Kevin Wilson is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Nothing to See Here, and The Family Fang, as well as two story collections. His work has received the Shirley Jackson Award and been selected as a Read with Jenna book club pick. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife and two sons.

Fiction finalists were Robert Busby’s Bodock and David Wesley Williams’ Come Again No More.

Tyler Merritt is an actor, musician, comedian, and activist behind The Tyler Merritt Project. Raised in Las Vegas, he has always had a passion for bringing laughter, grace, and love into any community he is a part of. His film credits include Netflix’s “Outer Banks”, Disney/Marvel’s “Falcon and the Winter Soldier”, NBC’s” Young Rock”, and A24’s “The Inspection”, to name a few. Tyler’s viral videos “Before You Call the Cops” and “Walking While Black” have been viewed by more than 100 million people worldwide, with “Before You Call The Cops” being voted the most powerful video of 2020 by NowThis Politics. He is a cancer survivor who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Non-fiction finalists were Johnisha Levi’s Number’s Up: Cracking the Code on an American Family and Martha Park’s World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After.

Maria Zoccola is a poet and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. She has writing degrees from Emory University and Falmouth University and has spent several years leading creative writing workshops for middle and high school youth. Maria’s work has previously appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere. She  has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Helen of Troy, 1993 is her debut poetry collection.

Poetry finalists were Sarah Cummins Small’s Stitches: Poems and Jack White’s Complete Lyrics and Selected Writing.

Geraldine Brooks is the author of six novels, including Horse, People of the Book, Year of Wonders, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning March. She has also written acclaimed and bestselling works of nonfiction, including Memorial Days, Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. Born and raised in Australia, Brooks divides her time between Sydney and Martha’s Vineyard.

(Photo credit: Elizabeth Cecil)

Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and the author of nine other books, including the New York Times bestsellers A Fever in the Heartland and The Immortal Irishman. His book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, won a National Book Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. His account of photographer Edward Curtis, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, won the Carnegie Medal for nonfiction.

(Photo credit: Ruth Fremson)

Danez Smith is the author of three previous poetry collections, including Homie, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Don’t Call Us Dead, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection and a finalist for the National Book Award.

(Photo credit: Anna Min)

Vic Sizemore is the author of the novel God of River Mud; the essay collection Goodbye, My Tribe: An Evangelical Exodus; and the short story collection I Love You I’m Leaving. His fiction and nonfiction appear in Story Quarterly, North American Review, Southern Humanities Review, storySouth, Blue Mesa Review, Sou’wester, Pembroke Magazine, Reed Magazine and many other journals. His fiction has won the New Millennium Writings Award and has been nominated for Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best of the Net, and several Pushcart Prizes. Vic lives and writes in the foothills of Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains.

Fiction finalists were Rea Frey’s In Every Life and Jeff Zentner’s Colton Gentry’s Third Act.

Judge: Rebecca Makkai

Jared Sullivan has written for The Atlantic, Garden & Gun, Oxford American, The New Yorker, and Time, among many other publications. He was formerly an editor for Men’s Journal and Field & Stream. He lives outside Nashville, Tennessee, with his family.

Non-fiction finalists were Anne Byrn’s Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories, and Jonathan Metzl’s What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms

Judge: Chris Offutt

Didi Jackson is a poet who currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, poet Major Jackson, and her rascally rescue dog, Finn. She is a Dean’s Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University where she teaches as an assistant professor of creative writing. She is the author of two poetry collections, My Infinity (2024) and Moon Jar (2020).

Poetry finalists were Christian Collier’s Greater Ghost: Poems and Tara Stringfellow’s Magic Enuff: Poetry

Judge: Richard Blanco