Book Prizes
The Kempner Family Book Prizes
awarded by the Philosophical Society of Texas
The Philosophical Society of Texas awards The Kempner Family Book Prizes annually in three categories, each with a $2,500 prize: one for a work of fiction, one for a nonfiction book, and one for a volume of poetry. The winning authors are invited to attend the Annual Meeting to receive their award and sign books. Judges may withhold the prizes and/or name honorable mentions at their discretion.
See the press release announcing the winners of the most recent prizes (for books published in 2024) here.
The deadline for submissions for the Society's 2026 Prizes has passed.
Submission guidelines are here. Please contact Society staff with questions.
See lists of all winners since 1999 below by category.
Nonfiction Prize Winners
|
Publication Date |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Winner - The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History | Karen Valby | Pantheon Books |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - The Lost War for Texas: Mexican Rebels, American Burrites, and the Texas Revolution of 1811 | James Aalen Bernsen | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - Making the Unknown Known: Women in Early Texas Art, 1860s-1960s | Victoria H. Cummins and Light T. Cummins | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2023 | Winner - Texas Lithographs, A Century of History in Images | Ron Tyler | University of Texas Press |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention - Texas State Parks: The First 100 Years 1923-2023 | George Bristol | TCU Press |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention - Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement | Wesley G. Phelps | University of Texas Press |
|
2022 |
Winner - Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas |
Sam W. Haynes |
Basic Books |
|
2022 |
Honorable Mention - Brackenridge: San Antonio’s Acclaimed Urban Park |
Lewis F. Fisher |
Trinity University Press |
|
2021 |
Winner - Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg |
James E. Crisp |
Texas State Historical Association |
|
2021 |
Honorable Mention - With the Bark Off: A Journalist's Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media |
Neal Spelce with Thomas Zigal |
University of Chicago Press |
|
2020 |
Winner - The People's Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism |
Gregg Cantrell |
Yale University Press |
|
2020 |
Honorable Mention - George T. Ruby: Champion of Equal Rights in Reconstruction Texas |
Carl H. Moneyhon |
Texas Christian University Press |
| 2019 | Winner - Big Wonderful Thing | Stephen Harrigan | University of Texas Press |
| 2018 | Winner - Seasons at Selah: The Legacy of Bamberger Ranch Preserve | Andrew Sansom | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2017 | Winner - Of Texas Rivers and Texas Art | Andrew Sansom | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2016 | Winner - The Material Culture of German Texans | Kenneth Hafertepe | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2016 | Honorable Mention - The Texas Frontier and the Butterfield Overland Mail, 1858 to 1861 | Glen Sample Ely | University of Oklahoma Press |
| 2016 | Honorable Mention - The Texas Landscape Project: Nature and People | David Todd and Jonathan Ogren | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2015 | Winner - Joe: The Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend | Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White | University of Oklahoma Press |
| 2014 | Winner - Midcentury Modern Art in Texas | Katie Robinson Edwards | University of Texas Press |
| 2013 | Winner - A World Not to Come: A History of Latino Writing and Print Culture | Raúl Coronado | Harvard University Press |
| 2012 | Winner - Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards | Jan Reid | University of Texas Press |
| 2011 | Winner - The Trials of Eroy Brown: The Murder Case That Shook the Texas Prison System | Michael Berryhill | University of Texas Press |
| 2010 | Winner - History Ahead: Stories Beyond the Texas Roadside Markers | Dan K. Utley and Cynthia J. Beeman | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2009 | Winner - Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II | Emilio Zamora | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2008 | Winner - The Comanche Empire | Pekka Hamalainen | Yale University Press |
