As regular participants in the Portland poetry scene, friends & founders Igor Brezhnev and Sam Preminger recognized far too many talented poets unable to produce books or earn any reasonable income as artists. While we’re grateful to share our city with many wonderful publishers, it seemed that none were designed with supporting working authors in mind—and so the idea for Lightship Press was born: a press dedicated to publishing, promoting, and advocating for living artists.

Igor took the initial steps, founding Lightship Press in 2019 with Sam as a contributing editor. In this first year the press successfully published six poetry collections, in addition to hosting countless community events to support these contributors. All the books produced were sold directly by the poets, ensuring these artists retained the greatest possible share of the profits, and plans began to expand the press’s reach in the years ahead. But then the pandemic happened. In the interests of safety and self-care, Lightship went into a state of deep hibernation for two years.

In 2022, Igor and Sam returned with renewed vigor and re-launched Lightship with only greater hope and ambitions and published five more books after a successful crowdfunding campaign and hosted poetry events once more. Due to financial pressures we have decided to stop active work on the press.

At the present Lightship Press is in the state of deep hibernation again. Igor is hosting this page on his website for continuity purposes. Maybe one day we will return to publishing again, but for now this is it.