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(Oakland, CA) May 5, 2026 — Erika Krouse, of Colorado, is the eleventh Recipient of the Joyce Carol Oates Prize awarded by New Literary Project. The author receives $50,000. Her most recent publication is a book of short stories, Save Me, Stranger (Flatiron Books). Prize recipients are emerged and continually emerging writers of major consequence—short stories and/or novels—at the relative midpoint of a burgeoning career. The Prize stands not only as testament to Krouse’s impressive literary accomplishments as a mid-career author, but also as encouragement and support for work to come. The author represents the resilience, power, and diversity of our national literary communities, and unforgettably gives voice, in her resonantly distinctive style, to the most urgent issues of today. The Joyce Carol Oates Prize (JCO) is named after the eminent author, an honorary member of New Literary Project’s Board of Directors. She earlier served as NewLit’s Writer-in-Residence. The Project hereby gratefully acknowledges her inspiring, lifelong impact as peerless teacher and writer, an author beloved and admired for generations by legions of students, writers, and readers around the country and the world. She embodies the nonprofit organization’s most deeply held commitments to literature and literacy, arts education, and free speech. The annual JCO Prize honors mid-career authors of fiction who advance the vision and mission of NewLit–to drive social change and unleash artistic power across the generations and the nation. In this way, NewLit aims to contribute to, and lift up, a literate, democratic society. Yes, the planet needs rescuing, and people need food and housing and health care. The world needs all that and more. The world also needs the nourishment, refuge, and attention of the arts. Young people who are marginalized—now speaking in their own voices. Writers now telling, and teachers now teaching, the stories of our lives. That’s what helps make democracy a democracy. That’s what NewLit is doing. The JCO Prize is a working prize, and Erika Krouse will take up brief residence during the 2026 NewLit Roadshow at the University of California, Berkeley (NewLit marquee partner), and in the Bay Area, including especially Saint Mary’s College of California–teaching and public speaking in a variety of educational and literary settings–in October 2026, dates and occasions to be determined. The winning author was chosen after consideration of a longlist of twenty eight nationally recognized authors, and eventually a shortlist that included four other extraordinary artists: Katie Kitamura, Lori Ostlund, Jamie Quatro, and Danzy Senna. The jury that selected the short list consisted of Laura Cogan, Joseph Di Prisco, Fiona McFarlane, Molly Metherd, Geoffrey O’Brien, and David Wood. The NewLit Board of Directors judged and selected the Recipient.
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