| 2007 | Winner - The Country Houses of John F. Staub | Stephen Fox | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2006 | Winner - At the Heart of Texas, 100 Years of the Texas State Historical Association, 1897-1997 | Richard B. McCaslin | TSHA Press |
| 2005 | Winner - Engraved Prints of Texas | Mavis P. Kelsey, Sr. | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2004 | Winner - The Texas Indians | David LaVere | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2003 | Winner - Gone to Texas, A HIstory of the Lone Star State | Randolph B. Campbell, Jr. | Oxford University Press |
| 2002 | Winner - Sam Houston | James L. Haley | University of Oklahoma Press |
| 2001 | Winner - LBJ's Texas White House: Our Heart's Home | Hal K. Rothman | Texas A&M University Press |
| 2000 | Winner - Phillip Johnson & Texas | Frank D. Welch | Universit y of Texas Press |
| 1999 | Winner - Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas | Gregg Cantrell | TSHA Press |
Fiction Prize Winners
| Publication Date | Title | Author | Publisher |
| 2024 | Winner - The Border Between Us | Rudy Ruiz | Blackstone Publishing |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - Sarita | Natalie Musgrave Dossett | Atmosphere Press |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - We Burn Daylight | Bret Anthony Johnston | Random House |
| 2023 | Winner - The Madstone | Elizabeth Crook | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention - Holler, Child | LaToya Watkins | Little Reparations Books |
| 2022 | Winner - The Leopard is Loose | Stephen Harrigan | Knopf |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention - More Than You’ll Ever Know | Katie Gutierrez | William Morrow |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention - Nobody's Pilgrims | Sergio Troncoso | Lee & Low Books: Cinco Puntos Press |
| 2021 | Winner - The Song Leader | Jan Reid | Texas Christian University Press |
| 2020 | Winner - Simon the Fiddler | Paulette Jiles | William Morrow |
| 2020 | Honorable Mention - The End of October | Lawrence G. Wright | Knopf |
| 2020 | Honorable Mention - Valentine | Elizabeth Wetmore | Harper |
| 2019 | Winner - Dragonfly | Leila Meacham | Grand Central Publishing |
| 2019 | Honorable Mention - Outcry Witness | Thomas Zigal | TCU Press |
| 2018 | Winner - The Which Way Tree | Elizabeth Crook | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2016 | Winner - The Last Painting of Sara De Vos | Dominic Smith | Sarah Crichton Books |
| 2015 | Winner - The Mourner's Bench, A Novel | Sanderia Faye | University of Arkansas Press |
| 2014 | Winner - Above the East China Sea | Sarah Bird | Penguin Random House |
| 2014 | Winner - Famous Writers I Have Known | Henry Magnuson | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2013 | Winner - Many Rivers to Cross | Thomas Zigal | TCU Press |
| 2012 | Winner - The Chicken Hanger, A Novel | Ben Rehder | TCU Press |
| 2011 | Winner - Blue Sabine | Gerald Duff | Moon City Press |
Poetry Prize Winners
| Publication Date | Title | Author | Publisher |
| 2024 | Winner - Pollen, Salt and Chimes | Kurt Heinzelman | Pinyon Publishing |
| 2023 | Winner - Suggest Paradise | Ray Gonzalez | University of New Mexico Press |
| 2022 | Winner - Anchor | Rebecca Aronson | Orison Books |
| 2021 | Winner - Speaking with Grackles by Soapberry Trees | César Leonardo de Leon | Flowersong Press |
| 2021 | Honorable Mention - Welcome to Midland | Logen Cure | Deep Vellum Publishing |
| 2020 | Winner - Improvisation Without Accompaniment | Matt Morton | BOA Editions |
| 2020 | Honorable Mention - Maps of Injury | Chera Hammons | Sundress Publlications |
| 2019 | Winner - JazzHouse | Eduard Vidaurre | Prickly Pear Publishing |
| 2018 | Winner - Girldom | Megan Peak | Perugia Press |
| 2016 | Winner - Barbarossa: The German Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Siege of Lenningrad: Sonnets | Jonathon Fink | Dzanc Books |
| 2015 | Winner - New and Selected Poems | James Hoggard | Texas Christian University Press |
| 2014 (Inaugural Prize) | Winner - Once in the West | Christian Wiman | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |