Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlist Announced

 December 4, 2024

OAKLAND, CA— Thirty-two authors have been longlisted for the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize by New Literary Project (NewLit). The annual $50,000 award honors a mid-career author of fiction in the midst of a burgeoning career, a distinguished writer who has emerged and is still emerging. The Prize celebrates past achievement and supports forthcoming work. The 2025 JCO Prize will be the ninth such yearly award.

The Joyce Carol Oates Prize is awarded not in recognition of a book, but for an author of national consequence—short stories and/or novels—who has published at least two notable books of fiction, and who has yet to receive capstone recognition such as a Pulitzer, National Book Award, or MacArthur. Otherwise, there are no age, geographic, or stylistic restrictions. 

This is a working prize, in the sense that the winner will be in brief Fall 2025 residence (seven to ten days) at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Bay Area, where they may give public readings and talks, teach classes, and make appearances.

Longlisted authors were selected from official submissions by publishers, agents, authors, and author representatives. Not-for-profit NewLit collaborates with the University of California, Berkeley, English Department. Finalists are expected to be named in March 2025, the Recipient in April 2025. Recipient and Finalists may participate in Spring events. 

Since 2017, 342 authors have been longlisted, published by fifty-six houses. Thus far, forty authors have been shortlisted as finalists, and eight have been awarded the prize. NewLit relies upon the support and good will of publishing houses in order to help sustain the prize and its dynamic educational and literary projects in support of literacy and arts education.
 

2025 JCO Prize Longlisted Authors & Most Recent Book of Fiction

Rumaan Alam, Entitlement, Riverhead

Jami Attenberg, A Reason to See You Again, Ecco

Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland, FSG

Venita Blackburn, Dead in Long Beach, California, MCD

Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot, Viking

Ryan Chapman, The Audacity, Soho

Jennine Capo Crucet, Say Hello to My Little Friend, Simon & Schuster

Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse, Grove Atlantic

Amina Gautier, The Best That You Can Do, Soft Skull

Thomas Grattan, In Tongues, MCD

Abby Geni, The Body Farm, Counterpoint

Cristina Henríquez, The Great Divide, Ecco

Maria Hummel, Goldenseal, Counterpoint

Miranda July, All Fours, Riverhead

Porochista Khakpour, Tehrangeles, Pantheon

Crystal Hana Kim, The Stone Home, William Morrow / HarperCollins

Lisa Ko, Memory Piece, Riverhead

R.O. Kwon, Exhibit, Riverhead

Caroline Leavitt, Days of Wonder, Algonquin

Hilary Leichter, Terrace Story, Ecco

Sarah Manguso, Liars, Hogarth

Chigozie Obioma, The Road to the Country, Hogarth

Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars, Knopf

Kimberly King Parsons, We Were the Universe, Knopf

Julia Phillips, Bear, Hogarth

Andrew Porter, The Disappeared, Knopf

Regina Porter, The Rich People Have Gone Away, Hogarth

Rudy Ruiz, The Border Between Us, Blackstone

Danzy Senna, Colored Television, Riverhead 

Morgan Talty, Fire Exit, Tin House

Laura van den Berg, State of Paradise, FSG

Willy Vlautin, The Horse, Harper

Jurors for the 2025 JCO Prize are Laura Cogan, Mark Danner, Joseph Di Prisco, and Hertha Dawn Sweet Wong. The jury will hand up a shortlist of Finalists to the New Literary Project Board of Directors, which determines the Prize Recipient. Joyce Carol Oates serves as an Honorary Director. 

Previous Winners of the JCO Prize
Ben Fountain (2024)
Manuel Muñoz (2023)
Lauren Groff (2022)
Danielle Evans (2021)
Daniel Mason (2020)
Laila Lalami (2019)
Anthony Marra (2018)
T. Geronimo Johnson (2017)
 

Based in Oakland, CA, NewLit is a not-for-profit created in 2015 to inspire and equip writers across the generations—in the words of Joyce Carol Oates—to “write their hearts out.” Through a variety of innovative initiatives–and generously supported by individual donors, foundations, and altruistic corporate and community leaders–the organization drives social change and unleashes artistic power. It does so through fostering arts education, nurturing new literature, supporting authors, and enhancing the lives of readers, writers, educators, and high school and college students in neglected, undervalued, overlooked communities throughout California and the nation. 

In addition to the JCO Prize, NewLit annually offers Jack Hazard Fellowships to creative writers who teach high school in the United States. Thirty-four $5,000 Fellowships were awarded in 2022, 2023, and 2024 to writers teaching in eighteen states. Up to fifteen more Jack Hazard Fellows are expected to be named in Spring 2025.

NewLit has taught over a thousand high school-age writers at no cost (thanks to beneficent supporters) via Bonnie Bonetti Bell Workshops and Iris Starn Workshops, led by creative writing instructors from the UC Berkeley English Department since 2017, and Saint Mary’s College of California MFA Creative Writing Department since 2023. In Spring 2025, workshops are expected to take place at Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall, Girls Inc. of Alameda County, Concord High School, and elsewhere. 

NewLit also curates a nationally distributed annual anthology of Project-related artists, including Joyce Carol Oates and Prize winners and finalists alongside younger writers published for the first time; Simpsonistas: Tales from New Literary Project Vol. 6 (Rare Bird) launched in Fall 2024.

The New Literary Project Board of Directors is guided by teachers, philanthropists, corporate executives, artists, and community leaders. 

For more information, please contact:
Diane Del Signore, Executive Director, (510) 919-0970
diane@newliteraryproject.org

New Literary Project
4100 Redwood Road
Suite 20A/424
Oakland, CA 94619
EIN Number: 84-3898853
 

https://www.newliteraryproject.org/