Literary Awards

The Academy's purpose is to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by identifying and encouraging individual artists. 17 awards for literature are awarded annually, including the Arthur Rense Prize and the Thornton Wilder Prize for Literary Translation.

Offers several awards for poets yearly including: Academy Fellowship, Wallace Stevens Award, Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, James Laughlin Award, Walt Whitman Award, Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Awards, and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award.

Recognizes books that make important contributions to understanding racism and help develop an appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures.

The Arab American Book Award honors significant literature by and about Arab Americans.

The Annual Asian American Literary Awards honor Asian American writers for excellence in three categories: (1) fiction, (2) poetry, and (3) nonfiction.

The APAALs honor books about Asian/Pacific Americans, their history and culture. Categories have included fiction and non-fiction for adults, picture/illustrated books, and children's/young-adult literature.

The Aspen Words Literary Prize is a $35,000 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.

Since 2003, the annual Autumn House Poetry and Fiction Contests have awarded publication of a full-length manuscript and $2,500 to the winner.

The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas.

The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry is awarded biennially by the Library of Congress on behalf of the nation in recognition for the most distinguished book of poetry written by an American and published during the preceding two years.

The Bollingen Prize for Poetry, which is currently awarded every two years by Beinecke Library of Yale University, is a prestigious literary honor bestowed on an American poet in recognition of the best book of new verse within the last two years, or for lifetime achievement.

These awards are presented by Chicago Public Library in partnership with the Chicago Public Library Foundation. Proceeds from the annual Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner support innovative and life-enriching programs at the Chicago Public Library.

Awards outstanding Hispanic American writers annually and creates a compilation of winning works.

In 1962, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award was established at the University of Hartford, in Connecticut, USA. It is presented annually to an American writer whose fiction is considered to have significance for American Jews.

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is an annual grant of $1,500 for an emerging writer of color.

The Fabri Literary Prize discovers "deserving but underappreciated" works of fiction and have them published for the general book trade.

The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is an annual prize awarded by the University of Georgia Press named in honor of the American short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor. Established in 1983 to encourage young writers by bringing their work to the attention of readers and reviewers, it has since become a significant proving ground for newcomers.

The Robert Frost Medal is an award of the Poetry Society of America for "distinguished lifetime service to American poetry." Medalists receive a prize purse of $2,500.

The award is meant to recognize works that "[improve] government through an examination of the intersection between press, politics, and public policy." The prize is awarded to the book published in the previous year that best exemplifies the fulfillment of this goal.

Celebrates the achievements of Hispanic Americans.

The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood.

The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year.

The Hurston/Wright Foundation hosts the Legacy Award, which honors the best in black literature in the United States and around the globe.

The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is annually awarded for fiction by an American woman.

The National Jewish Book Awards is the longest-running North American awards program of its kind in the field of Jewish literature and is recognized as the most prestigious. The awards, presented by category, are designed to give recognition to outstanding books, to stimulate writers to further literary creativity and to encourage the reading of worthwhile titles.

An annual award of $100000 is offered for a published book of original poetry by a U.S. citizen or legal resident alien.

Lambda Literary Awards (also known as the "Lammys") are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography.

The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional quality", according to the foundation.

The Man Booker International Prize, awarded every two years, recognizes one writer for their achievement in fiction. This prize was first awarded in 2005.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, first awarded in 1969, promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year.

The Micro Award is presented annually for the best work of flash fiction originally published in the previous calendar year.

Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York. It presents the Edgar Award, a small bust of Edgar Allan Poe, to writers every year.

The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year.

The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote the finest books and reviews published in English.

The National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program. Every year since 1979 it has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry. Manuscripts are solicited through an annual open competition, judged and chosen by poets of national stature, and issued by various publishers.

The Native Writers' Circle of the Americas (NWCA) is an organization of Native American writers, most notable for its literary awards, presented annually to Native American writers in three categories: First Book of Poetry, First Book of Prose, and Lifetime Achievement.

The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year.

The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today. It is the first international literary award of this scope to originate in the United States and is one of the very few international prizes for which poets, novelists, and playwrights are equally eligible.

The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

The NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature is awarded every other year to a living writer or author-illustrator with significant achievement in children’s or young-adult literature.

