The 2025 Literary Awards Finalists and Winners

Thank you all for participating in the 2025 Awards Program and making it a success! This year, we received nearly 1700 entries! On this page you’ll find the Long List of finalists, a Short List, and the Winners’ Circle. Follow us on social media for updates!

Update 12/5/25: The Long List has been announced! We continue to review all active entries for the pub wing.

2025 Literary Awards Program Winners: COMING SOON

The Short List (alphabetical by last name): COMING SOON

The Long List (in no particular order):

  • Conflagration by Allison Landa

  • Dot and Edward by Terese Svoboda

  • Passages: An Essay in Four Movements by Amanda Sarasien

  • The Bell in the Body by Anjoli Roy

  • Ephphatha: Travels and Meditations by Mary Pacifico Curtis

  • Grief Camp by Cassandra Lewis

  • Something in the Trees: An Upstate Gothic by Dee Holloway

  • Family Matters: A Collection by Sudha Balagopal

  • Former Hopeful by Katja Bartholmess

  • The Chrysanthemums by Kaitlin Lavinder

  • No Secrets to Conceal: Coming Out With Bob Dylan by Paul Haney

  • Letters to Trout Fishing in America by Matt Smythe

  • This is How the Story Ends by Kristen-Paige Madonia

  • Dear Mr. Producer by Miriam Glassman

  • Birth of Orisha by Oghenechovwe Ekpeki

  • The Crave by Thomas Calder

  • If She Remembers The Zombie Vanilla Slab Cake by Alison Gadsby

  • Black River by Sandy Nietling

  • Lyndon Baines Takes a Fare to the Palace of Wisdom by William Nixon

  • The Sky King: A Literary Choose Your Own Adventure Novel by Anna Dickson James

  • Hunger Will Kill You by Jennifer Love

  • The Folktale Collector's Daughter and Other Stories by Cara Diaconoff

  • The Absinthe Drinker by Celeste Amidon

  • Home Repair Manual by Ellen Birkett Morris

  • Another Generation Ruined by Joseph O’Donnell

  • Silent Soldiers by Kendall Stark

  • In Fuga (Getaway) by Amanda Holmes

  • The Double Sun by Jeanne Gassman

  • The Transplants by Joe Oestreich

  • The Price of Ash by R. B. Gustafson

  • Analog by Scott Lane

  • The Bellow, the Ache by R.W. Hartshorn

  • Worshiping the Sun by Cara Albert

  • The Paradise Club by Jane Labous

  • Ivy in Darkness and Light by Kathryn Larrabee

  • Mara's Call by Rhiannon Harvey

  • Polite Animals by Carlin Mackie-Stephenson

  • Children of Sons: Stories by Cameron Green

  • What Kind of Hawk by Sarah Giragosian

  • Power Out by Kem Joy Ukwu

  • A Small Priceless Thing and Other Stories by Kris Faatz

  • Bad Homos Have Macaroni Hearts by Michael Narkunski

  • Hope You Still Love Me by Rabha Ashry

  • The Specials by Mark Purcell

  • Coast Starlight by Paul Bendix

  • In the Lap of the Mountain God by Barbara Drake-Vera

  • Tent City by David Snee

  • One Pima Pilgrim: A Symphonic Memoir of a Father, His Son, and the Indigenous Southwest by D.A. Navoti

  • Heartbeaten by Sam Corradetti

  • An Estate of Ironies by Maryann Ifeanacho

  • Somnambulist Mixologist by Stephen Haines

  • Painted Smiles by Lindsay Stenico

  • blackbeltfirstaidkits: essays/confessions on violence by Barrett Bowlin

  • Combat Zones by Jamy Bond