James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel

James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel: $5,500 and publication by the University of Nebraska Press

2026 Judge

Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction, as well as the California Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award. A 2024 Guggenheim fellow, he’s also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center. His first novel, We the Animals, was a national bestseller and was adapted into a feature film. He lives in Los Angeles and is an associate professor of English at UCLA.

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2025 Winner

Winner: Chital Mehta
Have You Seen Romit?

Chital Mehta was born and raised in India, where she experimented with writing YA novels. Her short stories have appeared in The Pinch, Oyez Review, SLAB magazine, and elsewhere. Her story “Damaged Gifts” won the SLAB fiction contest in 2022. Her work was a finalist for the 2022 Pinch Literary Award. Her stories center around displacement and belonging. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University. She lives in Delaware with her husband and children, where she is working on her next novel and a collection of short stories based on Asian immigrant themes. She can be reached at ChitalMehtaJey.com.

R. O. Kwon, judge: “Have You Seen Romit? is a gripping, intensely moving portrayal of a woman whose ferocious love for her children ends up clashing with how others expect her to behave. I loved spending time with the rule-breaking Usha and with the complicated world Chital Mehta has conjured. Vivid, fresh, and resonant.”

Runner-up: Natalie Rogers
FATTY

2025 Finalists

THE BEDEVILMENTS by Greg Ames
JACKSON: A NOVEL by George Bishop
THIS IS ABOUT AN ALLIGATOR AND NOTHING ELSE by Anna Dempsey
LOOKING AND BEING by Anne Elliott
SNAKEBITES AND CELEBRATIONS by J. Hoolihan Clayton
TUPELOS by Tom Irwin
YEAH, BUT I’M OKAY THOUGH by Galen Schram
BERMUDA BLUE by Emily Wharton Schmalz

The James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel

Winner: Dean Marshall Tuck
Twinless Twin

Dean Marshall Tuck is a writer living in eastern North Carolina with his wife and daughters. His novel Twinless Twin (University of Nebraska Press, 2025) was chosen by Jason Mott as the winner of the 2024 James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, part of the AWP Award Series. Excerpts from his novel have been featured in EPOCH, The South Carolina Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review. His short stories have been published in The Florida Review, Fugue, Beloit Fiction Journal, and elsewhere. Tuck serves on the advisory board for North Carolina Literary Review and teaches writing at Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina. His work can be found at DeanMarshallTuck.com.

Jason Mott, Judge: “A dreamy tale that unravels with hypnotic precision. A story of love and secrets, all played out against a backdrop of meticulous, flowing writing. The best stories are the ones that leave readers with decisions to make: about themselves, about life, about the world . . . Twinless Twin leaves readers with all of those difficult choices and more. It’s a novel that relies heavily on the established traditions of rural storytelling—with its tropes of magic, danger, and folklore—while grappling with contemporary themes with no loss of momentum or impact. In short: a wonderful story.”

Runner-Up: Angie Romines
AND THE FLOODS CAME UP

“An excellent foray into multiple perspectives and timelines. This is a story that spins and dances, taunts and misleads, holds its center while simultaneously splintering into a dozen kaleidoscopic fragments. Filled with mystery and mysticism, AND THE FLOODS CAME UP is a haunting, marvelous story.”—Jason Mott

2024 Finalists

THE ASTERISMS by Robert Glick
FEATHER & SEL by Roger Hart
REVEAL! by Tom McAllister
PROOF OF GIANTS by K. T. Peterson
THE ANIMATRONIC GEESE OF MICHIANA by Yelizaveta Renfro
SOUL IN THE FOLD, A NOVEL OF ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION by Xavier Richardson
TO THE LASTING HOUSE by Riley Rockford
THE HANDBOOK FOR DOOMSCROLLING by Wendy Wimmer

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