Housatonic Book Awards

Home

Western Connecticut State University’s MFA in Creative and Professional Writing is honored to announce the winners of our 2023 Housatonic Book Awards! 

Fiction

Winner: Small World by Jonathan Evison

Finalists

Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

The Consequences by Manuel Muñoz

Big Girl by Mecca J. Sullivan

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty 

 

Poetry

Winner: American Treasure by Jill McDonough

Finalists

The World That the Shooter Left Us by Cyrus Cassells

The Colored Page by Matthew E. Henry

City without Altar by Jasminne Mendez

Customs by Solmaz Sharif

How to Survive the Apocalypse by Jacqueline Allen Trimble

Unceded Land by Issam Zineh

*The committee would also like to recognize these excellent poetry semifinalists: 

Against Heaven by Kemi Alabi

Brother Sleep by Aldo Amparán 

Our Lady of Bewilderment by Alison Pelegrin

Flutter, Kick by Anna V. Q. Ross

My Body Lives Like a Threat by Megha Sood

Innocence by Michael Joseph Walsh

American Sycamore by Lisbeth White

 

Nonfiction

Winner:  Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse 

 

Finalists

 

The Great Indoorsman by Andrew Farkas

 

Predator by Ander Monson

 

The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning by Ben Raines

 

Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg