First awarded in 2024, the Tennessee Book Award was founded to recognize outstanding works by Tennessee authors, to help support and promote writers in the state, and to provide engagement opportunities for readers, writers, and libraries. The Tennessee Book Award recognizes excellence in Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry written by Tennessee residents.
Nominations for the 2025 Tennessee Book Award are currently closed. The postmark deadline to enter was February 14, 2025
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR 2025 Tennessee Book Award
The submitted book must have:
- Been written by an author who is a current resident of Tennessee.
- Been published by a traditional publisher. Self-published books are not eligible.
- A 2024 copyright date.
- Been published in print between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024.
- An ISBN number.
If your book meets the criteria listed above, please fill out the submission form.
ABOUT THE 2025 JUDGES
FICTION
Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai is the author of the New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions For You as well as four other works of fiction. Her last novel, The Great Believers, one of the New York Times’ Best Books of the 21st Century, was a finalist for both the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and the 2018 National Book Award, and was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize among other honors. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca teaches graduate fiction writing at Middlebury College, Northwestern University, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.
NON-FICTION
Chris Offutt
Chris Offutt grew up in Haldeman, Kentucky, population 200, a former mining town in the Appalachian hills. His books include Shifty’s Boys, The Killing Hills, Country Dark, Kentucky Straight, Out of the Woods, The Good Brother, The Same River Twice, No Heroes, and My Father the Pornographer. He wrote and produced scripts for True Blood, Weeds, and Treme. His television work was nominated for an Emmy. His work is in many anthologies, including The Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, Best American Memoirs, Best American Food Writing, Best of the Decade: New Stories of the South, and The Vintage Book of American Short Stories. His writing has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
POETRY
Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco is one of the most beloved and influential poets and storytellers writing today. As a historic inaugural poet, public speaker, teacher and memoirist, he continues to invite audiences to reconnect to the heart of the human experience and all of its beautiful diversity. In 2013, Blanco was chosen to serve as the fifth inaugural poet of the United States, following in the footsteps as such great writers as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. Blanco performed “One Today”, an original poem he wrote for the occasion, becoming the youngest, first Latino, immigrant and openly gay writer to hold the honor. Blanco has received numerous honors for his writings and performances, including an honorary doctorate from Macalester College and being named a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. His first book, “City of a Hundred Fires,” received the prestigious Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize. His second book, “Directions to the Beach of the Dead” won the PEN / American Beyond Margins Award. His third book, “Looking for The Gulf Motel” received various accolades, including the Tom Gunn Award, the Maine Literary Award and the Paterson Prize. His poems have appeared in countless literary journals and anthologies, including “Best American Prose Poems” and “Ploughshares.” Blanco continues to write and perform for audiences around the world. He lives in Maine.
ABOUT THE 2024 WINNERS AND FINALISTS
Fiction: Monic Ductan, for Daughters of Muscadine
Ductan teaches literature and creative writing at Tennessee Tech University. Her writing has appeared in journals including Oxford American, Good River Review, Southeast Review, Shenandoah, Appalachian Heritage and South Carolina Review. Her essay “Fantasy Worlds” was listed as notable in The Best American Essays 2019.
Fiction finalists were Lauren Thoman for I’ll Stop the World, and Johanna Rojas Vann for An American Immigrant.
Judge: Edwidge Danticat
Non-Fiction: Rachel Louise Martin, for A Most Tolerant Little Town: The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation
Martin is a historian and writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic and Oxford American, among other publications. The author of Hot, Hot Chicken, a cultural history of Nashville hot chicken, and A Most Tolerant Little Town, the forgotten story of the first school to attempt court-mandated desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board, she is especially interested in the politics of memory and the power of stories to illuminate why injustice persists in America today. She lives in Nashville.
Non-fiction finalists were Margaret Renkl for essay collection The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, and Brooks Lamb for Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place.
Judge: John Jeremiah Sullivan
Poetry: Denton Loving, for Tamp
Loving lives on a farm near the historic Cumberland Gap, where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia come together. He is the author of the poetry collections Crimes Against Birds (Main Street Rag) and Tamp (Mercer University Press). He is also the editor of Seeking Its Own Level, an anthology of writings about water (MotesBooks).
Poetry finalists were Shuly Xochitl Cawood for Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough, and Julie Summer for Meridian: Poems.
Judge: George Ella Lyon