Kirkus announced the jurors for the 2025 Kirkus Prize, awarded annually in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature. The literary prizes, established in 2014, come with $50,000 cash awards in each category, making them among the richest in the world.
The fiction jurors for 2025 are Thérèse Purcell Nielsen, a Kirkus reviewer and former public librarian, and Oscar Villalon, a journalist and editor of the literary journal ZYZZYVA.
Serving on the nonfiction jury are Calvin Crosby, an owner of the King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City and executive director of the nonprofit Brain Food Books, and Anita Felicelli, the books editor of Alta Journal and author of the books Chimerica, Love Songs for a Lost Continent, and How We Know Our Time Travelers.
The jurors for the young reader’s literature category are Annette Y. Goldsmith, a librarian and founding editor of the online international children’s literature journal The Looking Glass, and Erika Long, a librarian, lecturer, and founder/consultant at Not Yo Mama’s Librarian, LLC.
All books that receive a Kirkus star during the 12-month eligibility period are considered for the prize. Last year’s winners were James by Percival Everett, Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, and Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow.
The finalists for this year’s prizes will be announced on August 27, with the winners revealed at a ceremony in New York on October 8.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
