The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has named Emily Hamilton’s THE STARS TOO FONDLY as one of five finalists for the 2025 Compton Crook Award, honoring the best debut SF/fantasy/horror novel of the year. The winner will receive a cash prize and an invitation to be the Compton Crook Guest at the society’s annual event, Balticon. Members of the BSFS will vote on a winner to be announced in early April. Harper Voyager published the book on June 11, 2024.

Kathy MacLeod's debut graphic memoir CONTINENTAL DRIFTER is the winner of the 2025 APALA Award for Literature in Children's Fiction. Administered by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), an affiliate of the American Library Association, the award celebrates artistic and literary merit in works that promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage. CONTINENTAL DRIFTER was published by First Second on April 4, 2024.

Divya Victor has been selected as a recipient of a 2025 Creative Capital Award for her essay project KIN. The applicants, chosen from a pool of 5, 683 applications, will be provided up to $50,000 each in unrestricted funding to complete their work.

SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS by Kailee Pedersen has been selected as a 2025 Libby Book Awards finalist in the Best Horror category. The winners will be announced on March 5. SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS was published by St. Martin’s Press on August 20, 2024.

AN IMMENSE WORLD was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Prize for 2025. The committee’s citation reads: “Ed Yong’s AN IMMENSE WORLD: HOW ANIMAL SENSES REVEAL THE HIDDEN REALMS AROUND US challenges readers to regard the world through different eyes—not to mention sensory hairs, electroreceptors, and lyriform organs. It is an exemplary work of science writing—prodigiously reported, sharply crafted, and packed with information. Like all the best works of nonfiction, AN IMMENSE WORLD is rigorously grounded in fact and, at the same time, invites us all to be open to the great mysteries of life.” AN IMMENSE WORLD was published by Random House on June 21, 2022.

THE LAST ANIMAL was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Prize for 2025. The committee’s citation reads: “With tremendous skill, Ramona Ausubel shows how a newly-single mother and her two teenage daughters survive while trying to help save the planet. Sharp and delightful, the novel explores how science works—and doesn’t work—and the sexism so pervasive that even those not working in the field understand the need to navigate its imposed limitations. THE LAST ANIMAL is a tour de force that takes readers around the world and asks if we should resurrect those we’ve lost, how to move on without them, and to which part of this globe we belong.” The award consists of a $10,000 prize, and the winners will be celebrated at a ceremony in March. THE LAST ANIMAL was published by Riverhead on April 18, 2023.

Edward Ashton’s novel MAL GOES TO WAR has been selected as a 2025 Audie Award finalist in the Science Fiction category. The Annual Audie Awards are the “premier awards program recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.” The winners will be announced at the 2025 Audies Gala in New York on March 4th. MAL GOES TO WAR was published by St. Martin’s Press on April 9, 2024.

Common’s latest book AND THEN WE RISE has been selected as a 2025 Audie Award finalist in the Business/Personal Development category. The Annual Audie Awards are the “premier awards program recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.” The winners will be announced at the 2025 Audies Gala in New York on March 4th. AND THEN WE RISE was published by HarperOne on January 23, 2024.

The National Society of Film Critics awarded Scott Eyman the Film Heritage Award on January 4th “for his outstanding books on film artists and epochal shifts in moviemaking, most recently with CHARLIE CHAPLIN VS. AMERICA: WHEN ART, SEX, AND POLITICS COLLIDED, a revelatory study of the nexus of American politics and American pop culture.” Simon & Schuster published CHARLIE CHAPLIN VS AMERICA on October 31, 2023.

Joseph Earl Thomas was awarded the 2024 First Novel Prize for GOD BLESS YOU OTIS SPUNKMEYER at The Center for Fiction Annual Awards Benefit on December 10. The awarded is annually presented to the best debut novel of the year, with a $15,000 prize “in recognition of their contribution to the contemporary literary canon and in support of their ongoing creative career.” The book was selected by a panel of distinguished writers, including Merve Emre, Raven Leilani, Jonathan Lethem, and Tyriek White. Grand Central Publishing published the novel on June 18, 2024.