Fee Waiver Guidelines

NB: We have reached our cap for fee waivers for the 2026 Autumn House Poetry Prize. We apologize for any inconvenience.

To keep our fees from potentially excluding writers, we will waive the cost for those undergoing financial hardship or living within limited means. If the reading fees prevent you from sharing your writing with us, we encourage you to reach out—no explanation necessary.

To help us support as many writers as possible, please keep the following in mind:

• Request a waiver only when you’re ready to submit.
• Please wait until the submission period opens before requesting a waiver. We’re unable to process requests for prizes that aren’t currently accepting submissions and will not be able to respond to these requests.
• You can only receive one waived entry per reading period.
• Limit one fee waiver request every two years. This helps ensure we can offer support to a wider range of writers.

To request a waived reading fee, please use the following guidelines:

1. Email us and use the subject line “Request for Free Entry – NAME OF PRIZE” (ex. Request for Free Entry – Fiction Prize). Do not submit your manuscript through Duosuma before emailing us, as we cannot credit payments made.
2. Within the body of your email, please include the title of your book and the email address you would like us to use for notification, and attach a PDF of your manuscript with no identifying information in the title name or the file itself. We will upload the manuscript for you.

If these guidelines are not followed, we will not be able to offer a fee waiver.