The 2019 National Book Awards are open for submissions, deadline: May 15.
All books must be published by U.S. publishers located in the United States between December 1, 2018 and November 30, 2019.
For the Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature Awards, authors must be U.S. citizens, or if authors are non-U.S. citizens or have particularly complex immigration issues, there is a petition process.
For the Translated Literature Award, neither author nor translator are required to be U.S. citizens.
Eligible books include full-length books of fiction and nonfiction; collections of short stories and collections of essays by one author;
collected and selected poems by one author; and self-published books, provided that the author/publisher also publishes titles by other authors (Note: the Foundation may request the publisher’s catalog to verify this). Reprints, anthologies, and books published through self-publishing services such as CreateSpace are not eligible.
Each Winner will receive a prize of $10,000. Each Finalist will receive a prize of $1,000. One Winner in each category will be announced at the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on November 20, 2019.
This year’s judges include:
Fiction: Dorothy Allison, Ruth Dickey, Javier Ramirez, Danzy Senna (Chair), Jeff VanderMeer.
Nonfiction: Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Carolyn Kellogg, Mark Laframboise, Kiese Laymon, Jeff Sharlet (Chair).
Poetry: Jos Charles, John Evans, Vievee Francis, Cathy Park Hong, Mark Wunderlich (Chair).
Translated Literature: Keith Gessen, Elisabeth Jaquette, Katie Kitamura, Idra Novey (Chair), Shuchi Saraswat.
Young People’s Literature: Elana K. Arnold, Kristen Gilligan, Varian Johnson, An Na (Chair), Deborah Taylor.
For more information, including full submission guidelines, go to: https://www.nationalbook.org/national-book-awards/submissions.