The longlist has been selected for the $35,000 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, a program of the Aspen Institute that honors a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue. The shortlist list will be announced March 12, 2025, and the winner on April 23. The longlist:
Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker (Little, Brown)
Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell (Simon & Schuster)
James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (Flatiron Books)
A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Mariner Books)
Kingdom of No Tomorrow by Fabienne Josaphat (Algonquin)
The Road to the Salt Sea by Samuel Kolawole (Amistad/HarperCollins)
Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian (Dzanc Books)
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf)
Lilith by Eric Rickstad (Blackstone Publishing)
There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (Mariner Books)
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Tin House)
Devil Is Fine by John Vercher (Celadon Books)
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Avid Reader Press)
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The finalists have been selected for the $5,000 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, part of the Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press. The winner will be announced December 11 and will be published by the press. Selected by Nate Marshall, the finalists are:
Asa Drake, Maybe the Body
Bobby Elliott, The Same Man
Luke Patterson, Medic
Alafia Sessions, Nine Drops of Turpentine
Rob Shapiro, Human Nature