NC Book Award Winners

Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction

David Joy, Those We Thought We Knew, 2024
Marjorie Hudson, Indigo Field, 2023
Valerie Nieman, In the Lonely Backwater, 2022
Jason Mott, Hell of a Book: Or the Altogether Factual, Wholly Bona Fide Story of a Big Dreams, Hard Luck, American-Made Kid, 2021
Katey Schultz, Still Come Home, 2020
Lee Zacharias, Across the Great Lake, 2019
Wiley Cash, The Last Ballad, 2018
Danny Johnson, The Last Road Home, 2017
Terry Roberts, That Bright Land, 2016
Pam Durban, Soon, 2015
Lee Smith, Guests on Earth, 2014
Terry Roberts, A Short Time to Stay Here, 2013
Charles Frazier, Nightwoods, 2012
Anna Jean Mayhew, The Dry Grass of August, 2011
Susan Kelly, By Accident, 2010
Ron Rash, Serena, 2009
Daniel Wallace, Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician, 2008
Doug Marlette, Magic Time, 2007
Ron Rash, The World Made Straight, 2006
Lawrence Naumoff, A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow, 2005
Margaret Maron, Last Lessons of Summer, 2004
Pamela Duncan, Plant Life, 2003
Allan Gurganus, The Practical Heart, 2002
Leah Stewart, Body of a Girl, 2001
Judy Goldman, The Slow Way Back, 2000
Charles F. Price, Freedom’s Altar, 1999
Clyde Edgerton, Where Trouble Sleeps, 1998
Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, 1997
G. Dan Gearino, What the Deaf-Mute Heard, 1996
Tim McLaurin, Cured by Fire, 1995
Michael Parker, The Geographical Cure: Novella and Stories, 1994
John Russell, Favorite Sons, 1993
Angela Davis-Gardner, Forms of Shelter, 1992
Kaye Gibbons, A Cure for Dreams, 1991
Peter Truchi, Magician, 1991
Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, 1990
Lee Smith, Fair and Tender Ladies, 1989
Lawrence Rudner, The Magic We Do Here, 1988
Marianne Gingher, Bobby Rex’s Greatest Hit, 1987
Reynolds Price, Kate Vaiden, 1986
John Ehle, Last One Home, 1985
Reynolds Price, Private Contentment, 1984
Lee Smith, Oral History, 1983
Lee Zacharias, Lessons, 1982
Reynolds Price, The Source of Light, 1981
Guy Owen, The Film-Flam Man and Other Stories, 1980
Daphne Athas, Cora, 1979
Mary Sheppard, All Angels Cry, 1978
Sylvia Wilkinson, Shadow of the Mountain, 1977
Reynolds Price, The Surface of Earth, 1976
John Ehle, The Changing of the Guard, 1975
Doris Betts, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Other Stories, 1974
Fred Chappell, The Gaudy Place, 1973
Daphne Athas, Entering Ephesus, 1972
John Ehle, Time of Drums, 1971
Guy Owen, Journey for Joedel, 1970
Bynum Shaw, The Nazi Hunter, 1969
Sylvia Wilkinson, A Killing Frost, 1968
John Ehle, The Road, 1967
Heather Ross Miller, Tenants of the House, 1966
Doris Betts, The Scarlet Thread, 1965
John Ehle, The Land Breakers, 1964
Richard McKenna, The Sand Pebbles, 1963
Reynolds Price, A Long and Happy Life, 1962
Frank Borden Hanes, The Fleet Rabble, 1961
Ovid Williams Pierce, On a Lonesome Porch, 1960
Ernest Frankel, Band of Brothers, 1959
Betty Smith, Maggie-Now, 1958
Doris Betts, Tall Houses in Winter, 1957
Frances Gray Patton, A Piece of Luck, 1956
Frances Gray Patton, Good Morning, Miss Dove, 1955
Ovid Williams Pierce, The Plantation, 1954
Frances Gray Patton, The Finer Things of Life, 1953
Paul Green, [For outstanding literary achievement], 1953
Inglis Fletcher, [For outstanding literary achievement], 1953

