Longlist Announced for 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize
November 28, 2023
OAKLAND, CA— Thirty-one authors have been longlisted for the 2024 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.
Longlisted authors have published at least two consequential works of fiction (novels and/or short stories), and have yet to achieve capstone recognition such as a Pulitzer, a National Book Award, or MacArthur; they 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. The 2024 JCO Prize will be the eighth such yearly award by NewLit.
Finalists are expected to be named in March 2024, with the Recipient expected to be named in April 2024. Recipient and Finalists may participate in Spring events. Insofar as the JCO Prize is a working prize, the winner will take up brief residence at Cal and in the Bay Area–teaching and public speaking–during a period to be determined in Fall 2024.
2024 JCO Prize Longlisted Authors & Most Recent Book of Fiction
Gina Apostol, La Tercera, Soho
Clare Beams, The Garden, Doubleday
Jamel Brinkley, Witness, FSG
Rachel Cantor, Half-Life of a Stolen Sister, Soho
Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping, Ecco
Emma Cline, The Guest, Random House
Teju Cole, Tremor, Random House
Charmaine Craig, My Nemesis, Grove Atlantic
Patricia Engel, The Faraway World, Avid Reader
Jonathan Evison, Again and Again, Dutton
Ben Fountain, Devil Makes Three, Flatiron
Rachel Heng, The Great Reclamation, Riverhead
Brandon Hobson, The Removed, Ecco
Caitlin Horrocks, The Vexations, Little, Brown
Sadeqa Johnson, The House of Eve, Simon & Schuster
Daphne Kalotay, The Archivists, Triquarterly Books
Lydia Kiesling, Mobility, Crooked Media Reads
Edan Lepucki, Time’s Mouth, Counterpoint
Kathryn Ma, The Chinese Groove, Counterpoint
Idra Novey, Take What You Need, Viking
Téa Obreht, The Morningside, Random House
Mary Otis, Burst, Zibby Books
Kevin Powers, A Line in the Sand, Little, Brown
Jess Row, The New Earth, Ecco
Julie Shumacher, The English Experience, Doubleday
Bennett Sims, Other Minds and Other Stories, Two Dollar Radio
Jessica Treadway, Infinite Dimensions, Delphinium
Vauhini Vara, This Is Salvaged, W.W. Norton
Bryan Washington, Family Meal, Riverhead
Paul Yoon, The Hive and the Honey, Marysue Rucci Books/Simon & Schuster
C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey, Riverhead
Jurors for the 2024 JCO Prize are Laura Cogan, Mark Danner, Joseph Di Prisco, Hertha Dawn Sweet Wong, and David Wood. The jury will hand up a shortlist of Finalists to the New Literary Project Board of Directors in March 2024, whereupon Finalists will be announced. Joyce Carol Oates serves as an Honorary Director. The Board will determine the 2024 Prize Recipient in April 2024.
Previous Winners of the JCO Prize
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. Twenty-three $5,000 Fellowships were awarded in Summer 2022 and Summer 2023, and fourteen are expected to be awarded in Summer 2024.
The Project has taught hundreds of high school-age writers at no cost 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 2024, workshops are expected to take place at Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall, Girls Inc. of Alameda County, Northgate High School, and elsewhere.
NewLit also curates a nationally distributed annual anthology of Project-related artists, including Prize winners and finalists alongside younger writers published for the first time; Simpsonistas: Tales from New Literary Project Vol. 5 (Rare Bird) launched in Fall 2023.
New Literary Project is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose board is led by teachers, philanthropists, corporate executives, and artists. (EIN: 84-3898853)
For more information, please contact:
Diane Del Signore, Executive Director, (510) 919-0970