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First Prize: Creative Nonfiction & Memoir

Ben Stubenberg’s The Jamaican Bobsled Captain: Dudley “Tal” Stokes and the untold story of struggle, suffering, and redemption behind Cool Runnings is a book that makes us glad we expanded our Creative Nonfiction category to include narrative journalism and biography. A former US government worker, private pilot, and current magazine writer in his adopted home of Turks and Caicos Islands, Stubenberg is dedicated to chronicling the cultures and history of the Caribbean.

First Prize: Genre Fiction

Jessica Mann’s ecological fantasy novel Uplift tells a story of interspecies cooperation through the coming-of-age journey of a Clark’s Nutcracker, a bird of the high mountains of the American West and a member of the crow family. Breaking with her family’s insular ways, Columbina learns about loss and legacy from creatures whose lifespans range from a season to centuries, and returns with fresh ideas to save their habitat.

First Prize: Graphic Novel & Memoir

Pumpkin Guts: The Hellbound Halloween, written and illustrated by Jacoby A. Matott, is a colorfully grotesque graphic novel that pays homage to teen slasher movies, with sassy characters who crack jokes about the tropes that they’re reenacting. (The one Black teen, for instance, decides to nope out of the adventure early on, knowing that such movies treat the token minority sidekick as disposable!)

First Prize: Mainstream/Literary Fiction

Rashid Darden’s literary novel A Peculiar Legacy lovingly portrays a tight-knit Black neighborhood in Washington, DC where a newly arrived gay couple and a Quaker matriarch do their best to mentor the local teenagers after one of the youths is murdered.

First Prize: Middle Grade

Michael Wardner’s middle-grade novel Kris Kringle and the Great Magic Swindle is a witty romp that will entertain both children and adults. Santa’s elves have quit, and the Supreme Council of Sorcery, Witchcraft, and Tricks is about to revoke his magic license. But there’s a bigger conspiracy afoot to steal all the magic in the world. With help from trolls, elves, the Easter Bunny, and Ms. Kringle in her airplane, our jolly friend discovers that dividing people into “naughty” and “nice” may be the root of the problem.

First Prize: Poetry

Kathleen Spivack’s poetry chapbook Homage is comprised of tributes to guiding figures in her life as an artist, from cellist Pablo Casals and painter Gustav Klimt to poets Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop, as well as personal mentors and ancestors. This tightly conceived collection shows a mature poet’s mastery of craft and insight.