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Ragan Old North State Award
for Nonfiction

Elizabeth S.D. Englehardt, Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America, 2024
Willis P. Whichard, Consequential Life: David Lowery Swain. Nineteenth-Century North Carolina and Their University, 2023
Warren Milteer, Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South, 2022
Gregory S. Taylor, Central Prison: A History of North Carolina’s State Penitentiary, 2021
William A. Darity and A. Kristen Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, 2020 
Rob Christensen, The Rise and Fall of the Branchhead Boys, 2019 
Jerry Gershenhorn, Louis Austin and the Carolina Times, 2018 
Leonard Rogoff, 2017 
Karin Zipf, Bad Girls at Samarcand: Sexuality and Sterilization in a Southern Juvenile Reformatory, 2016 
Julian M. Pleasants, 2015 
Sarah Thuesen, Greater Than Equal, 2014 
David S. Cecelski, 2013 
Jeff Broadwater, James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of the Nation, 2012 
Rye Barcott, It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace, 2011 
Patricia Phillips Marshall and Jo Ramsay Leimenstoll, Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color, 2010 
Anna R. Hayes, Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp, 2009 
Rob Christensen, The Paradox of Tar Hell Politics, 2008 
William S. Powell, editor, Encyclopedia of North Carolina, 2007 
Clyde Edgerton, Solo: My Adventures in the Air, 2006 
Thomas Rain Crowe, Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods, 2005 
Howard E Covington, Jr., Favored by Fortune: George W. Watts & the Hills of Durham, 2004 
Timothy Silver, Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America, 2003 

Read about the transition to Ragan Award from Mayflower Cup here.

Mayflower Cup (now Ragan Award)

