2022 Finalists
MWPA is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2022 Maine Literary Awards. Thank you to the nearly 400 writers who sent in their work for consideration and to the judges for all of their reading and deliberating.
Book Award for Crime Fiction
Paul Doiron, Dead by Dawn
Jule Selbo, 10 Days: A Dee Rommel Mystery
Caitlin Wahrer, The Damage
Book Award for Fiction
William Carpenter, Silence
Ham Martin, Talk Radio
Eleanor Morse, Margreete’s Harbor
Amy Neswald, I Know You Love Me, Too
Book Award for Nonfiction
Bob Keyes, The Isolation Artist:Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of Robert Indiana
Robin Clifford Wood, The Field House: A Writer's Life Lost and Found on an Island in Maine
Thomas Urquhart, Up for Grabs: Timber Pirates, Lumber Barons, and the Battles Over Maine's Public Lands
Book Award for Memoir
Rachael Cerrotti, We Share the Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory & Migration
Gina Troisi, The Angle of Flickering Light
Arisa White, Who’s Your Daddy
Book Award for Poetry
W.J. Herbert, Dear Specimen
Jefferson Navicky, Antique Densities: Modern Parables & Other Experiments in Short Prose
Catherine Weiss, Wolf Girls vs. Horse Girls
John N. Cole Award for Maine Nonfiction
To be announced at the awards ceremony.
Book Award for Young People's Literature
Ellen Booraem, River Magic
Katie Coppens, Earth Will Survive but We May Not
Betty Culley, Down to Earth
Anna Crowley Redding, Black Hole Chasers: The Amazing True Story of an Astronomical Breakthrough
Book Award for Children's
Suzanne Greenlaw and Gabriel Frey, Illustrated by Nancy Baker, The First Blade of Sweetgrass
Lucky Platt, Imagine a Wolf
Melissa Sweet, Joyce Scott, and Brie Spangler, Unbound: The Life and Art of Judith Scott
Book Award for Speculative Fiction
Kay Hardy Campbell, The Sons of Fez
Josh Gauthier, Illustrated by Darby Mumford, Land of Outcasts
James M. Wright, Rhizome
Book Award for Excellence in Publishing
Ed Kenney, The Winter Coast of Maine: The Photographs of Ed Kenney, Seapoint Books
John Rosenwald (translator), The Sonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria Rilke, Covered Bridge Press
Astrid Sheckels, Hector Fox and the Giant Quest, Islandport Press
Book Award for Anthology
Agnes Bushell (editor), North by Northeast 2: New Short Fiction by Maine Writers
Sam Alexander, Carol Coultas, Lili Ott, John Ott, and Robert Porter, Glimpses of Harpswell Past and Present: Stories Celebrating Maine's Bicentennial
Wayne A. Newell (editor) and Robert M. Leavitt (editor), Kuhkomossonuk Akonutomuwinokot: Stories Our Grandmothers Told Us
Drama Award
Jayne Decker, "Migratory Birds”
Andrea Lepcio, “Human”
Marty Pottenger “home land security”
Short Works Competition in Fiction
Edmondson Cole, “Breaking the News”
Billie Watson, “Egg Shell”
Morgan Talty, “The [Unintelligible]”
Short Works Competition in Nonfiction
Linda Buckmaster, “Bearings”
Jennifer Dupree, “Care & Keeping”
Douglas Milliken, “Anyone Can Have a Good Time”
Short Works Competition in Poetry
Judy Kaber, “After a Long Flight, We Arrive”
Rosa Lane, “The Last Fall”
Carolyn Locke “Thoughts on Migration”
Award for a Secondary School Literary Magazine
One honorable mention will be announced at the ceremony.
Youth Competition in Fiction
Sinead Bowdish, “121”
Maeve Tholen, “Chocolate Hope”
Mackenzie VerLee, “The Lighthouse Keeper”
Youth Competition in Nonfiction
Leaticia Hannah, “The Samosa Story”
Linh Nguyen “Our Shared Language”
Khalil Kilani, “Rung by Rung”
Youth Competition in Poetry
Alexa Barstow, “Glass Birds”
Simona Ickia Ngaullo, “Cracked Shell”
Leigh Ellis, “Squid Season”