Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf) has won the $35,000 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, which is sponsored by Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute, and honors "a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture."
The jury stated: "Every tribal nation has its own story that deserves fierce emotional and intellectual telling. Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, takes us from the Sand Creek Massacre to Oakland, California. On the way there, his characters become the bearers of America's history of violence, the vessels of trauma and spirituality, and the wandering stars of addiction and redemption. Wandering Stars serves to deepen and inform Orange's fine debut novel There, There, but it also stands on its own as a mesmerizing epic drama."
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The Writers' Trust of Canada has named nine finalists for the 2025 RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards for Emerging Writers, which is presented to a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who has published poetry or prose in a literary magazine or anthology, but has not yet been published in book form and is without a book contract.
Winners in three categories--poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction--will each receive C$10,000 (about US$7,220) at an event in Toronto on June 2. Finalists get C$2,500 (about US$1,805). This year's finalists can be found here.