David S. Cecelski, The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina, 2002 
Michael Kent Curtis, Free Speech, “The People’s Darling Privilege”: Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History, 2001 
John David Smith, Black Judas: William Hannibal Thomas and the American Negro, 2000 
Margaret Supplee Smith and Emily Herring Wilson, North Carolina Women: Making History, 1999 
Bill Bamberger and Cathy Davidson, Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory, 1998 
Catherine W. Bishir and Michael Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina, 1997 
James L. Leloudis, Schooling in the New South: Pedagogy, South and Society in North Carolina 1880-1920, 1996 
William A. Link, William Friday: Power, Purpose, and American Higher Education, 1995 
Joel Williamson, William Faulkner, 1994 
William A. Link, The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930, 1993 
Tim McLaurin, Keeper of the Moon: A Southern Boyhood, 1992 
Catherine W. Bishir, North Carolina Architecture, 1991 
David Reed Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations in Southern Culture, 1940 to Present, 1990 
William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries, 1989 
William C. Harris, William Woods Holden: Firebrand of North Carolina Politics, 1988 
Charles G. Zug, III, Turners & Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina, 1987 
Paul D. Escott, Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900, 1986 
Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race, 1985 
Vermont Royster, My Own, My Country’s Time, 1984 
David Reed Goldfield, Cottonfields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980, 1983 
Joseph M. Flora, Hemingway’s Nick Adams, 1982 
Townsend Ludington, John Dos Passos: A Twentieth Century Odyssey, 1981 
William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1980 
Paul D. Escott, Slavery Remembers: A Record of Twentieth-Century Narratives, 1979 
Louis D. Rubin, Jr., The Way Fugitives: Four Poets and the South, 1978 
Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America, 1977 
Eleanor Smith Godfrey, The Development of English Glassmaking, 1560-1640, 1976 
C. Hugh Holman, The Loneliness at the Core: Studies in Thomas Wolfe, 1975 
Helen Bevington, Beautiful Lofty People, 1974 
Lionel Stevenson, The Pre-Raphaelite Poets, 1973 
John Bivins, Jr., The Moravian Potters of North Carolina, 1972 
Jonathan Daniels, Ordeal of Ambition: Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr, 1971 
J. Brewer, The Confederate Negro: Virgina’s Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 196101865, 1970 
John R. Alden, A History of the American Revolution, 1969 
George B. Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945, 1968 
Joel Colton, Leon Blum: Humanist in Politics, 1967 
Glenn Tucker, Zeb Vance: Champion of Personal Freedom, 1966 
John Ehle, The Free Men, 1965 
Glenn Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the United States Navy, 1964 
Ehel Stephens Arnette, William Swain, Fighting Editor, 1963 
William P. Sharpe, [For outstanding literary achievement over a period of years], 1962 
LeGette Blythe, Thomas Wolfe and His Family, 1961 
Richard Bardolph, The Negro Vanguard, 1960 
Burke Davis, To Appomattox: Nine April Day, 1865, 1959 
Ben Dixon MacNeill, The Hatterasman, 1958 
Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century, 1957 
Glenn Tucker, Tecumseh: Vision of Glory, 1956 
Jay B. Hubbell, The South in American Literature, 1607-1900, 1955 
Hugh T. Leflet and Albert Ray Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 1954 
Martin T. Martin Sloop and LeGette Blythe, Miracle in the Hills, 1953 
John McKnight, The Papacy: A New Appraisal, 1952
Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence, 1951 
Max Steele, Debby, 1950 
Phillips Russel, The Woman Who Range the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 1949 
Charles S. Sydnor, The Development of Southern Sectionalism, 1819-1848, 1948 
Robert E. Coker, The Great and Wide Sea, 1947 
Josephina Niggli, Mexican Village, 1946 
Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace, 1910-1917, 1945 
Adelaide L. Fries, The Road to Salem, 1944 
J. Saunders Redding, No Day of Triumph, 1943 
Elbert Russell, The History of Quakerism, 1942 
Wilbur J. Cash, The Mind of the South, 1941 
David L. Cohn, The Good Old Days, 1940 
Bernice Kelly Harris, Purslane, 1939 
Jonathan Daniels, A Southern Discovers the South, 1938 
Richard H. Shyrock, The Development of Modern Medicine, 1937 
Mitchell B. Garrett, The Estates General of 1789, 1936 
James Boyd, Roll River, 1935 
Erich W. Zimmerman, World Resources and Industries, 1934 
Rupert B. Vance, Human Geography of the South, 1933 
Archibald Henderson, Bernard Shaw: Playboy and Prophet, 1932 
M. C. S. Noble, History of the Public Schools in North Carolina, 1931

Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry

Carole Boston Weatherford, Kin: Rooted in Hope, 2024
Michael McFee, A Long Time to Be Gone, 2023 
Joseph Bathanti, Light at the Seam, 2022 
Anthony S. Abbott, Dark Side of North, 2021 
Dannye Powell, In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver, 2020 
Kathryn Kirkpatrick, The Fisher Queen: New & Collected Poems, 2019 
Heather Ross Miller, Women Disturbing the Peace, 2018 
Patricia Hooper, Separate Flights, 2017 
Shelby Stephenson, Elegies for Small Game, 2016 
Joseph Mills, This Miraculous Turning, 2015 
Joseph Bathanti, Conertina, 2014 
Kathryn Stripling Byer, Descent, 2013 
Alan Michael Parker, Long Division, 2012 
Dorianne Laux, The Book of Men, 2011 
Joseph Bathanti, Restoring Sacred Art, 2010 
Pat Riviere-Seel, The Serial Killer’s Daughter, 2009 
Michael Chitwood, Spill, 2008 
Catherine Carter, The Memory of Gills, 2007 
James Applewhite, Selected Poems, 2006 
Alan Shapiro, Tantalus in Love, 2005 
Kaythryn Kirkpatrick, Beyond Reason, 2004 
Michael Chitwood, Gospel Road Going, 2003 
Alan Shapiro, Song and Dance, 2002 
Fred Chappell, Family Gathering, 2001 
Michael McFee, Earthly, 2001 
Margaret Rabb, Granite Dives, 2000 
Stephen Knauth, The River I Know You By, 1999 
Kathryn Stripling Byer, Black Shawl, 1998 
James L. Seay, Open Field, Understory: New and Selected Poems, 1997 
Fred Chappell, Spring Garden: New and Selected Poems, 1996 
Robert Watson, The Pendulum, 1995 
Judy Goldman, Wanting to Know the End, 1994 
James Applewhite, A History of the River, 1993 
Julie Suk, The Angel of Obsession, 1992 
Charles Edward Eaton, A Guest on Mild Evenings, 1991 
Sam Ragan, Collected Poems of Sam Ragan, 1990 
Fred Chappell, First and Last Words, 1989 
Lochlin Walker, Musings While Adrift, 1988 
Charles Edward Eaton, New and Selected Poems,1942-1987, 1987 
James Applewhite, Ode to the Chinaberry Tree and Other Poems, 1986 
Fred Chappell, Castle Tzingal, 1985 
Betty Adcock, Nettles, 1984 
Reynolds Price, Vital Provisions, 1983 
Thomas Heffernan, The Liam Poems, 1982 
James Applewhite, Following Gravity, 1981 
Fred Chappell, Wind Mountain, A Poem, 1980 
Fred Chappell, Bloodfire: A Poem, 1979 
Mary Louise Medley, Seasons and Days, 1978 
Norman W. MacLeod, The Distance, 1977 
Fred Chappell, River: A Poem, 1976 
Marian Cannon, Another Light, 1975 
Campbell Reeves, Coming Out Even, 1974 
Ronald H. Bayes, The Casketmaker, 1973 
Fred Chappell, The World Between the Eyes, 1972 
Paul Baker Newman, The Ladder of Love, 1971 
Charles Edward Eaton, On the Edge of the Knife, 1970 
Guy Owen, The White Stallion and Other Poems, 1969 
Paul Baker Newman, The Cheetah and the Fountain, 1968 
Walter Blackstock, Leaves Before the Wind, 1967 
Thad Stem, Jr., Sour Line, 1966 
Randall Jarrell, The Lost World, 1965 
E. S. Gregg, Reap Silence, 1964 
Herman Salinger, A Sigh is the Sword, 1963 
Helen Bevington, When Found, Make a Verse Of, 1962 
Carl Sandburg, Wind Song, 1961 
Carl Sandburg, [For his work], 1960 
Olive Tilford Dargan, The Spotted Hawk, 1959 
Paul Bartlett, Moods and Memories, 1958 
Dorothy Edwards Summerrow, Ten Angels Swearing, 1957 
Helen Bevington, A Change of Sky, 1956 
Thad Stem Jr., The Jackknife Horse, 1954 
Frank Borden Hanes, Abel Anders, 1953 

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UUAW of North Carolina Young People’s Literature Award

