Join The Writer’s Chronicle in congratulating the 2024 AWP Award Series winners. Each year, AWP hosts four book contests in the genres of creative nonfiction, the novel, poetry, and short fiction. An esteemed judge chosen by AWP selects one winning manuscript to be published by a partner press. Winning authors also receive a cash prize between $2,500 and $5,500.
The 2024 winners’ books will be published in 2025. In 2026, AWP will host these authors in a featured event at the #AWP26 Conference & Bookfair in Baltimore, Maryland. In the meantime, The Writer’s Chronicle asked this year’s winners for a short preview of their forthcoming books.
2024 Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction
(un) Mother (ed) / (un) Tongue (d) by Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh
Forthcoming 2025 from the University of Georgia Press
Judge Chloé Cooper Jones on (un) Mother (ed) / (un) Tongue (d):
(un) Mother (ed) / (un) Tongue (d) is an extraordinary collection of essays that masterfully pushes the boundaries of nonfiction. The writing is simply exquisite. Each sentence sings with an elegant precision that cuts like a scalpel to the essence of self, memory, and place. This manuscript tackles nuanced questions of identity, family, culture while simultaneously reimagining the very limits of form and poetic prose. The results are breathtaking. I’m so grateful for this reading experience, one I will not forget.
Winner Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh on (un) Mother (ed) / (un) Tongue (d):