Mary Jo Bang on the PEN/Voelcker longlist and a Lambda finalist

Congratulations to Mary Jo Bang, who has recently been named a 2024 nominee for both the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection (whose longlist was announced on April 10th) and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry for her collection A FILM IN WHICH I PLAY EVERYONE (Graywolf 2023)!

The PEN Award recipients will be announced at the organization’s 2024 Literary Awards Ceremony on April 29th. The Lambda Literary Awards will be given out at the 2024 Lammys ceremony on June 11th.

See the PEN Awards longlists here and the Lamda Literary Award nominations here.

And discover A FILM IN WHICH I PLAY EVERYONE here.


Javier Zamora receives a 2024 Whiting Award

Congratulations to Javier Zamora, who has received a 2024 Whiting Award honoring his non-fiction and poetry! Read the full recipient profile of Javier here, and find the full list of this year’s recipients here. And discover SOLITO (Hogarth 2022) here.

From the Whiting Selection Committee:

This is a powerful writer, a brilliant writer, a necessary writer. Javier Zamora’s two absorbing books – watchful, incantatory poems and an unsparing memoir – tunnel deeply into the experience of crossing the border as a child, and then widen to consider those who leave and those who stay, the rent in the fabric of family and how it might be mended. His work transmutes testimony into art; whatever he turns his eye on next will also enlarge us.



Paul Yoon wins the 2023 Story Prize!

Enormous congratulations to Paul Yoon, winner of the 2023 Story Prize for his collection THE HIVE AND THE HONEY (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books 2023)!

The Story Prize recognizes the best short story collection of the year; the prize’s three-person judging panel lauded THE HIVE AND THE HONEY for “its widely varied settings, skillful prose, profundity, and restrained but poignantly evocative tone.” The full text of the judges’ citation can be read at Lit Hub.

Discover THE HIVE AND THE HONEY here.

Isabella Hammad named an Aspen Words Prize finalist

Congratulations to Isabella Hammad, whose novel Enter Ghost is one of five finalists for the 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize!

The Aspen Words Literary Prize is an annual award for an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.

The 2024 winner will be announced on April 25th at an awards ceremony at the Morgan Library.

View the full shortlist here.

And discover Enter Ghost (Grove, 2023) here.



Megan Nolan shortlisted for Gordon Burn Prize and Nero Book Award

Congratulations to Megan Nolan, whose ORDINARY HUMAN FAILINGS has been shortlisted for the 2024 Gordon Burn Prize and Nero Book Awards in the UK!

The Gordon Burn Prize recognizes innovative new literature across genres, including “novels which dare to enter history and interrogate the past.” The prize will be awarded in March; the full shortlist is available here.

The Nero Book Awards honor outstanding British and Irish writing. Winners in each category will be announced on January 30th and the Awards’ Book of the Year will be named on March 14th. The full shortlists are available here.