| Year | Poetry | Fiction | Creative nonfiction |
|---|
| 2026 |
Tarik Dobbs — Nazar Boy: Poems | Alisa Alering — Smothermoss | Hala Alyan — I'll Tell You When I'm Home |
| 2025 |
Sarah Ghazal Ali — Theophanies | Jessica Elisheva Emerson — Olive Days | KB Brookins — Pretty |
| 2024 |
Jesse Nathan — Eggtooth | D.K. Nnuro — What Napoleon Could Not Do | Roger Reeves — Dark Days |
| 2023 |
James Fujinami Moore — indecent hours | Tsering Yangzom Lama — We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies | Lars Horn — Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay |
| 2022 |
Sumita Chakraborty — Arrow | Michael X. Wang — Further News of Defeat | Melissa Valentine — The Names of All the Flowers |
| 2021 |
Marianne Chan — All Heathens | Gabriel Bump — Everywhere You Don’t Belong | Nina Boutsikaris — I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Sorry |
| 2020 |
Aaron Coleman — Threat Come Close | Eric Schlich — Quantum Convention | Sarah Viren — Mine: Essays |
| 2019 |
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo — Cenzontle | Dawn Davies — Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces | Lesley Nneka Arimah — What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky |
| 2018 |
Chen Chen — When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities | Emily Fridlund — History of Wolves | Hilary Plum — Watchfires |
| 2017 |
Nate Marshall — Wild Hundreds | Charles Boyer — History’s Child | Randall Horton — Hook |
| 2016 |
Natalie Scenters-Zapico — The Verging Cities | Lauren Acampora — The Wonder Garden | Shulem Deen — All Who Go Do Not Return |
| 2015 |
Tarfia Faizullah — Seam | David James Poissant — The Heaven of Animals | Angela Pelster — Limber |
| 2014 |
Natalie Shapero — No Object | E.J. Levy — Love, in Theory | Joe Wilkins — The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing Up on the Big Dry |
| 2013 |
Rowan Ricardo Phillips — The Ground | Ismet Prcic — Shards | Benjamin Busch — Dust to Dust |
| 2012 |
Shane Book — Ceiling of Sticks | Alan Heathcock — Volt | Danielle Cadena Deulen — The Riots |
| 2011 |
Nick Lantz — We Don’t Know We Don’t Know | Goldie Goldbloom — Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders | Randi Davenport — The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes |
| 2010 |
Kevin McFadden — Hardscrabble | Josh Weil — The New Valley | Diana Joseph — I’m Sorry You Feel That Way |
| 2009 |
Aracelis Girmay — Teeth | Don Waters — Desert Gothic | Melissa J. Delbridge — Family Bible |
| 2008 |
Lynne Thompson — Beg No Pardon | Andy Mozina — The Women Were Leaving the Men | Ander Monson — Neck Deep and Other Predicaments |
| 2007 |
Jay Hopler — Green Squall | Tony D’Souza — Whiteman | — |
| 2006 |
Anele Rubin — Trying to Speak | David Harris Ebenbach — Between Camelots | — |
| 2005 |
Dana Roeser — Beautiful Motion | Scott Nadelson — Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories | — |
| 2004 |
Mary Szybist — Granted | Patricia Sarrifian Ward — The Bullet Collection | — |
| 2003 |
Beth Ann Fennelly — Open House | Kellie Wells — Compression Scars | — |
| 2002 |
Mong-Lan — Song of the Cicadas | Elizabeth Rosner — The Speed of Light | — |
| 2001 |
Tenaya Darlington — Madame Deluxe | Michael Zadoorian — Secondhand | — |
| 2000 |
Dana Levin — In the Surgical Theatre | William Oren — Zombi, You My Love | — |
| 1999 |
Craig Arnold — Shells | Becky Hagenston — A Gram of Mars | — |
| 1998 |
Mary Jo Bang — Apology for Want | Alison McGhee — Rainlight | — |
| 1997 |
Juanita Brunk — Brief Landing on the Earth’s Surface | Brad Watson — Last Days of the Dog-Men | — |
| 1996 |
Lynn Powell — Old & New Testaments | Geoffrey Becker — Dangerous Men | — |
| 1995 |
Alice Anderson — Human Nature | Terese Svoboda — Cannibal | — |
| 1994 |
Kim Addonizio — The Philosopher’s Club | — | — |
| 1993 |
Julia Kasdorf — Sleeping Preacher | Jane McCafferty — Director of the World and Other Stories | — |
| 1992 |
Mary Stewart Hammond — Out of Canaan | Charlotte Watson Sherman — Killing Color | — |
| 1991 |
Daniel Hall — Hermit With Landscape | Susan Straight — Aquaboogie | — |
| 1990 |
Stefanie Marlis — Slow Joy | William Patrick — Roxa | — |
| 1989 |
Fleda Brown Jackson — Fishing With Blood | Jane Hamilton — The Book of Ruth | — |
| 1988 |
Charlie Smith — Red Roads | Brett Laidlaw — Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth | — |
| 1987 |
James McKean — Headlong | Gabrielle Burton — Heartbreak Hotel | — |
| 1986 |
Andrew Hudgins — Saints and Sinners | Pamela Painter — Getting to Know the Weather | — |
| 1985 |
Lynn Emanuel — Hotel Fiesta | Louise Erdrich — Love Medicine | — |
| 1984 |
Ralph Burns — Us | Charles Dickinson — Waltz in Marathon | — |
| 1983 |
Maria Flook — Reckless Wedding | Michael Joyce — The War Outside Ireland | — |
| 1982 |
Jared Carter — Work, for the Night is Coming | Annabel Thomas — The Phototropic Woman | — |
| 1981 |
Jorie Graham — Hybrids of Plants and Ghosts | Mary Hedin — Fly Away Home | — |
| 1980 |
Robert Bohm — In the Americas | Eve Shelnutt — The Love Child | — |
| 1979 |
Leslie Ullman — Natural Histories | Caroline Richards — Sweet Country | — |
| 1978 |
Eugene Ruggles — The Lifeguard in the Snow | Jonathan Penner — Going Blind | — |
| 1977 |
David St. John — Hush | Richard Ford — A Piece of My Heart | — |
| 1976 |
Betty Adcock — Walking Out | Rosellen Brown — The Autobiography of My Mother | — |
| 1975 |
Elisauitta Ritchie — Tightening the Circle Over Eel Country | Hilma Wolitzer — Ending | — |
| 1974 |
— | Margaret Craven — I Heard an Owl Call My Name
Alice Munro — Dance of the Happy Shades | — |
| 1973 |
Daniel Halpern — Traveling on Credit | Inge Trachtenberg — So Slow the Dawning
Clark Blaise — A North American Education | — |
| 1972 |
Colette Inez — The Woman Who Loved Worms | Theodore Weesner — The Car Thief | — |
| 1971 |
David Henderson — De Mayor of Harlem | James Park Sloan — War Games | — |
| 1970 |
— | Elizabeth Cullinan — House of Gold | — |
