When your manuscript arrives, it is logged into our Colorado Prize database. The top cover sheet (with your name and address) and the acknowledgments page (if included) are then removed and filed away until the contest is over.

Once all the entries have been received, they are boxed up and sent to outside screening judges; the Center does not use interns or students to screen for this contest. Each judge receives approximately two hundred manuscripts from which to select up to ten finalists. If a screener recognizes the work of a colleague, student, or friend, he or she contacts the Center and that manuscript is sent to another screener.

The final judge receives up to thirty finalists from which to select the winner. If the final judge wishes to see additional manuscripts from the screeners, he or she may request them; the judge is not, however, permitted to request specific manuscripts. Friends, colleagues, and students (current or former) of the judge are not eligible to compete, and the judge agrees to refrain as well from selecting any manuscript that presents a conflict of interest (selecting, for example, a manuscript he or she has helped to develop).