Poets planning their 2026 submission year are going to love this guest feature from Poetry Bulletin. Emily Stoddard has assembled one of the most comprehensive, thoughtfully organized roundups of poetry book and chapbook publishing opportunities available anywhere: more than 175 deadlines, spanning contests, open reading periods, chapbook series, first?book prizes, regional presses, and long?established independent publishers.

What makes this guide especially useful is its clarity. Emily breaks the list into intuitive sections—full?length manuscripts, chapbooks, first?book opportunities, regional or identity?centered presses, and presses with rolling or recurring reading periods—so poets can map out a submission plan that fits their goals, budget, and manuscript stage. Each listing includes the press name, reading window, and a direct link to the publisher’s guidelines, making it easy to move from planning to action. Read her full post and find a link to the 2026 Publisher Spreadsheet here:

2026 Poetry Book Publishing: 175+ Deadlines and a Tool for Your Submissions

Emily also highlights a second sheet (via a tab at the bottom of the screen), called “Accessible Opportunities.” This list of 88 deadlines is pulled out from the main sheet and includes ONLY deadlines that have:

• No submission fee
• Reduced fee options
• Sliding scale fees
• Fee waivers

This kind of resource is invaluable for poets who want to submit with intention, rather than overwhelm. Whether you’re polishing a first chapbook, preparing a full?length manuscript, or simply trying to understand the publishing landscape more clearly, Emily’s guide offers structure, transparency, and a sense of possibility.

Emily Stoddard (she/her) is a writer and artist with work in the Kenyon Review, Belt Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, Baltimore Review, Dark Mountain, and elsewhere. Her craft essays appear in Writer’s Digest, The Writer’s Chronicle, Far Villages (Black Lawrence Press), and Chaos, Creativity, Completion: New Approaches to Writing and ADHD (University of Chicago Press).

Her debut poetry book, Divination with a Human Heart Attached, was released by Game Over Books in 2023. She is a past recipient of the Developmental Editing Fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Kenyon Review. She is at work on a book-length prose project, parts of which were a finalist for the 2022 Iowa Review Award in nonfiction.

Emily shares in creative practice through various projects, such as Surfacing, a book of closing practices for writers and the Hummingbird Sessions. She is also the creator of the Poetry Bulletin, a newsletter and resource for poets that aims to make publishing more accessible. The project has reached over 6,000 writers and redistributed more than $15,000 to help poets cover submission fees for their books.

She lives in northern Michigan, where Lake Michigan is her favorite collaborator. She practices printmaking, zine-making, and more in the little studio she calls Ironweed Arts.

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