2025 Winners
MWPA is pleased to announce the winners for the 2025 Maine Literary Awards. Thank you to the 300+ writers and publishers who sent in their work for consideration and thank you to this year’s 30+ jurors for all of their reading and deliberating!
Book Award for Crime Fiction
Maureen Milliken, Dying for News
Book Award for Fiction
Morgan Talty, Fire Exit
Book Award for Nonfiction
Margot Anne Kelley, A Gardener at the End of the World
Book Award for Memoir
Penny Guisinger, Shift: A Memoir of Identity and Other Illusions
Book Award for Poetry
Rosa Lane, Called Back
John N. Cole Award for Maine Nonfiction
Penny Guisinger, Shift: A Memoir of Identity and Other Illusions (co-winner)
Margot Anne Kelley, A Gardener at the End of the World (co-winner)
Kara Douglas and Erin O’Mara (editors), Alive to This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers (co-winner)
Book Award for Young People's Literature
Gail Donovan, Sparrow Spreads Her Wings
Book Award for Children’s
Elisa Boxer and Marieke Nelissen, The Different Tree
Book Award for Speculative Fiction
Charlene Vanderslice, The Mermaid Stone
Book Award for Excellence in Publishing
Ayokunle Falomo, Autobiomythography of, Alice James Books
Book Award for Anthology
Kara Douglas and Erin O’Mara (editors), Alive to This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers
Drama Award
Bess Welden, Madeleines
Short Works Competition in Fiction
Will Willoughby, “Downstream Benefits”
Short Works Competition in Nonfiction
Penny Guisinger, “Raptor”
Short Works Competition in Poetry
Jude Marx, “i dream my gender a thousand shades of green and Other Poems”
Youth Competition in Fiction
Sylvia Guarna, “Catch and Release”
Youth Competition in Nonfiction
Molly Trainor, “Survival of the Flawed”
Youth Competition in Poetry
Ruby Van Dyk, “Three Poems”
SPECIAL AWARDS
2025 BOOK DONATION RECIPIENTS
As in years past, MWPA will donate a copy of every book nominated to this year’s awards (145 books in all) to a Maine library in need. We will announce this year’s library in the coming weeks.
2025 MWPA DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Donna Loring, for exceptional and steadfast contributions to Maine literary arts through her advocacy for the Wabanaki peoples and her writing and storytelling.
AND
Gibran Graham, for exceptional and steadfast contributions to Maine literary arts as bookstore owner and tireless champion of books and writers.