Alicia Williams, Mid-Air, 2024
Micki Bare, Blind Fairy, 2023
Micki Bare, Society of the Sentinelia, 2022
Halli Gomez, List of Ten, 2021
Meg Cannistra, The Trouble with Shooting Stars, 2020
Kelly Starling Lyons and Daniel Minter, Going Down Home with Daddy, 2019
Carole Boston Weatherford, 2018
Ali Standish, The Ethan I Was Before, 2017
Sheila Turnage, The Odds of Getting Even, 2016
Frances O’Roark Dowell, Anybody Shining, 2015
Joan Holub, Little Red Writing, 2014
Kelly Starling Lyons, Tea Cakes for Tosh, 2013
John Claude Bemis, The White City, 2012
Gloria Houston, Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile, 2011
John Claude Bemis, The Nine Pound American Hammer, 2010
Clay Carmichael, Wild Things, 2009
Cathryn Sill, About Habitats: Wetlands, 2008
Eleanora E. Tate, Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance, 2007
Joyce Moyer Hostetter, Blue, 2006
Carole Boston Weatherford, Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins, 2005
Blonnie Bunn Wyche, The Anchor: P. Moore Propietor, 2004
Michelle Groce, Jasper, 2003
Carole Boston Weatherford, Remember the Bridge, 2002
Reynolds Price, A Perfect Friend, 2001
Lisa Williams Kline, Eleanor Hill, 2000
Gloria Houston, Bright Freedom’s Song: A Story of the Underground Railroad, 1999
Jacqueline K. Ogburn, Jukebox Man, 1998
Gloria Houston, Littlejim’s Dreams: An Appalachian Christmas Story, 1997
William Hooks, Freedom’s Fruit, 1996
Joanne and Kenn Compton, Sody Sallyratus, 1995
Joanne Compton, Ashpet: An Appalachian Tale, 1994
Christina Askounis, The Dream of the Stone, 1993
Bill Brittain, Wings, 1992
Suzanne Newton, Where Are You When I Need You?, 1991
Lila Hopkins, Talking Turkey, 1990
Belinda Hurmence, The Nightwalker, 1989
Lila Hopkins, Eating Crow, 1988
Sue Ellen Bridgers, Permanent Connections, 1987
Nancy Tilly, Golden Girl, 1986
Catherine Petroski, The Summer That Lasted Forever, 1985
Belinda Hurmence, Tancy, 1984
Glen Rounds, Wild Appaloosa, 1983
Suzanne Newton, M. V. Sexton Speaking, 1982
Caroline B. Cooney, Safe As the Grave, 1980
Suzanne Newton, Reubella and the Old Focus Home,1979
Suzanne Newton, What Are You Up To, William Thomas?, 1978
Ruth White Miller, The City Rose, 1977
Glen Rounds, Mr. Yowder and the Lion Roar Capsules, 1976
Alexander Key, The Magic Meadow, 1975
Suzanne Newton, C/O Arnold’s Corners, 1974
Barbara M. Parramore, The People of North Carolina, 1973
Suzanne Newton, Purro and the Prattleberries, 1971
Mebane Holoman Burgwyn, The Crackajack Pony, 1970
Mary Lina Bledsoe Gillet, Bugles at the Border, 1969
Neal F. Austin, A Biography of Thomas Wolfe, 1968
Glen Rounds, The Snake Tree, 1967
Richard Walser and Julia Montgomery Street, North Carolina Parade: Stories of History and People, 1966
Alexander Key, The Forgotten Door, 1965
Randall Jarrell, The Bat-Poet, 1964
Julia Montgomery Street, Dulcie’s Whale, 1963
Manly Wade Wellman, Rifles at Ramsour’s Mill, 1962
Glen Rounds, Beaver Business, 1961
Jonathan Daniels, Stonewall Jackson, 1960
Thelma Harrington Bell, Captain Ghost, 1959
Ina B. Forbus, The Secret Circle, 1958
Nell Wise Wechter, Taffy of Torpedo Junction, 1957
Julia Montgomery Street, Fiddler’s Fancy, 1956
Ruth and Latrobe Carroll, Digby, the Only Dog, 1955
Mebane Holoman Burgwyn, Penny Rose, 1954
Ruth and Latrobe Carroll, Peanut, 1953 

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Patterson Cup

Josephus Daniels, Our Navy at War, 1922 
Winifred Kirkland, The New Death, 1920 
Olive Tilford Dargan, The Cycle’s Rim, 1917 
Wiliam Louis Poteat, The New Peace, 1915 
J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, 1914 
Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders, 1913 
Clarence Poe, Where Half the World is Waking Up, 1912 
Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century, 1911 
R. D. W. Connor, Cornelius Harnett: An Essay in North Carolina History, 1910 
Clarence Poe, A Southerner in Europe, 1909 
Samuel A’Court Ashe, History of North Carolina, 1908 
Kempt Plummer Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, 1907 
Edwin Mims, Life of Sidney Lanier, 1906 
John Charles McNeil, [For poems later reprinted in Songs: Merry and Sad], 1905 

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