Maine Literary Awards

The winners of the 2018 Maine Literary Awards will be revealed live at a ceremony on Thursday, June 14th at SPACE Gallery in downtown Portland. The 2018 Maine Literary awards honor books published during 2017, as well as adult and youth manuscripts in drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—brought in a near record-breaking number of submissions. Join us at this live ceremony where the winners will be revealed! 

2018 Maine Literary Awards Finalists 

(Listed alphabetically by author)

Book Award for Fiction
“A Piece of the World” Christina Baker Kline
“What Longfellow Heard” Jon Nappa
“The Girl of the Lake” Bill Roorbach

Book Award for Crime Fiction
“In Solo Time” Richard J. Cass
“Death Warmed Over” Kate Flora
“Wendigo” Vaughn Hardacker
“Deadly Trespass” Sandra Neily

Book Award for Speculative Fiction
“Ka” John Crowley
“American Ghost” Paul Guernsey
“Caveman at the End of the World” Brad Rau

Book Award for Nonfiction
“The Evangelicals” Frances FitzGerald
“Blazing Ahead” Jeffrey H. Ryan
“The Passion of Perfection” June Vail

Book Award for Memoir
“Settling Twice” Deborah Joy Corey
“Redeeming Ruth” Meadow Merrill
“I Know it in My Heart: Walking Through Grief with a Child” Mary E. Plouffe

Book Award for Poetry
“Work by Bloodlight” Julia Bouwsma
“The Unfastening” Wesley McNair
“Lesser Eternities” Jim Glenn Thatcher

Book Award for Young People’s Literature
“Grit” Gillian French
“The Rattled Bones” S.M. Parker
“The Glass Town Game” Catherynne M. Valente

Book Award for Children’s
“Do Seals Ever…?” Fran Hodgkins
“Princess Sophie and the Six Swans” Kim Jacobs
“Pocket Full of Colors” Jacqueline Tourville

Book Award for Anthology (Editors)
“3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England” Valerie Lawson (Editor)
“Northern Frights” D. Price (Editor)
“Sparks” The Telling Room (Editors)

John N. Cole Award for Maine-themed Nonfiction
“One Man’s Maine” Jim Krosschell
“Where Edges Don’t Hold” Christina Marsden Gillis
“How to Eat Green Crab” Oliver Curtis

Excellence in Publishing
“Green Plate Special” Christine Burns Rudalevige (Islandport Press)
“There Has To Be Magic” Donna Marie McNeil & Christina Shipps (Maine Authors Publishing)
“A Man for All Oceans” (Tilbury House Publishers)

Drama Award (for film, theater, and other scripts)
Michael D. Burke, Kathy M. Hooke, Martha Rice

Short Works Competition, Fiction
Zach Brockhouse, Anne Elliott, Jefferson Navicky

Short Works Competition, Nonfiction:
Sarah Kilch Gaffney, Penny Guisinger, Leslie Moore

Short Works Competition, Poetry:
Jefferson Navicky, Lee Sharkey, William Varner

Youth Competition, Fiction:
Lexie Bugbee, Makena Deveraux, Sarah Dressel

Youth Competition, Nonfiction:
Marisa Mizzoni, Ayub Mohamud, Mahnaz Seddiqi

Youth Competition, Poetry:
Makena Deveraux, Wilson Haims, Anita Woofender