Maggie Millner has won the “5 Under 35” honor from the National Book Foundation for her debut work COUPLETS: A LOVE STORY. The book was selected by C Pam Zhang. Praising COUPLETS, she writes: “These words cut to the hot quick of longing; these pages bleed beauty. Tender, prickly, funny, self-effacing, cerebral, erotic, and luminous, this is a book that never settles, forever restless, an ode to that deepest and most abiding form of love — that for one’s many infinite selves.” COUPLETS was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux on February 6, 2024.

FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART by GennaRose Nethercott was selected as a finalist for the 2024 Vermont Book Awards in the Fiction category. The winners will be announced on May 3 during the Vermont Book Awards celebration at the College Hall chapel in Montpelier. FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART was published by Vintage on February 6, 2024.

AN IMAGE OF MY NAME ENTERS AMERICA is a finalist for the 2024 Vermont Book Awards in the Creative Nonfiction category. The winners will be revealed at the Vermont Book Awards celebration on Saturday, May 3rd in Montpelier featuring a keynote from Bill McKibben. AN IMAGE OF MY NAME ENTERS AMERICA was published by Graywolf Press on October 15, 2024.

BLOOD IN THE CUT by Alejandro Nodarse is a 2025 International Thriller Writers Awards finalist in the Best First Novel category. ITW will announce the winners at ThrillerFest XX on Saturday, June 21, 2025 at the New York Hilton Midtown, New York City. Flatiron published the novel on June 4, 2024.

GOD BLESS YOU OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a finalist for the 2024 LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Winners will be announced in a ceremony on Friday, April 25 at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. Grand Central Publishing published the book on June 18, 2024.

The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has named Emily Hamilton’s THE STARS TOO FONDLY as one of five finalists for the 2025 Compton Crook Award, honoring the best debut SF/fantasy/horror novel of the year. The winner will receive a cash prize and an invitation to be the Compton Crook Guest at the society’s annual event, Balticon. Members of the BSFS will vote on a winner to be announced in early April. Harper Voyager published the book on June 11, 2024.

Kathy MacLeod's debut graphic memoir CONTINENTAL DRIFTER is the winner of the 2025 APALA Award for Literature in Children's Fiction. Administered by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), an affiliate of the American Library Association, the award celebrates artistic and literary merit in works that promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage. CONTINENTAL DRIFTER was published by First Second on April 4, 2024.

Divya Victor has been selected as a recipient of a 2025 Creative Capital Award for her essay project KIN. The applicants, chosen from a pool of 5, 683 applications, will be provided up to $50,000 each in unrestricted funding to complete their work.

SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS by Kailee Pedersen has been selected as a 2025 Libby Book Awards finalist in the Best Horror category. The winners will be announced on March 5. SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS was published by St. Martin’s Press on August 20, 2024.

AN IMMENSE WORLD was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Prize for 2025. The committee’s citation reads: “Ed Yong’s AN IMMENSE WORLD: HOW ANIMAL SENSES REVEAL THE HIDDEN REALMS AROUND US challenges readers to regard the world through different eyes—not to mention sensory hairs, electroreceptors, and lyriform organs. It is an exemplary work of science writing—prodigiously reported, sharply crafted, and packed with information. Like all the best works of nonfiction, AN IMMENSE WORLD is rigorously grounded in fact and, at the same time, invites us all to be open to the great mysteries of life.” AN IMMENSE WORLD was published by Random House on June 21, 2022.