The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories is an annual collection of the year's twenty best stories published in U.S. and Canadian magazines, written in English.

First given in 1942, the Ohioana Book Awards are the second oldest, and among the most prestigious, state literary prizes in the nation. Nearly every major writer from Ohio in the past 80 years has been honored, from James Thurber to Toni Morrison.

The Bellwether Prize was created to promote fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. Established by Barbara Kingsolver in 2000 and funded entirely by her, it is awarded biennially to the author of a previously unpublished novel of high literary caliber that exemplifies the prize’s founding principles.

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is a national prize which honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens in a calendar year.

The PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award is awarded annually to a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction.

The PEN/Malamud award recognizes short story writers, annually.  It was started with money from the family of Bernard Malamud and works in conjunction with the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

The Premio Aztlán Literary Prize is a national literary award for emerging Chicana/o Chicano authors. The award is limited to short-story collections and novels (but not children's or young-adult novels) published by a professional press during the previous calendar year.

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City.

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year.

Awarded annually, the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize honors a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.

The distinguished Joseph Henry Jackson, James Duval Phelan, and Mary Tanenbaum Literary Awards provide $2,000 each to three literary artists who work in any one of the following literary forms qualify: fiction (novel or short stories), nonfictional prose, graphic novels, poetry, spoken word, plays, and scripts.

The Sherwood Anderson Foundation is an organization founded by the children and grandchildren of American short story writer and novelist Sherwood Anderson that gives grants to emerging writers. The most notable of these is the annual Sherwood Anderson Foundation Writers Award.

The Spur Award is an annual literary prize awarded by the Western Writers of America.

The St. Louis Literary Award was established in 1967 by the St. Louis Library Associates, a literary board made up of members of the University and community. Some of the past Literary Award recipients include Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Arundhati Roy, Mario Vargas Llosa, August Wilson, Tennessee Williams, Joyce Carol Oates, Edward Albee, Saul Bellow, Chinua Achebe, Michael Chabon, Eudora Welty, Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie, Joan Didion, and Stephen Sondheim.

Sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA), the Stonewall Book Award is for LGBT books. It is presented annually to English language works of fiction (Barbara Gittings Literature Award), non-fiction (Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award) and Children's books (Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award).

TCK Publishing Reader's Choice Book Awards Contest lets readers vote for their favorite books in sixteen different categories including Advice, Business and Investing, Self-Help, Health, General Nonfiction, Memoir, Romance, Fantasy, Thriller, Mystery, Children’s Book, YA and Middle Grade, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, and Religion.

Tethered by Letters provides a database of literary awards with various criteria and award distinctions.

The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre.

The Best American Poetry series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems.

The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series. First published in 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by well-known writers in contemporary American literature. Since 1978, a different writer of reputation has introduced the volume each year and selected the contents from the best twenty stories out of 120 stories recommended by the series editor.

The Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize is awarded to the best debut novel of the year. The author of the winning book receives $10,000 and the other shortlisted authors receive $1,000 each.

Since 2000 the magazine has been awarding its poetry prize to a poet for "a book-length manuscript of poems that pay close attention to form."

Founded by Michael M. Rea, the Rea Award for the Short Story is given annually to a living American or Canadian writer whose originality and influence on the genre is significant. The award is sponsored by the Dungannon Foundation.

The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award.

Awarded annually by Thurber House in honor of James Thurber's legacy as a humorist, The Thurber Prize for American Humor is one of the highest recognitions of the art of humor writing in the United States.

The WILLA Literary Awards, named in honor of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Willa Cather, recognizes the best in literature, featuring women’s or girls’ stories set in the North American West that are published each year. Women Writing the West (WWW) underwrites and presents the award annually at the WWW Fall Conference.

Honors authors and illustrators who create literature that depicts the Mexican American experience.

Presented by the Academy of American Poets, the Walt Whitman Award brings first-book publication, a cash prize of $5,000, and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center to an American who has never before published a book of poetry.

The Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays.

A competitive talent search open to all writing in English, the William Faulkner - William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition is for previously unpublished work. Entries are accepted in seven categories: Novel, Novella, Novel-in-Progress, Short Story, Essay, Poetry, and Short Story by a High School Student. Overall goals of the competition are to seek out new, talented writers and assist them in finding literary agents and, ultimately, publishers for their work.