Book Prizes
The Kempner Family Book Prizes
See the press release announcing the winners of the most recent prizes (for books published in 2023) here.
Nonfiction Prize Winners
|
Publication Date |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Winner - Texas Lithographs, A Century of History in Images | Ron Tyler | University of Texas Press |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - Texas State Parks: The First 100 Years 1923-2023 | George Bristol | TCU Press |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement | Wesley G. Phelps | University of Texas Press |
|
2023 |
Winner - Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas |
Sam W. Haynes |
Basic Books |
|
2023 |
Honorable Mention - Brackenridge: San Antonio’s Acclaimed Urban Park |
Lewis F. Fisher |
Trinity University Press |
|
2022 |
Winner - Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg |
James E. Crisp |
Texas State Historical Association |
|
2022 |
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 |
|
2021 |
Winner - The People's Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism |
Gregg Cantrell |
Yale University Press |
|
2021 |
Honorable Mention - George T. Ruby: Champion of Equal Rights in Reconstruction Texas |
Carl H. Moneyhon |
Texas Christian University Press |
Fiction Prize Winners
| Publication Date | Title | Author | Publisher |
| 2024 | Winner - The Madstone | Elizabeth Crook | Little, Brown |
| 2024 | Honorable Mention - Holler, Child | LaToya Watkins | Little Reparations Books |
| 2023 | Winner - The Leopard is Loose | Stephen Harrigan | Knopf |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention - More Than You’ll Ever Know | Katie Gutierrez | William Morrow |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention - Nobody's Pilgrims | Sergio Troncoso | Lee & Low Books: Cinco Puntos Press |
| 2022 | Winner - The Song Leader | Jan Reid | Texas Christian University Press |
| 2021 | Winner - Simon the Fiddler | Paulette Jiles | William Morrow |
| 2021 | Honorable Mention - The End of October | Lawrence G. Wright | Knopf |
| 2021 | Honorable Mention - Valentine | Elizabeth Wetmore | Harper |
| 2020 | Winner - Dragonfly | Leila Meacham | Grand Central Publishing |
Poetry Prize Winners
| Publication Date | Title | Author | Publisher |
| 2024 | Winner - Suggest Paradise | Ray Gonzalez | University of New Mexico Press |
| 2023 | Winner - Anchor | Rebecca Aronson | Orison Books |
| 2022 | Winner - Speaking with Grackles by Soapberry Trees | César Leonardo de Leon | Flowersong Press |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention - Welcome to Midland | Logen Cure | Deep Vellum Publishing |
| 2021 | Winner - Improvisation Without Accompaniment | Matt Morton | BOA Editions |
| 2021 | Honorable Mention - Maps of Injury | Chera Hammons | Sundress Publlications |
| 2020 | Winner - JazzHouse | Eduard Vidaurre | Prickly Pear Publishing |
| 2018 | Winner - Girldom | Megan Peak | Perugia Press |
| 2016 | Winner - Barbarossa | Jonathon Fink | Dzanc Books |
| 2015 | Winner - New and Selcted Poems | James Hoggard | Texas Christian University Press |
| 2014 (Inaugural Prize) | Winner - Once in the West | Christian Wiman | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |