The LemonLight Prize: Year One

706 entries. 3,500 poems. Eight countries. What happens now.

When we opened the The LemonLight Prize in March, we genuinely did not know what to expect. We are a young press. This was our first prize. We had built something we believed in and put it into the world, and then we waited to see whether the world would respond.

It did.

706 entries. Over 3,500 poems. Poets from eight countries.

We have been sitting with those numbers as the prize came to an end, and they still don’t feel entirely real. What they tell us is not just that poets wanted a prize to enter — there are plenty of those. They tell us that something about what Ink & Ribbon is trying to do resonated. That the poets who found us saw, in what we are building, something worth the fifteen dollars and the vulnerability of sending work to a press they were still getting to know.

We are grateful for that trust in a way that is difficult to put into words. Every one of those 706 submissions will be read with care, in the way it was submitted. We don’t take that lightly, and nor do our editors.

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What Happens Next

Here is the timeline:

Shortlist announced — mid to late July

Winner and honorable mentions announced — August

Anthology mailed to all pre-order recipients — late August into September

We will share the shortlist here on Substack before it goes anywhere else. If you entered, that is where you will hear first.

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The Anthology

125 copies of The LemonLight Prize 2026 have already been claimed — out of a print run of 250. Once you account for prize recipients, bookstore partners, and our press archive, what remains for general order is genuinely small.

If you want a copy, now is the right moment:

Order The LemonLight Prize 2026 Anthology →

This is the record of what 706 poets made possible. It will not be reprinted.

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One More Thing

In the months since we launched the prize, something else became clear: the demand for a place to send full manuscripts — not prize submissions, but the larger, slower work of a complete collection — was consistent and real. Poets were writing to ask when our reading period would open.

So we made a decision. Our open reading is now open year-round.

No windows. No waiting. If you have a manuscript ready — or a selection of poems that reflects a larger vision — we want to read it. We read everything ourselves, and we respond to every submission.

Submit to Ink & Ribbon Press →

Reading fee is $15. Response time is 6–10 weeks. We are looking for work that could not be shuffled — collections where the whole cannot be broken without loss.

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Thank you for being part of this. The LemonLight Prize exists because poets showed up for it, and what we read over the next two months is a direct result of your belief that this kind of press is worth having in the world.

We think so too. Now time to brew some coffee and work through the judging!

— G. K. Allum Founding Editor, Ink & Ribbon Press

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inkandribbon.org · Bainbridge Island, Washington