2023 Winners
MWPA is pleased to announce the winners for the 2023 Maine Literary Awards. Thank you to the more than 300 writers who sent in their work for consideration and to this year’s judges for all of their reading and deliberating.
Book Award for Crime Fiction
Kathryn Lasky, Light on Bone
Book Award for Fiction
Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez
Book Award for Nonfiction
Kathryn Miles, Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders
Book Award for Memoir
Gretchen Legler, Woodsqueer
Book Award for Poetry
Lauren Saxon, You’re My Favorite
John N. Cole Award for Maine Nonfiction
Gretchen Legler, Woodsqueer (co-winner)
Debra Spark & Deborah Joy Corey (editors), Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family (co-winner)
Book Award for Young People's Literature
Sashi Kaufman, Sardines
Book Award for Children’s
Maryann Cocca-Leffler, Fighting for Yes! The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann
Book Award for Speculative Fiction
E.L. Bates, Death by Disguise
Book Award for Excellence in Publishing
Amelia Garretson-Persans, Where the Avonley Seed Falls, Maine Authors Publishing
Book Award for Anthology
Debra Spark & Deborah Joy Corey (editors), Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family
Drama Award
Jayne Decker, All the Good They Gave Us
Short Works Competition in Fiction
Parker Blaney, “Haole Boys”
Short Works Competition in Nonfiction
Jacquelyn Gill, “Grief Almanac for an Apocalypse”
Short Works Competition in Poetry
Linda Aldrich, 5 Poems
Youth Competition in Fiction
Charlotte Schatz, “To Lend a Hand”
Youth Competition in Nonfiction
Mayinga Mukinayi, “No Food, No Water, Thirteen Days in the Jungle”
Youth Competition in Poetry
Antoanieta Nsimba “What Does the Mouth Do When It Loses Its Ability to Speak?”
SPECIAL AWARDS
2023 BOOK DONATION RECIPIENTS
The Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library in Lovell will receive a copy of every book nominated to this year’s awards.
2023 MWPA DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Molly McGrath, for exceptional and steadfast contributions to the Maine literary arts as Publications Director at the Telling Room, helping to publish more than 200 books and chapbooks and 4,500 young writers from all over Maine.