New Literary Project announces that submissions are now open for its 2027 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. The annual $50,000 Prize is awarded to a mid-career author of fiction, novels and/or short stories, a writer of consequence at the relative midpoint of a burgeoning career, one who represents NewLit’s vision and mission. The JCO Prize Recipient is a distinguished author who has emerged and is still emerging, and the Prize is awarded in testament to literary career achievement, not for a specific book, as well as in support of work to come. 

The Joyce Carol Oates Prize is a working prize, in the sense that the prize-winning author during the NewLit Roadshow will take up brief residence with the University of California, Berkeley, English Department and in the Bay Area, including the MFA Department of Saint Mary’s College of California–teaching and public speaking–in Fall 2027, dates to be determined.

For General Submission Process & Guidelines for Joyce Carol Oates Prize, see our press release.

New Literary Project

Previous Joyce Carol Oates Prize Winners, with representative publication, are listed below. They are expected to continue engagements with New Literary Project:

2026 Erika Krouse, Save Me, Stranger (Flatiron)

2025 Jennine Capó Crucet, Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon & Schuster)

2025 Willy Vlautin, The Horse (HarperCollins)

2024 Ben Fountain, Devil Makes Three (Flatiron)

2023 Manuel Muñoz, The Consequences (Graywolf Press)

2022 Lauren Groff, Matrix (Riverhead)

2021 Danielle Evans, The Office of Historical Corrections (Riverhead)

2020 Daniel Mason, The Winter Soldier (Little, Brown)

2019 Laila Lalami, The Other Americans (Pantheon)

2018 Anthony Marra, The Tsar of Love and Techno (Hogarth)

2017 T. Geronimo Johnson, Welcome to Braggsville (HarperCollins)

2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize Winner Erika Krouse Brings the Rising Roadshow to the Bay Area, Oct 26 to Nov 1

Erika joins us for a week of workshops, conversations, and inspiration, with public and ticketed events across the Roadshow. Join us this fall at Rising Roadshow.

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Please consider a donation to support our work. NewLit offers arts education through our Bonetti-Bell and Iris Starn Workshops taught by Cal and Saint Mary’s College of California grad students who receive fellowships.

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New Literary Project is grateful for generous institutional support from philanthropic and corporate sponsors who, along with our many loyal individual donors, drive social change and make possible serving students, teachers, and writers across generations: Wood Family Foundation, Simpson PSB Fund, System Property, Literary Arts Emergency Fund through the Mellon Foundation, Rare Bird Books, Penguin Random House, Salesforce Foundation, Busby Communications, and the Miner Anderson Family Foundation.