The 2026 Wisconsin Fiction Book Award
This award is for the best book of fiction (novels, single author short story collection, etc) published by a Wisconsin author in the calendar year 2026. A Wisconsin writer is anyone currently residing in Wisconsin or who has lived in the state for a specific period.
First place winner receives $1000 and a 5-day stay at Shake Rag Alley. Submission are open from August 1, 2026 to January 8, 2027. The judge may elect to choose an Honorable Mention as well. Honorable Mention designees will receive $100 and a 5-day stay at Ernest Huperden's Painted Forest.
This year's judge is Amanda Rizkalla, the author of Hungered. A recent Steinbeck Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow, she has been a writer-in-residence at Ragdale, Hedgebrook, and Djerassi, among others. After graduating from Stanford University, she received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a Kemper Knapp Fellow.
Previous Winners:
2025
First Place: Gichigami (University of Massachussetts Press) by Lindsey Steffes (Dellwood, MN)
Honorable Mention: Life, and Death, and Giants (St. Martins Press) by Ron Rindo (Pickett, WI)
2024
First Place: Gee, That Was Fun: 7 Days of Mayhem, 1983 (Trunk of My Car) by Robert Fromberg (Madison)
Honorable Mention: Wayward Home (Luxvida Press) by Charity Eleson (Madison)
2023
First Place: Killingly (Soho Press) by Katharine Beutner (Wauwatosa)
Honorable Mention: The Light Is Ours (Sand Beach Press) by Ann Heyse (Baileys Harbor)
2022
First Place: The Net Beneath Us (Forge Books) by Carol Dunbar (Superior)
Honorable Mention: Still True (University of Wisconsin Press) by Maggie Ginsberg (Blue Mounds)
2021
First Place: Anthony Bukoski, The Blondes of Wisconsin: Stories
Honorable Mention: Shannon Schuren, Where Echoes Lie
Return to the Wisconsin Writers Awards main page