Founded in 2009, The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction celebrates quality, innovation, and ambition of writing for books published in the last year in the UK, Ireland, or the Commonwealth. In order to qualify, the majority of the storyline must have taken place at least 60 years ago. The winner was announced at the Borders Book Festival on Thursday, June 12.
Since 2006, the Marfield Prize, also known as the National Award for Arts Writing, is announced annually by the Arts Club of Washington. The award recognizes the author of an outstanding nonfiction book about the visual, literary, media, or performing arts. This $10,000 prize is designed to recognize excellence in arts writing for a broad audience. The winner was announced in mid-April, and the prize was awarded on June 4.
Since 1988, The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, have been awarded by Malice Domestic Ltd. in six categories: Best Novel; Best First Mystery; Best Historical Novel; Best Short Story; Best Non-Fiction; Best Children’s/Young Adult Mystery.
These are the literary awards for “cozy mysteries” also defined as mystery and crime books in the traditional mystery subgenre: “books typified by the works of Agatha Christie…loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence.” The 2025 Agatha Awards were announced on April 26.
Since 1953, the Hugo Awards, science fiction’s most prestigious awards, were established by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”), which is also responsible for administering them. The awards will be presented in Seattle on August 16, 2025.
The Pulitzer Prizes, which are administered at Columbia University, were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian American journalist and newspaper publisher who left money to the university upon his death. A portion of his bequest was used to establish the Pulitzer Prize as an incentive to excellence, and the first awards were given in 1917. Joseph Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in books and drama, one for education, and five traveling scholarships. Since then, the Pulitzer Prize board has increased the number of awards to 23 and introduced poetry, music, photography, memoir, and audio journalism as subjects.
Below are the 2025 finalists and winners in the TBP collection under the category of Letters and Drama Prizes. The winners were announced on May 5.
The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction celebrates excellence, originality, and accessibility in nonfiction written by women. The Prize celebrates ambitious, inspiring, and thought-provoking novels written by women in English and is awarded for books published in the previous year. The winner will be announced on June 12, 2025.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates excellence, originality, and accessibility in fiction written by women. The Prize celebrates ambitious, inspiring, and thought-provoking novels written by women in English and is awarded for books published in the previous year. The winner will be announced on June 12, 2025.
The International Thriller Writers (ITW) is an honorary society of authors, both fiction and nonfiction, who write books broadly classified as “thrillers.” This would include (but isn’t limited to) such subjects as murder mystery, detective, suspense, horror, supernatural, action, espionage, true crime, war, adventure, and myriad similar subject areas. The winners will be announced at the annual ThrillerFest conference in New York City in June 2025.
Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been dedicated to discovering new voices and celebrating the highest quality of writing across the spectrum of book publishing. The winners of the 2025 L.A. Times Book Prizes were announced on April 25. The ceremony, which was hosted by Times Columnist LZ Granderson, took place at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the finalists for the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement. The HWA is the premier writers’ organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, and they have presented the Bram Stoker Awards in various categories since 1987. The 2024 Bram Stoker Awards® will be announced on June 14.
