The Ottoline Prize awards publication and $5,000 to a book-length work of poetry by any person who identifies as a woman. First, second, third, fourth, and beyond books are welcome.

The author of the selected book also receives a two-week residency at Eliot House, in Gloucester, MA. The submission fee is $25, and all entrants receive a complimentary subscription or renewal to Fence.

The winner of the previous Ottoline Prize is Kim Rosenfield. Her book of poems, Phantom Captain, will be published in late 2023.

If you are experiencing financial difficulties and are unable to afford the reading fee, please write to Publishers Emily Wallis Hughes and Jason Zuzga at fence.fencebooks@gmail.com.

About the prize

The Ottoline Prize, formerly incarnated as the Motherwell Prize and the Alberta Prize, is an annual series, generously endowed by Jennifer S. Epstein, which offers publication to a first, second, third, fourth or beyond book of poems by a woman, any woman, however she chooses to define or identify herself as being a woman, and including trans-women, a five thousand dollar cash prize, and a residency at Eliot House, in Gloucester, MA. Past winners include Lesle Lewis, Chelsey Minnis, Harmony Holiday, Sasha Steensen, Laura Sims, and Ariana Reines.