Established in the aftermath of the Attica Prison Riots in the mid-1970s, the PEN Prison Writing Awards recognize the exceptional voices of incarcerated writers in the United States within the genre categories of Fiction, Poetry, Essay, Memoir, and Drama. Two special awards, the Fielding A. Dawson Award for Promising Works and the Bell Chevigney Award for Women’s Nonfiction, are named in honor of founding members of the Prison Writing Committee.
Cash prizes of $300, $200, $150, and $75 are awarded for First Place, Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mention in each of the genre categories. The Bell Chevigney Award annually bestows one with $300, and the Fielding A. Dawson Award annually honors four writers with $75 each. In addition to cash prizes, all winners are offered enrollment in the PEN Prison Writing Mentorship Program and are awarded publication in an annual anthology series, which can be ordered here.
Poetry
First Place: J.A. Davis, “The New Beginning”
Second Place: Jonathan Scott, “Of Love & Blindness”
Third Place: Akiva Israel, “Goya’s Goat Painting”
Honorable Mention
Peter Bin, ”Sentences”
Paul Brown, “The Verdict (A Pantoum)”
Matthew Mendoza, “De Profundis (at the Waffle House)”
Fiction
First Place: Amanda Webber, “The Garden House”
Second Place: Todd Winkler, “Everything Must Go”
Third Place: Ken Meyers, “Grounded”
Honorable Mention
Crystal Avilla, “Three Little Words”
PM Dunne, “Fathers, Sons, and Bars”
Jacob Roswell, “The Threadweaver”
Essay
First Place: Richard Sean Gross, “The Worst Punishment They Got”
Second Place: Rolf Rathmann, “Dodging Bullets”
Third Place: Wes Lee, “Five Little Words”
Honorable Mention
Kyle Bryant, “Council Meeting”
Alex Friedmann, “Birds of a Felonious Feather”
M. McMahon, “Victims (Without) Rights”
Memoir
First Place: JShawn Guess, “Last Rock”
Second Place: Lawson Strickland, “Whitefish”
Third Place: Christina Wang, “The Poop Predicament”
Honorable Mention
Tony Mammana, “Back Day/Fort Dix”
Dion Mayer, “Intake”
Craig Mobayed, “Life on the Installments Plan: The Perils of Pre-teen Drug Use”
Drama
First Place: Gary Farlow, “Song of the Prison Gate”
Second Place: Lawson Strickland, “Losing Heart”
Third Place: Leo Cardez, “Just Another Day at the Zoo II”
Honorable Mention
Jeanne Anne-Marie Bossier, “Passing Pressure”
Fernando Rivas, “Low Life: A Musical”
Snow Vo, “Broken Promises”
Special Awards
Bell Chevigny Award in Women’s Nonfiction: Kimberly Cannon, “Dare I Ask for a Raise?”
Fielding A. Dawson Award for Promising Works
Jeremy McLaughlin, “The Rascality of King Phoenix” (Fiction)
John Hesselbein, “Origins” (Poetry)
Scott D. Culp, “Gladiator Schools: An Origin Story” (Nonfiction)
Todd Winkler, “Exodus” (Drama)
The 2025 PEN Prison Writing Awards were juried by the following members of PEN America’s Prison Writing Committee and six guest judges.
Fiction: Katherine Hill (chair), Charles Austin, Jason Kahler*, Ryan Matthews, Sarah McEachern, Simon Phillips, Mary Ellen Sanger
Poetry: Crystal Yeung (chair), Sally-Ann Hard, Helen Hofling, Hanan Mahbouba, Thomas March, Sharmaine Ong, Alyssa Proujansky, Erik Tschekunow**, Louise Waakaaigan**
Nonfiction: Grace Kearney (chair), Jillian Bergman, Sarah Citroni, Sterling Cunio**, Arthur Longworth**, Amanda Miller, Martha Raimon, Diane Simmons
Drama: Ethan Bumas (chair), Brian Beals**, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, Ashley Holland, Anthony Pennino
*Guest Judge
**Guest Judge / PEN Prison Writing Award Winner
