twice-awarded Fulbright scholar, Dr. Darling is currently serving a second tenure with the U.S. Fulbright Commission as a Specialist, or “expert in the field,” advising universities on pedagogy, curriculum design, faculty development, and international academic partnerships. An accomplished public speaker, Dr. Darling has lectured at the Clews Foundation’s Threshold Retreat Series at Chateau de la Napoule, Stanford University, Columbia University in the City of New York, the University of Zadar, the Leysin American School in Switzerland, the American University of Rome, the San Miguel Writers Conference and Literary Festival, and many other writers' conferences across Europe and North America. Dr. Darling serves as permanent faculty at the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, and is currently embarking on her sixth summer as a guest lecturer at Yale. Her honors include the 2026 National HerStory Award from the Women’s Federation for World Peace, fifteen juried residencies at the American Academy in Rome, three residencies at Yaddo, where she has held both the Martha Walsh Pulver Residency for a Poet and the Howard Moss Residency in Poetry, a Villa Lena Foundation Fellowship, a Hawthornden Castle Fellowship, a Visiting Artist appointment with the Andorran Ministry of Culture, and numerous other international fellowships recognizing her contributions to literature, education, and the public humanities.  Dr. Darling divides her time between Greece, Italy’s Amalfi Coast, the French Riviera, and Malta.