Submissions for the 2026 Airlie Prize

Submissions for the Airlie Prize are open annually, January 1 through March 31, to all poets writing in English, regardless of place of residence. The winner will be notified at the end of the summer following the submission and will receive a $1,000 cash award upon publication of the book.

Submit here: https://airliepress.submittable.com/submit

At Airlie Press, our vision and mission are to publish books of poetry that are compelling, innovative, and representative of diverse voices. As a press, we commit to participating in the ongoing conversation and practice regarding inclusion and equity. We are actively seeking collections from writers of color, trans and nonbinary writers, disabled writers, and others whose voices are underrepresented in literary publishing. As our membership changes continuously, we are open to a wide range of aesthetics in our publications.

In the interest of transparency, we’d like to share our selection process. In the first round, all manuscripts will be evaluated by two readers and are not read anonymously. Readers may include Airlie Press editors (either past or present), previous Airlie Prize winners, and guest readers invited by the current editorial board. Each reader will choose two manuscripts to advance to the second round. All current editors will then read the manuscripts that have advanced to the second round, and each will choose their top two selections. From that group of finalists, the prize winner is chosen by consensus among all current editors, and the winner is announced in August. If you have submitted to the Airlie Prize before, we encourage you to try again, as the judging team of Airlie Press editors varies from year to year.

Members of the Airlie advisory board are ineligible to enter this contest. In the case that an entry to the contest is made by a close connection (friend, relative, student, or former student) of one of the Airlie Prize readers, that reader will recuse themselves from the review of that manuscript in the first round. Manuscripts that advance to the final round will be read by all current editors, regardless of connection, and a winner will be chosen by consensus. For the purposes of this contest, we also define “close connection” as anyone with whom a reader has direct correspondence (either written or verbal) once a month or more. As poetry is a relatively small community, we believe a passing acquaintance with one of the readers does not necessitate a recusal.

Submissions are accepted via Submittable during the submission period. Entry fee: $25 ($33 if you would like to receive a copy of the winning book; $38 for those residing outside the US wishing to receive the book). Please note that this submission fee is waived for all writers from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color) and/or trans, nonbinary, intersex, Two Spirit and/or gender-expansive communities for the duration of the reading period.

Manuscript Guidelines:

Manuscripts should be 48 to 90 pages of original poetry in English (excluding front matter and end matter). No more than one poem should appear on a page. The author’s name should not appear anywhere in the manuscript.
Please be sure manuscript pages are numbered.
Please include a table of contents.
Please use a standard, easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman in twelve-point size.
Poems included in the submission may have appeared previously in magazines or anthologies but may not have been previously published in a book-length collection of the author’s own work.
Authors may submit more than one manuscript as long as no material is duplicated between submissions. Each submission requires a separate entry fee.
This contest is limited to single-author submissions. Translations are not eligible.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but ask that you notify us and withdraw your manuscript from Submittable if it is accepted by another publisher. Entry fees are nonrefundable.
The contest winner will participate in the judging for the Airlie Prize in the year following their book’s publication.

Results of the 2025 Airlie Prize

The winner of the 2025 Airlie Prize is A Trusted Spectacle in a World of Incomplete Sunshine, by Arisa White.

Thanks to everyone who submitted a manuscript for trusting us with your work. We hope you’ll join us in celebrating the winner and all of our finalists.

Winner (publication in 2027)
A Trusted Spectacle in a World of Incomplete Sunshine, by Arisa White

Finalists
Blood in the Garden, by Babette Cieskowski
Braces aren’t the reason you don’t bear your teeth, by Dena Igusti
The Dreed of Dandelion, by Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi
floor, o my floor, my most loyal love, by Paul Martinez-Pompa
The Everything Theory of Kissmaking, by Rebecca Tseng
King of Song, by Mathew Zhao
Open Mouth, by Jenna Martínez
Selling the World, by Matthew E. Henry
Revere Beach, by Carolyn Oliver

ABOUT THE WINNER

Arisa White is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Colby College. She is the author of Who’s Your Daddy, co-editor of Home Is Where You Queer Your Heart, and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice Series for young readers. In collaboration with composer Jessica Jones, Post Pardon: The Opera is Arisa’s librettist debut. Her poetry is widely published, and her collections have been nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a Lambda Literary Award and have won the Per Diem Poetry Prize, the Maine Literary Award, the Nautilus Book Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, and the Golden Crown Literary Award. As the creator of the Beautiful Things Project, Arisa curates poetic collaborations that are rooted in Black queer women’s ways of knowing. She is a Cave Canem fellow and serves on the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance Community Advisory Board. arisawhite.com