GLCA Announces 2026 Winners of the
New Writers Award
The Great Lakes Colleges Association is pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Non-Fiction. Since 1970, the New Writers Award confers recognition on promising writers who have published a first volume in one of the three genres. This award reflects outstanding literary achievement in the judgment of a committee of scholars-critics-writers who are faculty at GLCA member institutions. Winning writers visit GLCA institutions by invitation to give readings, participate in discussions, and engage with students and faculty.
We extend our warmest congratulations to the 2026 Award Winners:
Poetry: Tarik Dobbs, Nazar Boy: Poems (Haymarket Books)
Judges:
Travis Chi Wing Lau (Kenyon College)
Pablo Peschiera (Hope College)
Marlo Star (The College of Wooster)
Fiction: Alisa Alering, Smothermoss, (Tin House)
Judges:
Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine (Oberlin College)
Kari Kalve (Earlham College)
Chris White (DePauw University)
Creative Non-Fiction: Hala Alyan, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
Judges:
Marin Heinritz (Kalamazoo College)
Agata Szczeszak-Brewer (Wabash College)
Angela Zito (Albion College)
Read the full 2026 announcement here.
The 2027 contest will open in February of 2026, with a deadline for nominations of May 25, 2026.
2025 Winning Writers Now on Tour
Jessica Elisheva Emerson visits Earlham College in October 2025. Pictured L-R are Jessica with her hosts Dez Brown, Onyinye Ihezukwu, and Rebecca Wartell
(photo credit Terri Hardy)
Sarah Ghazal Ali visits Allegheny College and visits the Danny Lane Sculpture in September 2025
(Photo credit Christopher Bakken)
About the New Writers Award
The GLCA New Writers Award was founded in 1970 as a program to enrich the environment of literary creativity and expression for students and faculty members of GLCA member colleges. The program focuses on writers, typically in early stages of a literary career, who have published a first volume in fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction.
Judges of the award are faculty members of creative writing and literature at GLCA’s 12 member colleges. Each year the winning writers in the three categories receive invitations to visit several GLCA colleges, where they give readings, meet with students and faculty, sign books, and often visit a creative writing class.
Full list of all New Writers Award winners from 1970 to the present
See above for the 2026 announcement. The 2025 winning writers are currently touring campuses. (See here for 2024, 2023 and 2022 winning announcements).
Publishers interested in finding out more about this award can contact Colleen Monahan Smith ([email protected]), via email (preferred) or at 734.661.2336.
“Affixed upon materially discrete layers…a sticker, a golden sunlike-disc triumphantly embossed with the arcing letters that spell out two phrases: Great Lakes Colleges Association…New Writers Award.“
– Michael Leong, Kenyon College, introducing Poetry winner
Jesse Nathan during a campus reading Feb 17, 2025