Dayton Literary Peace Prize

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Watch the 2025 DLPP Awards Gala here

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Finalists
Finalist Judges

Ann Patchett

2026 Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke
Distinguished Achievement Award

Ann Patchett is the author of ten novels, most recently the #1 New York Times bestselling Whistler, works of nonfiction, and children’s books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. President Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books.

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2026 Fiction Winner

The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman

Sam Wachman is a writer from Cambridge, Massachusetts with Ukrainian roots. His short fiction has appeared in Sonora Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, and New England Review. Before writing The Sunflower Boys, he taught English to primary schoolers in central Ukraine and worked with refugee families in Europe and the United States.

2026 Fiction Runner-up

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Charlotte McConaghy is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations, which are being translated into more than thirty languages. She is based in Sydney, Australia.

2026 Nonfiction Winner

Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church by Kevin Sack

Kevin Sack is a veteran journalist who has written about national affairs for more than four decades and has been part of three Pulitzer Prize–winning teams. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, and a graduate of Duke University, he spent thirty years on the staff of The New York Times, where he specialized in writing long-form narrative and investigative reports, often related to race. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine. He was previously an Emerson Collective Fellow at New America and teaches journalism at Princeton University.

2026 Nonfiction Runner-up

Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing

Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author of four books: the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has written several projects for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series, and is currently writing Black Panther. Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues.

2026 Finalists

Fiction

Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen
Alfred A. Knopf

An engrossing, blisteringly funny-sad autobiographical novel tracing a Chinese mother’s tumultuous relationship with her strong-willed, outspoken daughter who is distinctly reminiscent of herself. Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, exploring how patterns from childhood get repeated or shattered, Bad Bad Girl is a novel only Gish Jen could have written: genre-bending, courageous, wise, and as immensely incisive as it is compassionate.

Outside Women by Roohi Choudhry
University Press of Kentucky

Would you risk your own life to pursue justice for a stranger? Two migrant women—separated by geographies and generations—face this same devastating choice.

Lured from her home in 1890s India, Sita is brought to South Africa as an indentured servant. 100 years later, Hajra is forced to flee her home in Pakistan after witnessing violence. Outside Women intertwines the narratives of two women valiantly carving their places outside of patriarchal norms as they search for kinship and strength.

The Antidote by Karen Russell
Alfred A. Knopf

From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell: a gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman
HarperCollins

Twelve-year-old Artem’s life in Ukraine is mundane; however, Artem has struggled with romantic feelings for his best friend. In a country where love between boys is unthinkable, Artem worries this will undo his life.

Until one night, Artem and his younger brother are woken by explosions. The Russians destroy their home, killing their mother and leaving the boys to fend for themselves. Fleeing to find their father, the brothers traverse the country with nothing but their backpacks and each other.

Too Soon by Betty Shamieh
Simon & Schuster

A “wonderfully brash and sparkling” (Oprah Daily, Best Books of the Year) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women—“a Palestinian American Sex and the City” (The Atlantic).

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Flatiron Books

The Salt family are the last remaining caretakers of the seed bank on the remote island of Shearwater. As rising sea levels force them into relocation, their world is upended when a mysterious woman washes ashore asking a few too many questions.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.

Nonfiction

By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine by Danielle Leavitt
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

An intimate, affecting account of life during wartime, told through the lives that have been shattered.

Free: My Search for Meaning by Amanda Knox
Grand Central Publishing

Free recounts how Knox survived prison, the mistakes she made, the misadventures she had reintegrating into society, and culminates in the untold story of her return to Italy—and the extraordinary relationship she’s built with the man who sent her to prison. It is the gripping saga of what happens when you become the definition of notorious, but have quietly returned to the matters of a normal life—seeking a life partner, finding a job, or even just going out in public.

Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church by Kevin Sack
Crown / Penguin Random House

The inspiring history of a Charleston Church’s profound grief, unbending faith, and how Black suffering shaped forgiveness into survival. Through the microcosm of one congregation, Sack explores the development of a unique practice of Christianity, from its daring breakaway from White churches in 1817, through the traumas of the Civil War and Reconstruction, to its critical role in the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.

Original Sins: The (Mis) education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing
One World

Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing offers a provocative answer: they do. Drawing on meticulous historical research, she argues that America’s educational system was never designed to be a great equalizer—it was built to reinforce racial hierarchy, from Jefferson’s era to today. Yet Ewing doesn’t stop at critique. She also celebrates teaching and learning as acts of resistance, making a powerful case for reimagining what schools could be.

The Jailhouse Lawyer by Calvin Duncan and Sophie Cull
Penguin Press

A searing and ultimately hopeful account of Calvin Duncan, “the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time” (Sister Helen Prejean), and his thirty-year path through Angola after a wrongful murder conviction, his coming-of-age as a legal mind while imprisoned, and his continued advocacy for those on the inside.

The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice by Jack Fairweather
Crown/Penguin Random House

The remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay, Jewish judge from Stuttgart who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the shadowy, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced.

Read the press release.

2026 Finalist Judges

Fiction

Dominic-Smith

Dominic Smith

Dominic Smith is the author of six novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which was a New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, The New York Times, and The Australian. He is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, where he serves on the academic board.

Jung-Yun

Jung Yun

Jung Yun is the author of ALL THE WORLD CAN HOLD, O BEAUTIFUL, and SHELTER. Her novels have been long listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, selected as a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and recognized as a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of English at George Washington University.

Nonfiction

Ben-Fountain

Ben Fountain

Ben Fountain’s most recent book is Rasputin Swims the Potomac, a novel. He is the recipient of the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN/Cerulli Award for Excellence in Sports Writing, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Award, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His bestselling novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk was adapted for film by three-time Oscar winner Ang Lee. His short stories and nonfiction have appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Esquire, Le Monde (France), Report Sexto Piso (Mexico), Intranqui’llités (Haiti), The New Republic, and elsewhere. A former practicing attorney in Texas, he now lives in eastern North Carolina.

​Jeannie-Vanasco

Jeannie Vanasco

​Jeannie Vanasco is the author of A Silent Treatment, which was named a best book of 2025 by NPR, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her other memoirs include Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—a ​New York Times Editors’ Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University. Her fourth book is under contract with Tin House, publisher of her other memoirs.

2025 Awards Ceremony

The 2024 Awards Ceremony was held at 5:00 pm on Sunday, November 10th, 2024, at the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center at One West Second Street in Dayton, Ohio. Gilbert King was the Master of Ceremonies.

2025 Award Winners and Runners-up

Richard C. Holbrooke Award President Jimmy Carter

Fiction Award Paul Lynch for Prophet Song

Nonfiction Award Victor Luckerson for Built From The Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street

Fiction Runner-up Anne Berest for The Postcard

Nonfiction Runner-up Tania Branigan for Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution

2025 Master of Ceremonies

Gilbert King

Gilbert King is the writer, producer, and host of Bone Valley, a nine-part narrative podcast about murder and injustice in 1980s central Florida, from Lava for Good podcasts. He is the author of three books, most recently, Beneath a Ruthless Sun. His previous book, Devil in the Grove, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2013. A New York Times bestseller, the book was also named runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. King has written about race, civil rights, and the death penalty for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he was a 2019-2020 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. King’s earlier book, The Execution of Willie Francis, was published in 2008. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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