MWB Prize - we're open to submissions!

Hollins University is now open to submissions to the Margaret Wise Brown Prize 2024!!! Publishers of picture books released in 2023 are invited to have their works considered for the 2024 Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2024.

Presented annually, the Margaret Wise Brown Prize recognizes the author of the best text for a picture book published during the previous year. The award is a tribute to one of Hollins University’s best-known alumnae and one of America’s most beloved children’s authors. Winners are given a $1,000 cash prize, which comes from an endowed fund created by James Rockefeller, Brown’s fiancé at the time of her death. Each recipient will also receive an engraved bronze medal as well as an invitation to accept the award and present a reading on campus during the summer session of Hollins’ graduate programs in children’s literature.

Judges for the 2024 prize are:
Chana Stiefel – winner of the 2023 Margaret Wise Brown Prize for The Tower of Life
Shana Keller Selway – author of historical, nonfiction, and global books
Derick Wilder – winner of 2022 Margaret Wise Brown Prize Honor Book for The Longest Letsgoboy

The publisher should submit four copies of each book they wish to nominate for the Margaret Wise Brown Prize: one copy to Hollins University and one copy to each of the three judges. Books must have been first published in 2023; reprints and translations are not eligible. The winner will be announced in May 2024.

Please contact Elizabeth Dulemba (me!), director of Hollins’ graduate programs in children’s literature and illustration, at dulembaeo@hollins.edu for the judges’ addresses and further submission instructions.

The study of children’s literature as a scholarly experience was initiated at Hollins in 1973; in 1992, the graduate program in children’s literature was founded. Today, Hollins offers summer M.A. and M.F.A. programs exclusively in the study and writing of children’s literature, an M.F.A. in children’s book writing and illustrating, and a graduate-level certificate in children’s book illustration.

Visit the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature webpage for more information about the award.

Submission requests are already pouring in, so I predict it will be a very strong judging season! I can't wait to see them all!