North Carolina’s strong literary tradition is celebrated by the 2025 North Carolina Book Awards, which will be presented Dec. 5 during the annual meeting of the N.C. Literary and Historical Association at 109 E. Jones St., Raleigh, NC, in the ground floor auditorium. The awards ceremony begins at 1 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The annual awards recognize significant works by North Carolina writers.
Kathleen DuVal, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America” (UNC Press, 2024), will give the W. Keats and Elizabeth Sparrow Keynote Address at the ceremony.
Since its founding in September 1900, the N.C. Literary and Historical Association has pledged to stimulate the production of literature and to collect and preserve historical material in North Carolina.
The 2025 North Carolina Book Award winners are:
Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction: Katherine Scott Crawford for "The Miniaturist’s Assistant." Crawford is an award-winning novelist whose historical fiction is steeped in a vivid sense of place. An 11th-generation Southerner born and raised in South Carolina, she spent 13 years as a college English professor and later wrote as a columnist for The Greenville News (SC) and the Asheville Citizen-Times (NC), exploring the outdoors, parenting, books, and Southern life. A former backpacking guide and “recovering academic,” Crawford, who previously published "Keowee Valley," believes historical fiction is the best way to time travel. Her stories explore how time is porous and what it means to be fully human—no matter the century. She lives with her family in the North Carolina mountains.
Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction: Rob Christensen for "Southern News, Southern Politics: How a Newspaper Defined a State for a Century." Christensen, former long-time chief political reporter at the Raleigh News & Observer explores the powerful connection between the N&O and North Carolina’s political landscape. Discover the N&O’s role in shaping the state, the Daniels family dynasty, and how the paper helped define the power of the press in Southern politics.
Roanoke Chowan Award for Poetry: Crystal Simone Smith for "Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound." Smith is an award-winning poet, indie publisher, and educator. Smith’s work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, POETRY Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku. A recipient of Duke University’s Humanities Unbounded Fellowship, she writes poetry about the human condition and social change. Smith is the founder and managing editor of Backbone Press and serves on the editorial board of Juxtaposition: The Journal of Haiku Research and Scholarship and The Heron’s Nest.
NC AAUW Young People’s Literature Awards: Carol Baldwin for "Half Truths" in YA literature and Patrice Gopo for "Ripening Time" in Children’s Literature. Baldwin, an SCBWI member for over 25 years, published her first YA historical novel. Gopo, an award-winning writer whose work explores themes of place, belonging, and home, lives with her family in North Carolina.
The North Carolina Literary & Historical Association has long given lifetime achievement awards, acknowledging significant contributions to the historical understanding and the literary life of North Carolina. After a hiatus of four years, the newly renamed George Moses Horton Memorial Award for Significant Contributions to North Carolina Literature will be presented during the awards ceremony.
The 2025 Achievement Award winners are:
Hardee Rives Award for Dramatic Arts: The Montford Park Players, Asheville. Founded by Hazel Robinson in 1973, the Montford Park Players (MPP) is North Carolina’s longest running Shakespeare theater company. Led by John Russell since 2006, MPP is among the three most popular outdoor theaters in North Carolina.
Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award for Significant Contributions to the History of North Carolina: Malinda Maynor Lowery. A member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, Lowery serves as the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University. A documentary filmmaker and historian, Lowery has also taught at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she headed the Southern Oral History Program and directed the Center of the Study of the American South. She is the author of “Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation” (UNC Press, 2010), and “The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle” (UNC Press, 2018).
George Moses Horton Memorial Award for Significant Contributions to North Carolina Literature: Carole Boston Weatherford. A 2010 inductee into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, Weatherford is the author of more than 70 books — historical fiction, poetry, and biography — primarily for young people. She has won many awards for her work, including the North Carolina Award for Literature, four Caldecott Honors, two NAACP Image Awards, the Ragan-Rubin Award for Literary Achievement, and the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry. In 2023, she published “Kin: Rooted in Hope,” illustrated by Jeffery Boston Weatherford.
The Office of Archives and History is within the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and administers the North Carolina Book Awards program.
About The North Carolina Literary and Historical Association
Founded in 1900, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association functions to bring attention to the preeminent historical and literary work being conducted by North Carolinians present and past. Membership is open to the public. In addition to invitations to the annual awards ceremony, special meetings, and other cultural events, members also receive both the North Carolina Historical Review and the North Carolina Literary Review.
About the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
The N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR) manages, promotes, and enhances the things that people love about North Carolina — its diverse arts and culture, rich history, and spectacular natural areas. Through its programs, the department enhances education, stimulates economic development, improves public health, expands accessibility, and strengthens community resiliency.
The department manages over 100 locations across the state, including 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, five science museums, four aquariums, 35 state parks, four recreation areas, dozens of state trails and natural areas, the North Carolina Zoo, the State Library, the State Archives, the N.C. Arts Council, the African American Heritage Commission, the American Indian Heritage Commission, the State Historic Preservation Office, the Office of State Archaeology, the Highway Historical Markers program, the N.C. Land and Water Fund, and the Natural Heritage Program. For more information, please visit www.dncr.nc.gov.