Dirty Dancing turns 40 on August 21, 2027! We’re going to celebrate, and we’re inviting you to join us.
Co-editors Dustin Brookshire, founder and curator of the Wild & Precious Life Reading Series, and Courtney LeBlanc, founder and EIC of Riot in Your Throat, invite you to submit to an anthology celebrating this iconic film.
What we are looking for:
Entertain us with your Dirty Dancing expertise. Pay tribute to the movie’s characters, set, epic soundtrack, and more. Poems don’t have to be “fully Dirty Dancing”—we invite work that is a Dirty Dancing adjacent. We want to read poems that include a well-placed Dirty Dancing reference that strengthens the intention of the poem.
Above all else— be sure to show us you’ve seen the movie.
Previously published poems will be considered unless the poem has already appeared in an anthology. Please provide information on where the poem first appeared and be certain that you retain rights to your work. To reiterate, you must retain the rights to your work for it to be considered for the anthology.
Submission Guidelines:
– All submissions must be emailed to Riot in Your Throat at riotinyourthroat @ gmail.com (without the spaces!)
– Submit no more than TWO (2) poems in one Microsoft Word document.
– Poems should not exceed 3 pages each; submissions should not exceed 6 pages total.
– Poems should be single spaced (unless formatted otherwise) and in Times New Roman font.
– Submission window: 1 – 15 November 2026 — submissions received before or after the submission window will be deleted unread.
Payment:
Contributors will receive one copy of the anthology as payment for the acceptance of their work, no royalties will be paid. Additional copies will be available for purchase at a discount.
SEND US YOUR BEST DIRTY DANCING POEMS!!!