HHKBA Submissions
Award Schedule
2027 Best Literary Nonfiction (memoir, essays, journalistic writing)
2028 Best Poetry (collection of poems of at least 60 pages)
2029 Best Fiction (novel or collection of short stories)
2030 Best Literary Nonfiction
2031 Best Poetry
2032 Best Fiction
continuing to alternate every three years
2027 Literary Nonfiction Award Guidelines
Memoirs, essay collections, narrative nonfiction, and literary journalism are eligible.
Nominations can come from publishers, authors, or anyone interested in seeing a book considered. Only one book per author may be submitted.
Author must establish a connection to Kansas by birth, education, employment, residence or other significant claim.
There is no entry fee. Please submit two signed copies of each book nominated. These books become the property of the Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection.
Books must have an original publication date (copyright notice) within the three calendar years immediately preceding the year of the competition deadline. To be eligible for the 2027 Literary Nonfiction award, the nominee’s book must have a publication date of 2024, 2025, or 2026.
Previous awardees are eligible to submit a new book.
Nominations for this year’s award must be postmarked or presented by March 1, 2027.
Along with a statement of Kansas connection, author email, phone number, and postal address, please submit books for consideration to:
Awards
c/o Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection
University Library
1700 College Ave.
Topeka, KS 66621
2027 Literary Nonfiction Award Judge
This year’s judge will be 2024 HHKBA Literary Nonfiction winner Brian Daldorph, author of Words Is a Powerful Thing: Twenty Years of Teaching Creative Writing at Douglas County Jail (University Press of Kansas).
